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Social and Behavioral Sciences
Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 103 (2013) 51 - 54
13th International Educational Technology Conference
A new dimension to teaching mathematics using iPads
Diana Audi *a, Rim Gouia-Zarrad a
_a Department of Mathematics, American University of Sharjah, P.O.Box 26666, Sharjah, UAE, Email:{daudi,rgouia}@Aus.edu_
Abstract
Tablet PCs in its different forms such as Apple's iPad and Samsung's Galaxy which usually have a touchscreen or pen-enabled interface will with no doubt have a substantial effect on the future of education. They signal the opportunity for a transformation in how technology is used in schools, colleges and universities. The objective of the study is to identify the implication of using iPads in teaching introductory math courses and leverage their popularity toward an improved learning experience. The study was implemented in a first year Mathematics course at the American University of Sharjah (AUS). The main effectiveness of the approach was tested through a pilot class followed by a survey of undergraduate students taught by using the iPad in a completely paperless environment. The results from the pilot study are crucial for the implementation of a proposed study to be conducted during the 2013-2014 academic year. While the study explored the use of iPads in teaching mathematics at AUS, the lessons learned are relevant to any institution considering the use of similar technologies in the teaching of mathematics in the Middle East.
© 2013TheAuthors.Publishedby Elsevier Ltd.
Selectionandpeer-reviewunderresponsibilityofTheAssociationofScience,Educationand Technology-TASET,Sakarya Universitesi, Turkey.
Keywords: Mathematics education, iPads, interactive tablets, technology for teaching.
1. Introduction
Studies have long shown that teaching mathematics is becoming more and more difficult. The challenge is to catch student's attention and interest in the subject. Obviously, there is a crucial need to incorporate new tools into the classroom to preserve the relevance of the educational institution (Pai, et al, 2012, Jelemenska, et al, 2011). Recently, there has been a growing interest in the use of tablets and more specifically iPads as a tool of
Corresponding author. E-mail address: daudi@aus.edu
1877-0428 © 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of The Association of Science, Education and Technology-TASET, Sakarya
Universitesi, Turkey.
doi: 10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.10.306
promoting learning and teaching of mathematics. In fact, iPad creates an environment that facilitates students' learning processes (Banister, 2010, Enriquez, 2010). It also provides an interactive classroom with real-time feedback.
As the use of iPads in the classroom grows, there is a growing need to understand its impact on students' performance. Therefore, to date, the potential of iPads-based classroom is still vague and is being explored by many institutions. A number of recent reports have indicated that the use of iPads in the classroom is more effective than the traditional format of instructor-centered lecture and has a positive effect on the development of students' mathematical capacities. In this paper, the authors describe a pilot study conducted at the American University of Sharjah on undergraduate engineering students attending an introductory math course. Then we propose to address the questions:
• Can iPads facilitate and enhance students' learning of mathematics?
• How can the iPad open room for engagement and creativity?
2. Literature review
While the use of iPads in teaching is relatively new, many colleges and universities have been trialing its efficacy in the classroom. For example at Abilene Christian University (ACU) in Texas USA, iPads were used to deliver several courses. In fall 2010, Dr. Ian Shepherd and Dr. Brent Reeves designed Econ 261 class incorporating a digital textbook from McGraw-Hill. They studied the ACU's first all-digital class (Nilsson, et al, 2010). The program showed that iPads increase students' engagement and had a positive impact in academic environment. In Oklahoma State University, an iPad pilot program was conducted in five sections of two courses across two colleges to study how iPads affect student learning (Oklahoma, 2012). The collected data are uniformly positive and indicate that the iPad pilot was a very successful experience to a point that the university is considering the development of iPads for all students. Also in 2011 Kanda University of International Studies in Chiba, Japan conducted a case study investigated the integration of iPads into an existing English language curriculum. The findings indicate that the iPads are appropriate mainly in collaborative situations. Nonetheless, the institution's technological infrastructure, particularly the Wi-Fi network is a key factor for the iPads' effectiveness. Not only in the western countries, but also in the UAE, some universities are integrating these new technologies such as Zayed University, UAE University and Higher Colleges of Technology (HCT).
Although tablets are increasingly popular in education, there are still obstacles and barriers that may limit the use of them in the educational landscape and more specifically in teaching undergraduate mathematics. In fact, many colleges and universities adopted the iPads as an educational tool and as a standardized mobile device to integrate into curriculums without certitude that these tools are helping students in their learning process. Can we claim that iPads can make significant changes in the teaching of mathematics at AUS? Does this new e-tool provide opportunities to improve the engagement and motivation of students in math classes in the Middle East? To the best of our knowledge, there are no studies investigating the effect of iPads in teaching mathematics in Middle East. With this in mind, there is an emerging need to study the effectiveness of the iPads approach on teaching mathematics to undergraduate students in the region.
3. Case study
At the American University of Sharjah (AUS), during the fall semester of 2012, a research study was conducted to analyze the benefits of using iPads in teaching introductory mathematics course for engineering students. The teaching environment was completely paperless. The instructor had to ensure that a set of applications were installed on students' iPads prior to the starting of the class. These applications would aid in delivering the course
content, conducting in class quizzes, referring to book materials and real time communication with students. The following apple applications were used:
• Nearpod: enables teachers to use their iPads to manage content on students' iPads synchronously. It combines presentation, collaboration, and real-time assessment tools into one integrated solution. Students receive content and submit their responses on the Nearpod application; the teacher monitors the classroom activities, and receives the result of each student.
• AirSketch: allows PDF documents or images to be annotated live and projected to the entire class. It can be used as an interactive whiteboard.
• Blackboard: allows the instructor to upload documents in any format, post announcements, upload media, course roaster, and possibly students' grades. The students can save these files on their iPads, and view them even if there is no internet.
• An iPad Application: allows the students full access to the E-text version of the book for bookmarking and other related notes.
• QuickOffice: allows the students to edit any word file, excel sheet, or power point presentations. These files were provided remotely by the instructor through Blackboard.
• Dropbox: allows the student to put all their files, documents, photos in multiple remote computers simultaneously after class hours for home editing.
In a class of 17 students, where the classroom has a wireless network, the instructor delivered the course content using iPads only. The material taught was about trigonometry: trigonometric identities and solving trigonometric equations. Students simply logged in the Nearpod session using their usernames and pins. This pin was provided by the instructor and once all students are logged in, the instructor has complete visibility of all the students participating in the class delivery. An implicit advantage of using iPads was a fast way to take attendance and monitor students' active participation in the class discussions when needed. The instructor prepared the power point presentation before class which was saved in a PDF form and then uploaded on Nearpod. During the class delivery, the instructor inserted some slides to represent some quiz questions to monitor student progress and learning outcomes. The students were given 5 minutes to answer every quiz question during the class delivery. The quiz questions were designed perfectly to match the learning outcome of every subpart of the lecture. At the end of the lecture, the instructor saved the responseware data, and added it on the excel file for student performance monitoring. Although this was not utilized during the research experiment, one more advantage of this class delivery was that absent students can still join the class even if they were absent. All what they needed was a wireless connection on their iPads allowing them to see the class lecture notes and also take the quizzes that the instructor conducted in class. The instructor also used Air Sketch as a white board to do further calculations and explanations away from the PowerPoint lecture notes.
4. Preliminary results
In this study, we wanted to test whether using iPads would lead to better understanding of the class content and more interaction between the instructor and the students. A survey was conducted to all the students in the classroom. The study included a number of questions highlighting the students' feedback from the iPad experience.
One of the main advantages of the iPad classroom is the fact that the whole course delivery was not predetermined as the instructor adapts the lecture to the progress and the needs of to the students. Thus the lecture became dynamic and changed in real time. The quick feedback from the students using Nearpod was one of the major advantages of using iPads and boosted the content delivery. Overall most of the students found the iPad class engaging and agreed that the iPad class presents the class content in a better way.
5. Conclusion
The preliminary results presented in this paper, demonstrate that integrating tablet PCs specifically iPads in teaching introductory math courses for engineering students has a positive impact on average students. In fact, the use of the iPads, increases the interaction between the instructor and the students rending the class more dynamic and tailored in real time to the students' needs. In addition, it has been demonstrated that students are more engaged in the iPad class and keep concentrating till the end of the class. This initial result will be followed by a more in depth evaluation of the use of the interactive tablets conducted over a course length to confirm that this positive result will not fade once the initial excitement dissipates.
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