This paper is from Session 9J: Use of new technology for promoting classroom engagement
which comes under Topic 9: Technology and multimedia in statistics education
Paper 9J2 (Thursday 12th, 14:00-15:30)
Increasing Engagement in a Probability Course through Novel Technically-enhanced Communication
Presenter
- Sohee Kang (University of Toronto Scarborough, Canada)
Co-authors
- Bruce Cater (Trent University, Canada)
- Marco Pollanen (Trent University, Canada)
- Sotirios Damouras (University of Toronto Scarborough, Canada)
Abstract
Many studies have shown that students-teacher interactions lead to improvements in key academic measures. One opportunity for increasing engagement is by making better use of technologies. In mathematics and statistics, however, this presents unique challenges. Mainly, mathematical symbols have no commonly accepted textual equivalent, and two dimensional mathematical notation requires spatial relationships between symbols that are difficult to communicate using simple text alone. Recently, a prototype interface for mathematical collaboration (MC2: Mathematics Classroom Collaboration) has been developed for smartphones (Pollanen et al., 2017). We will share the research outcomes after implementing MC2 in classroom. We are particularly interested in whether the use of MC2 increases engagement, narrows the gender and language gap in engagement, and finally improves the attitudes and perceptions in the introductory probability.