Challenge
The COVID-19 pandemic has plunged many teachers into unchartered waters, including Knud Nissen, a mathematics teacher the Aarhus HF and VUC school in Denmark. He needed to find a way to help his students complete their academic year, without being able to bring them together in the classroom.
Solution
Nissen uses Maple as a pre-prepared “blackboard” to present each lesson over a live stream to his class, adding live drawings, calculations, and visualizations as he goes to create dynamic, engaging presentations. He presents these lessons over Google Meet, so his students can see him and Maple at the same time. Students can easily ask questions, and he uses Maple to help answer them.
Result
Because of his use of Maple in his teaching, Nissen found that moving online was straightforward, with minimal disruption to student learning. As well, he will be able to transition back and forth smoothly between the classroom and virtual lessons if the evolving situation requires it.
The COVID-19 pandemic has plunged many teachers into unchartered waters. They are suddenly faced with preparing students to complete the academic year, without being able to bring them together in the classroom. Fortunately, for teachers who have integrated Maple into their teaching, the transition from in-class to remote learning has proven to be much less difficult than it might otherwise have been.
Knud Nissen, from the Aarhus HF and VUC school in Denmark, has been teaching high school math for many years and has been a user of Maple since 1990. Like everyone else, his classroom was shut down abruptly as Denmark responded to the pandemic. However, because he used Maple extensively already, it was relatively easy for him to move to teaching online.
In my opinion, Maple is the best math software tool available.
Nissen makes use of Maple as a presentation tool to teach lessons to his class. He uses Maple as a pre-prepared “blackboard” to present the lesson, adding live drawings, calculations, and visualizations as he goes. For example, in a lesson on vectors, he uses Maple’s drawing tools to demonstrate vector addition and subtraction graphically, then introduces the same calculations using vector notation. During the lesson, he also shows the students how to enter and perform the calculations they need in Maple so they can work on their own. Once he moved online, he continued to deliver the same style of lesson through Google Meet, where students could watch the lesson unfold in Maple, see the instructor speaking at the same time, and ask questions throughout.
Nissen assigns homework for the students to do in Maple. He then uses Maple to take up the homework in class and answer students’ questions. To move this aspect of the course online, he again simply moved from projecting his screen to sharing his screen.
“In my opinion, Maple is the best math software tool available. It is an easy to use, powerful, and versatile tool. In addition, the math notation is very close to a textbook, which makes it an excellent tool for the students to document their homework,” says Nissen. He is also feels it is important that Maple runs on both PCs and Macs, and is easy to install. This means Maple is available on the students’ personal computers, not just at school, so it is accessible no matter where students are. “At this time, it seems very possible that we may be in and out of the classroom for quite some time. By using Maple, my students and I will be able to manage the transitions with very little disruption to learning.”
Maple is widely used in universities, so by introducing Maple in high school, not only do we help our students learn high school math, but we also equip the students with skills that will benefit them greatly in their future studies.
Following the call in 2005 by the Danish Ministry of Education for all high school students to learn a Computer Algebra System (CAS) tool as part of their math studies, Nissen decided to share his Maple expertise with other Danish high school teachers. Working in collaboration with Maplesoft, he developed additional Maple-based content specifically designed for Danish High school A- and B-level math curriculum. Maplesoft offers a special MapleGym bundle to Danish high schools that includes Maple licenses for instructors and students that can be used at school and at home, together with this dedicated Danish learning content.
Nissen strongly believes it is important to introduce high school students to Maple. “Maple is widely used in universities, so by introducing Maple in high school, not only do we help our students learn high school math, but we also equip the students with skills that will benefit them greatly in their future studies.”
Contact Maplesoft to learn how Maple can help with your projects
