Innovation in Zero courses as a tool for the improvement of mathematics teaching methods quality at engineering degrees

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to create a zero course about basic mathematical knowledge for students of the School of Telecommunications and Electronics Engineering, mainly for those who study the first year of their Degree, with the clear aim of teaching more than knowledge, such as mathematical reasoning skills. For the development of the course, we use Moodle as a basic support, the virtual platform used by the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. It is a fact that the contextual change from the High School to the University, is a methodological and cognitive leap for the students that often forces them to leave their careers. These shortcomings and deficits are related not only to the specific abilities of the degree, but also with basic academic skills and the management and use of essential ICT tools that provide the usual framework in his new teaching and learning process. Therefore, there would be of great relevance the fact of finding an alternative way which may offer the students the opportunity to overcome these shortcomings that are the origin of their demotivation, raising the rates of failure and neglect. If we manage to overcome this gap we will be fighting for increased academic performance. The aim of the zero course is to reach the student success in obtaining the tools, knowledge and skills needed to make it less painful to join the university. Since the first year, the student is fully able to acquire all the skills required to enter into the European Higher Education in order to obtain the degree. Currently, there are several spanish universities which already teach these courses, generally during the first months of the academic year, that have obtained positive results. If we focus on the field of mathematics, it is clear that there is a poor public perception of mathematical education. As teachers, during the first year of engineering, we not only detect a deficiency in factual knowledge, but also a lack of coordination and understanding of content learned in high school. In the same way, a weak management of techniques and a complete lack of understanding of concepts have been also noticed. Our main objective in this paper is to design a zero course for new students at any level of engineering, that is not only based on mathematical complement the students bring from high school, but also focused on trying to make the students know how to interpret results and mathematical reasoning in different contexts, by using only the basic tools they already know. For example, if we say to the student that the integral of a function squared is 0, he must be able to deduce that the function is necessarily zero.