MaGrid: A Language-Neutral Early Mathematical Training and Learning Application

Authors

  • Tahereh Pazouki The Luxembourg Centre for Educational Testing (LUCET), University of Luxembourg
  • Véronique Cornu The Luxembourg Centre for Educational Testing (LUCET), University of Luxembourg
  • Philipp Sonnleitner The Luxembourg Centre for Educational Testing (LUCET), University of Luxembourg
  • Christine Schiltz The Cognitive Science and Assessment (COSA) institute and the Cognitive Neuroscience (CNS) research group
  • Antoine Fischbach The Luxembourg Centre for Educational Testing (LUCET), University of Luxembourg
  • Romain Martin University of Luxembourg

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3991/ijet.v13i08.8271

Keywords:

Interactive systems. Individual learning. Training and learning application. Early mathematics. Language-neutral. Second language learners

Abstract


Given that the use of educational technologies is increasingly popular in kindergarten and among young students, these technologies have been shown to be able to solve the difficulties (existing in school) that are either not possible to be solved in traditional schooling or cost a lot of time and resources. In this paper, we present a pedagogical training and learning application called MaGrid (Math on Grid), which has been developed to foster early mathematical skills in pre-schoolers. MaGrid is a tablet-based application, which provides a wide range of training tasks targeting fundamental mathematical concepts for the preschool level. The language-neutral property of MaGrid is an innovative aspect that makes MaGrid different from existing mathematical training applications. This property may reduce the barrier of language from mathematical education for second language learners encountered in multilingual school settings. MaGrid allows individual learning in an interactive way and provides real-time feedback. Moreover, MaGrid is capable of recording students’ activities while working on the training tasks, which can help teachers and parents keep track of a student’s progress in different tasks and observe potential training-related improvements over time. Finally, we describe a series of experiments carried out using the MaGrid application during special training and assessment sessions in several preschools in Luxembourg.

Author Biographies

Tahereh Pazouki, The Luxembourg Centre for Educational Testing (LUCET), University of Luxembourg

A PhD student at the University of Luxembourg at the Luxembourg Centre for Educational Testing (LUCET) working on the development of the MaGrid application. She received her Master degree in computer science from the University of Luxembourg with a specialization in data mining and knowledge discovery.

Véronique Cornu, The Luxembourg Centre for Educational Testing (LUCET), University of Luxembourg

A PhD student at the University of Luxembourg at LUCET working on the development of the MaGrid application. She received her Master degree in psychology from Saarland University (Germany) with a specialization in neuropsychology and clinical psychology.

Philipp Sonnleitner, The Luxembourg Centre for Educational Testing (LUCET), University of Luxembourg

Dr in educational psychology from the Freie University of Berlin (Germany) in 2015. His academic research focuses on psychological and educational assessment. He is currently applying his expertise to the Luxembourg school monitoring program.

Christine Schiltz, The Cognitive Science and Assessment (COSA) institute and the Cognitive Neuroscience (CNS) research group

Dr in educational psychology from the University of Trier. He is specialized in large-scale educational assessment and he is an expert in the Luxembourg school system. He is currently the acting director of LUCET.

Antoine Fischbach, The Luxembourg Centre for Educational Testing (LUCET), University of Luxembourg

Dr in educational psychology from the University of Trier. He is specialized in large-scale educational assessment and he is an expert in the Luxembourg school system. He is currently the acting director of LUCET.

Romain Martin, University of Luxembourg

Professor of psychology and empirical educational research at the University of Luxembourg. He specializes in cognitive abilities, educational measurement and computer-assisted testing. He is currently the vice-president for academic affairs at the University of Luxembourg.

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Published

2018-08-30

How to Cite

Pazouki, T., Cornu, V., Sonnleitner, P., Schiltz, C., Fischbach, A., & Martin, R. (2018). MaGrid: A Language-Neutral Early Mathematical Training and Learning Application. International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning (iJET), 13(08), pp. 4–18. https://doi.org/10.3991/ijet.v13i08.8271

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Papers