Rejuvenating the HELM Workbooks as Online STACK Quizzes in 2020

Abstract

HELM (Helping Engineers Learn Mathematics) was a three-year project undertaken by a consortium of five English universities between 2002 and 2005. HELM released a range of workbooks and online resources, designed to enhance the mathematical education of engineering undergraduates, which were well received, and widely used. All that remained in 2020 from HELM were PDFs of “student workbooks” which could not be edited. Since 2018, the University of Edinburgh has developed and taught fully online courses for university mathematics in which all materials form part of coherently organised digital exercises and expositions. The work reported in this paper combines the two approaches: we take a similar approach to the existing successful Edinburgh course and rejuvenate the static HELM materials by creating online resources designed to support the mathematical education of engineering undergraduates. The paper describes the rationale, educational design, practical execution and preliminary analysis of the workbooks’ usage at the University of Edinburgh.

HELM (Helping Engineers Learn Mathematics) was a three-year project undertaken by a consortium of five English universities between 2002 and 2005. HELM released a range of workbooks and online resources, designed to enhance the mathematical education of engineering undergraduates, which were well received, and widely used. All that remained in 2020 from HELM were PDFs of “student workbooks” which could not be edited. Since 2018, the University of Edinburgh has developed and taught fully online courses for university mathematics in which all materials form part of coherently organised digital exercises and expositions. The work reported in this paper combines the two approaches: we take a similar approach to the existing successful Edinburgh course and rejuvenate the static HELM materials by creating online resources designed to support the mathematical education of engineering undergraduates. The paper describes the rationale, educational design, practical execution and preliminary analysis of the workbooks’ usage at the University of Edinburgh.