engleski

The role of concept-based teaching in smooth transition to university mathematics

Teaching methods in primary and secondary mathematical education traditionally focus on procedural and computational knowledge. Consequently, in the mathematical courses at university level, the students stay focused on developing their computational skills and thus overlook the importance of conceptual thinking. One of basic engineering skills is being able to easily apply mathematical concepts in different contexts. We recognized the need to improve this skill by applying the concept-based approach to teaching mathematics. Our talk also considers other problems appearing in students’ transition to university-level mathematics: pre-knowledge issues ranging from misconceptions to deficient computational skills which originate in the lack of conceptual understanding, their resistance to learning mathematical theory, weak critical thinking and problem-solving ability. Furthermore, we will give some examples on overcoming these issues in the students’ transition which have been applied to mathematical courses at the first year at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing in Zagreb. Primarily, we will present some different methods of employing concept-based approach through learning outcomes, materials, teaching and learning methods and feedback.

concept-based teaching ; transition ; university mathematics

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