Abstract:

The beginning of the European Space of Higher Education involved a change in the common educational practice teachers have been performing for many years, establishing new teaching methods, based on active student participation opposite to the exclusive lectures, and new assessment methods which should be based on the effort done by the student. This piece of work is part of the University of Cádiz roadmap towards European Space of Higher Education.

This paper is a continuation of the previous studies [1,2], which are about the experiment carried out with first year students of the Chemistry Degree of the Faculty of Science (University of Cádiz).

Mathematics contents are important to Chemistry students, due to the capacity for abstraction they provide with – this being a latent fact in every course about fundamental mathematics, and a very desirable goal in the chemist’s training. Note that the experiments in these papers can easily be carried out to every technical graduation.

In both papers the authors use the tools given in Moodle, such as Questionnaires, Lections and Forums to teach mathematics. In [1] the initial mathematical level of the new students, who did not have good results in a preliminary exam, is increased only using Moodle, without teaching classes. In [2], the authors complement the usual classes and other activities with the use of the tools of Moodle. One important consequence is that the students, which have a good qualification in the exercises proposed in Moodle, pass mathematics.

In this academic year both mechanisms have been taken into account at the same time and this paper analyses the results and several interesting consequences are obtained.

Specifically, a level test was carried out at the beginning of the academic year, dealing with the knowledge the students should have gained over their secondary education, such contents being the minimum required level to confront every Mathematics course included in the Degree successfully, i.e., not demanding a higher investment of time than was scheduled.

Once the results were obtained, students who did not have the required level were asked to submit several questions in a virtual Moodle course in order to make up for such detected deficiencies [3].

Moreover, for all the students, in order to satisfy the objectives of mathematics, several activities in another Moodle course with questionnaires, lections and forums complement the teaching classes and four control exams. The correlation of the e-learning tools with the final results of the students is very satisfactory.

In an extended paper the experiment will be encouraged and enshrined in its context, developed activities will be detailed, and numerical results and conclusions will be presented to evaluate the experience, as well as possible improvement to be made in future projects.

References:
[1] Medina-Moreno, J. (2012). E-learning con MOODLE para alumnos de matemáticas. I Congreso Virtual Internacional sobre Innovación Pedagógica y Praxis Educativa (INNOVAGOGIA 2012), pp. 840-845.
[2] Cornejo-Piñero, M.E., Medina-Moreno, J., Ramírez-Poussa, E. (2011) Las matemáticas de los alumnos de nuevo ingreso. II Congreso Internacional: Uso y buenas prácticas con TIC. Málaga.
[3] MOODLE. URL http://docs.moodle.org/24/en/Main_page

Keywords:

Teaching innovation, Moodle, mathematics e-learning.