The mathematical education of engineers and scientists is often considered as a distinct area of mathematics education. As a response to COVID-19 pandemic, during the summer of 2020, the University of Edinburgh and Loughborough University collaborated to develop interactive online workbooks for the mathematics education of STEM students. Our approach was to use the STACK online assessment system and combine our experience gained with running the fully online course “Fundamentals of Algebra and Calculus” (FAC) with materials from the HELM (Helping Engineers Learn Mathematics) project workbooks. Each interactive workbook is a Moodle quiz with textbook-style written content, worked examples, simple tasks and practice questions. Almost all questions are randomised so each student will have a collection of questions which use different values. After submitting a workbook, students can return to it, either to review the written material or to reattempt the questions.
The School of Mathematics, at the University of Edinburgh, has two pairs of courses specifically designed for first year engineering and chemistry students. Around 500 students attend these courses during each semester. The workbooks are used as an introduction to each week’s material and students can consult the textbook for more advanced topics and further exercises. Students receive immediate feedback on their attempt which promotes students’ engagement and learning through assessment. From the teacher perspective the workbooks can be used as a means of engagement monitoring. Student evaluations rated the HELM workbooks as a valuable and successful resource.
This talk is an update on the HELM into STACK projects. It focuses on specific upgrades that happened over the last year, such as including more interactive elements into questions. Also, I’ll give some insight on how HELM will be used on 2nd year Engineering Mathematics.
Resources
- Slides (.pdf)