About

This is the home page of joint Finnish-German internet mathematics project which is based on collaborative agreement between Finnish Virtual University (FVU) and Virtuelle Hochschule Bayern (VHB). (The goals of the project are the following:

• Provide high-quality study materials suitable for teaching first year students in university level mathematics. In particular, our goal is to develop materials to bridge the gap between high school and university mathematics.
• Make existing digital study materials developed by the participants more accessible to the international audience.
• Increase use of e-learning in mathematics teacher education and related didactics research.

It is a well-known fact that the most difficult part of mathematics studies is the starting phase. Not only in Finland and in Germany but in other countries too, the starting point for the production of digital study material for mathematics has been to bridge the gap between studying mathematics in school and studying mathematics in college or university. The collaborative project of the Finnish and Bavarian virtual universities on digital study material for mathematics aims to speed up the development of such material and to make the existing material more available for teachers and students.

Activities

The project mainly deals with the following topics:

• Translating existing material into the English language for international use and also translating German materials to Finnish and vice versa.
• Producing small web-based courses about the use of digital material and e-learning techniques in teaching university-level mathematics. These courses are prepared in English and offered to teachers, teacher students and university lecturers in both Finland and Germany.
• Developing an applied calculus which recaps the topics of the high school calculus from a new perspective (especially in applied situations) to prepare students for mathematics lessons at the university.
• Developing an open access electronic library of learning objects suitable for different kinds of on-line courses.
• Producing new study materials relevant to mathematics education, in particular, web based interactive and visual (e.g., animations) materials.

In addition to the activities related to producing the material, the plan is to make a survey of the subject areas in which the materials could be used. This survey will have a specific emphasis on mathematics teaching and the need for changes resulting from the development of information technology. The results will be used for evaluating and further improving the usefulness of the existing material and for drawing up guidelines for the future development.

Contact

• Antti Rasila (coordinator, Finland)
• Hans-Georg Weigand (coordinator, Germany)
• Matti Harjula (technical questions)