Effective use of tablet PCs for engineering mathematics education

Abstract

Recently, there has been a growing interest in the use of tablet PCs (TPCs) as a means for improving engineering education, primarily in technical courses such as basic physics. However, there has been little discussion on how to apply this technology to engineering mathematics courses. The purpose of this paper is to present an approach for teaching mathematics to engineering students with the TPC. The approach was implemented in a second-year differential equations and linear algebra course within the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Toronto. The effectiveness of the approach was tested qualitatively through a survey of 89 students, and quantitatively through a comparison between the three lecture cohorts of the course, since two of the cohorts were taught with a traditional blackboard technique. The survey results were quite positive, yet the more interesting results are found from the grade comparisons. These results indicate that the TPC-based instruction had the greatest impact on the students in the bottom half of the class. In this paper, the approach will be discussed and survey and grade comparison results will be presented.