FALEDIA

The collaborative project FALEDIA is concerned with the (further) development, testing, and study of a prototypical digital concept for the training and further education of mathematics teachers in elementary schools. In this context, FALEDIA addresses the challenge faced by educational policy of increasing heterogeneity among school students. This is achieved by improving teachers’ diagnostic and remedial skills in order, in turn, for students to systematically improve their own skills.

In the framework of this project, researchers are developing a digital, case-based learning platform for the enhancement of diagnostic skills. This learning platform brings together essential knowledge of different mathematics topics in three areas: background knowledge, diagnostic skills, and remedial skills. Care is taken to make this knowledge transfer particularly appealing to the target group through the combination of informative and interactive elements. At the present time, four different interactive elements in a number of variants are in use, and knowledge transfer is additionally taking place by means of text, video and sound. As an example, Figure 1 shows an interactive element aimed at strengthening diagnostic skills. Together, all the partners have adopted an agile and thus iterative approach to jointly develop the content and the interactive elements. Firstly, the needs of the target group were discussed. This was done on the basis of years of teaching experience in the area of mathematics education. The outcome of this process was the first version of the learning platform, which is currently being used and evaluated by over 200 students in the framework of a mathematics education lecture. Figure 2 shows part of the learning platform.

Among the research questions explored by the project is the usage behavior displayed by students towards the FALEDIA concept. The first version of the platform is currently being tested in practice with over 200 students[HP1] . During these trials, students are asked, on the basis of questionnaires, for a self-assessment regarding knowledge gain, their personal learning style, the usability of the platform and any cognitive stress they experience when using it. In addition and as part of a remote usability study, qualitative monitoring and interviews were conducted with 21 students with regard to their usage behavior. The data and insights into usage behavior gathered in this way are fed back into the design process for the content and interactive elements in order to match the next version of the platform even better to the target group. Further studies are planned on the basis of the second version, which will include the use of eye tracking, among others. In addition, the concept is being transferred to the University of Münster (WWU). Further evaluation by students will verify whether the concept can also be transferred to other universities. A particularly important aspect for the success of the research project is the composition of the consortium and the interaction between the various partners: The main task of TU Dortmund University is the development of the concept and monitoring of the project from the perspective of mathematics education. Here, the University of Münster is supporting TU Dortmund University and also facilitating cross-university transfer. Fachhochschule Dortmund - University of Applied Sciences and Arts is responsible for the design, use, and acceptance of the digital, case-based learning platform.

“We bring together competences in didactic development research in mathematics didactics as well as in the development, testing and evaluation of digital learning platforms in computer science,” says Prof. Selter. Andrea Kienle adds: “By integrating methods from different disciplines, we expect to be able to gain completely new insights in the field of learning platforms to promote the diagnostic competences of primary school teachers.”