Online Asynchronous Mathematics Interactions: Similarities and Differences for Teachers and Students

Abstract

The work is framed in the context of online interactions made by teachers in training and freshmen students. Various literary references discuss the students’ difficulties in mathematics in the transition from secondary school to university. Here we experience the need of promoting critical thinking, to let students be able to make reasoned decisions or about what to do and think. So, it becomes necessary to investigate how the use of online resources is useful for this purpose. We have designed particular online resources, the Moodle workshop, whose aim is to develop the mathematical thinking of those who participate by leveraging the valuable contribution of the feedback that students can receive from peers and that of their own work in reviewing peer products. In such a way the students have the opportunity to reflect on representations and problem solving that differ from their own. Specific aspects of online resources, such as the Plasticity and the Technological Multi-modality are shown in the context of online teacher training, precisely where these terms were coined. The aim is to investigate whether such constructs also take place in different contexts, such as precisely that of university students in asynchronous conversations, always linked to collaborative learning moments. For this reason, university students’ online interactions have been explored in order to understand how these constructs could contribute to the improvement of students’ learning. First considerations and some findings about the use of the considered aspects have been provided.