EFFECTIVENESS OF A COOPERATIVE BLENDED LEARNING MODEL FOR APPLIED MATHEMATICS

The paper presents the results of innovation projects carried out by the author during the academic year 2011-2012, focused in using cooperative blended techniques (see [1], [2]) during the teaching and learning processes. The projects have been applied in the first level subject “Mathematical fundamentals for Architecture I” of the Architecture Degree offered by the University of Seville and have been focused on using active individual learning methodologies and on promoting different manifestations of team working, emphasizing both individual responsibility and group interaction.

The projects have been initially designed in order to affront:
- a new approach of scheduling the attending classes, started in the framework of the Architecture Degree, which consists of gathering in only one session all the weekly attending classes of a module. Eventually useful for specific subjects, this approach resulted awkward for those composing the “Basic Sciences” module.
- the assumption (based on previous experiences and confirmed afterwards by initial knowledge tests) referring students lack of solid previous background in mathematical calculus techniques, absolutely necessary to achieve the subject’s objectives.

Our approach pretends to put students into activities that will motivate and force them to use computer-based tools (the virtual platform WebCT and the scientific computing software Maple) and to constructively interact with other students or groups, during both attending and not attending classes.

Most of the students decided to participate in the projects, considered to be very useful and being positively evaluated by the participants. At the moment, the obtained results are being numerically compared with other groups’ (not involving cooperative blending techniques) results.

One of the main topics of further work consists of adapting the approach to other fields, as Applied Mathematics for Engineering subjects, adding also computer-based techniques as virtual tutorials and e-boards.