International student exchange as part of of AuthOMath
From 4.7. to 7.7. mathematics students from Heidelberg University of Education, Universidad de Cantabria and the University of Edinburgh travelled to Linz, where they met fellow students from the School of Education at Johannes Kepler University.
Mathias Tejera, project member and organiser of the meeting at JKU Linz, created a charming setting for an ambitious programme.
On the first day, which provided students with opportunities to get acquainted, Prof. Dr Pinkernell introduced the AuthOMath project to the students and let them work with sample tasks that illustrated various potentials of combining STACK and GeoGebra.
The afternoon was opened by the UC students Maria Sanz Ruiz and Luis Miguel Soto Sánchez, who reported on results using formative feedback in different mathematical tasks.
This was followed by presentations by Prof. Dr Pinkernell on a structured procedure for creating the tasks, taking didactics into account. At the end of the work – as on each of the following days – there was reflective diary time, during which the students reflected on their learning gains based on impulse questions.
The second day began with a presentation by Prof. Dr. Hans-Georg Weigand, in which the connection between competences, basic ideas and the use of digital media was clarified, and possible research questions in this area were worked out.
This was followed by courses on creating digital tasks with GeoGebra (Guillermo Bautista, JKU), STACK (Dr George Kinnear, UoE) and the integration of the two software (Prof. Dr Pinkernell, PHHD).
Finally, a group work phase began in which the students were to develop their own ideas for a digital task, with students from all universities represented in the individual groups. In addition to promoting the exchange, synergy effects were used in this way, as the students brought expertise in different areas.
On the third day, this group work was continued in the morning. In the afternoon, a visit to the Ars Electronica Center was part of the programme.
Finally, on the fourth day, the students finished their work and presented their digital tasks to the impressed professors, which was also the kick-off for a meeting of the project leaders afterwards.
The students concluded their stay in Linz positively throughout. Patrick, who already had experience with STACK tasks as a staff member of the Mathebrücke at the PH Heidelberg, was able to refresh and deepen these, especially about integrating GeoGebra applets. Mathea mentions the impressive visit to the Ars Electronica Center as a highlight in addition to the group work on the tasks. Nadja sees the work with GeoGebra, particularly, as profitable, as well as for other teaching contexts. Luis from UC, who became aware of the project through Prof. Dr Diego Mantecon, was already familiar with STACK and found the connection with GeoGebra particularly interesting. Leire, also from Cantabria, mentioned the presentation by Prof. Dr Hans-Georg Weigand, among others, as a main feauture of the activity. Maria from the UoE, who became aware of the meeting through project collaborator Konstantina Zerva, praises, above all, the collaboration with students from other countries, where she learned, in particular, the didactic aspect of adaptive feedback.
Everyone mentioned the meetings with “nice people” and the exchange across European cultures, such as daily routines and different computer keyboards, as a profitable experience.