Methodology and Educational Software for Investigating and Remediating Errors in Mathematics

Abstract

Maths learning has intrigued researchers and educator for a long time, especially in what relates to buggy concepts. Despite the advances in digital technologies aimed at treating learning errors, few concrete results have been accomplished. More recently, official Brazilian institutions that evaluate school performance concluded that maths learning is insufficient in high school level. Thus, the development of innovating methods and software tools for pedagogic support that help both teaches and students in revisiting errors is a relevant research perspective. The paper presents a new method and a web-based, authoring-learning tool (FARMA) that focuses on the ideas of learner-error context backtracking as well as of tech-educational mobility. The metaphor behind learner-error context backtracking consists of the cognitive approach that guided the design and implementation of FARMA. With it, teachers and students can communicate in and out of the classroom for analyzing and understanding the nature of an error. Experimental results show that there are statistically relevant educational benefits in applying the proposed method in authoring problems statements as well as the solution of such problems through FARMA