Problem-Based Learning and Mathematics at University (Part II of III)
Aalborg Centre for Problem Based Learning in Engineering, Science and Sustainability under the auspices of UNESCO
Webinar with Bettina Dahl Søndergaard, Aalborg University
Wednesday, May 20 at 8 AM EDT
Mathematics is a powerful, unavoidable and useful tool for a myriad of disciplines such as engineering, economics, science, medicine – but mathematics is also itself a discipline. In fact, mathematics is an abstract world with invisible and untouchable objects that exist in n-dimensional spaces far from any real-life concrete world. How does these worlds then have anything to do with each other? The Nobel Prize winner in physics, Eugene Wigner, formulated it as The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences in 1960. But then how does mathematics fit with problem-based learning (PBL) which builds on authentic real-life problems from society? In particular, how might PBL projects in mathematics look in a higher education curriculum? In this webinar, I will present three archetypes of such projects where the students in each of these perform either internal contextualization inside mathematics, external contextualisation to the external world, or both. Particularly one of these three types of projects have resemblance to projects in engineering.
Presenter // Bettina Dahl Søndergaard
Bettina Dahl Søndergaard is associate professor at the Aalborg University based Aalborg Centre for Problem Based Learning (PBL) in Engineering, Science and Sustainability under the auspices of UNESCO in Denmark and full professor at Department of Mathematics at University of Bergen in Norway. Bettina’s research is focused on both mathematics education and problem based learning, including assessment, different PBL models, dialogues in teaching, and gifted students. Bettina is involved with both mathematics teacher training and introducing PBL to mathematics students and to international faculty.