The relation between storytelling, spatial ability and its gender gap: a literature review

Spatial ability is a good predictor of STEMM career, but how can it be developed in early childhood? The role of storytelling in early education has been found to be a good example of thorough integrated learning, also in relation to spatial thinking. The aim of this literature review is to identify the impact that this methodology has on spatial thinking development in relation to mathematics content. First, the spatial ability characteristics are defined, and the emerging sex differences identified. Then the narrative approach is introduced both in general terms and in an early education context by considering in particular geometry storybooks. Finally, concurrent development of literacy skills through storytelling are also discussed

Maths Games without Frontiers

The use of games in higher education significantly benefits cognitive, motivational, affective, and sociocultural perspectives. This paper describes a mathematical challenge for first-year STEM students at the “College of Merit Camplus”, located in different cities in Italy from South to Nord, during the autumn of 2020 and 2021. Students in pairs play different puzzler games to reinforce mathematical prerequisites and basic knowledge. Due to the pandemic situation, non-digital games were forced to adjust to the remote environment. On the one hand, moving online was a challenge both from the organisational side and for the students that sometimes need to cooperate from different locations. On the other end, approaching the games remotely allowed students from colleges all around Italy to participate. The work describes and comments on each game in detail, considering the students’ performance. In general, it can be stated that students liked the playful experience, although they found themselves not wholly confident with some topics and the related time restriction. These games, first-of-all helped review and train the basic concepts; therefore, the students have a better approach to studying the first Mathematical course at the University. They found the games’ dynamics helpful in highlighting some simple tricks and common mistakes

Empowering Talented Students: An Italian Experience of an Enriched Curriculum in Engineering

This paper summarizes the design, the activities performed and the main results achieved by an innovative teaching program, set-up for the talented freshmen in Engineering Bachelor's courses at an Italian technical University, the Politecnico di Torino, Italy, starting from 2013. The project structure is here detailed, year-by-year, with a focus on both the reinforcement of an Engineering standard curriculum, and to the hybrid activities, also in non-technical areas, such as soft-skills, critical thinking, humanities, and creativity. The strategies and methods for the students' selection have been discussed, and the University human resource efforts and the costs involved are justified. The results achieved during a three-year experience, based on structured survey to collect students' feedback, are then critically analysed with the purpose to suggest implementation and further development

TIL: AN INNOVATIVE TOOL FOR THE RECRUITMENT OF BACHELOR ENGINEERING STUDENTS IN ITALY

This paper summarizes the guidelines and the main results of the set-up of an access Test in Laib –TILperformed at Politecnico di Torino, Italy, during the last decade. Many reasons forced to define this proprietary tool, such as the introduction of the numerus clausus and the consequent need of an effective and robust evaluation process associated to merit, the improvement of the attractiveness at the national and international level, and the reduction of the drop-out rate. This test was able to supply several functions, useful both for the university and the potential students. It demonstrated to be a reliable and predictable tool for evaluating the competence background needed for a successful career in a technical university. In addition, it is a self-assessment test for the applicants able to contribute to a conscious individual choice

TEACH-GYM: GROW YOUR METHODOLOGIES

This paper reports on a recent initiative put in action within the long-lasting connection between a European University and a Central Asia Institution. An Uzbek Technical University, Turin Polytechnic University in Tashkent, has been created in 2009, offering double degree programs under the supervision of Politecnico di Torino, Italy. The differences and educational needs of the two involved countries stimulated a contest of ideas, aimed at supporting the redefinition of teaching methodologies and course contents in bachelor programs. The proposed project becomes a “GYM”, with win-win benefits for both institutions. On one side, more specializing courses are offered, as required by the role of the undergraduate education in Uzbekistan, and on the other hand, the experience and methodology are going to be transferred within the Italian university. Both qualitative and quantitative data have been analysed and presented, based on the initial selection of the best projects which are implemented starting from the second semester of the current academic year

Inclusion: a new reverse perspective

Reverse inclusion has been recently proposed as a powerful tool to pursue many relevant goals at the same time, precisely to assure deserving students higher educational standards and stimuli, to strengthen the initiatives for supporting and including protégé students, to assess new pedagogical methods and teaching contents for the benefit of the whole students’ community. This paper is aimed at presenting and discussing an on-going project carried out at an Italian technical University, the Politecnico of Torino, suffering from a high student to teacher ratio. This problem is mostly imputable to the increasing enrolment of freshmen coming from many different regions and countries, who show varied cultural background and abilities. In the present project, therefore, the concept of reverse inclusion was adopted as the cornerstone of the activities conceived and performed, in order to assure the larger number of students as possible a tailored range of flanking measures. The preliminary results of this experience may represent an empirical demonstrator of the effectiveness of reverse inclusion in the field of Engineering education, as well as a sound tool for mapping the impact and the overall benefits of such approach. The project has been developed starting from the academic year 2014/15, and it was firstly aimed for talented students, that is to enrich the curricula of the top 4% freshmen, on the about 4500 enrolled each year, with hybrid activities. This was quite easy to do, since all the Engineering Bachelor’s degree programmes of our University share a first-year path equal for all the different majors, and the curriculum differentiation progressively occurs during the second year. However, keeping in mind the objective to develop the project in a real reverse inclusion perspective, the selected deserving students are asked to follow the standard lessons together with all the other students, whereas they were grouped in homogeneous classes only for specific supplementary lectures and laboratories, with the aim of deepening their scientific background, fostering critical thinking, and stimulating interdisciplinary approaches. Besides the benefits for the deserving students deriving by these talent-oriented activities, two other relevant results were achieved. The inclusion of the motivated talented students for the majority of the regular lectures and inside the standard classes ensured a driving force for the protégé students, who were involved in mixed groups for discussing and studying. This spontaneous inclusion assures them a support in improving their performances, as traceable throughout the analysis of their career. In addition, as the group of talented students alone constitutes a separate class only for additional teaching activities, innovative educational contents and pedagogical methods, as well as reviewed courses were proposed them inside the project. This was used to set up and optimize these experiences before extending them to the whole students’ audience. Preliminary positive achievements are here discussed, based on one complete cohort of students, the first ones include in the project, and partially on the second one

Think Lab: we have an IDEA (Instructional Design Elementary Application)

This work aims at summarizing the experience gained in the organization and delivery of a short-intensive and transdisciplinary teaching course offered inside the University College of Merit “Collegio Universitario Renato Einaudi” (Torino, Italy). Colleges of merit are shared residential facilities designed to accommodate talented students with high motivation and commitment, regularly enrolled in the different higher education levels ranging from bachelor to doctoral programs. Several services are also offered to support their personal and professional growth. This goal is usually achieved through both tutoring and complementary cultural activities. Collegio Einaudi is a private Foundation connected to the University of Turin and the Politecnico di Torino (PoliTo). It was founded in 1935 and hosts about 800 students who are asked to develop various transdisciplinary skills through internal courses defined once a year around a theme. The courses are jointly organized with lecturers and university research groups. In the academic year 2020/21, the chosen central theme is “resilience”. Within the booklet course proposals, structured as a ThinkLab, “We have an IDEA” - Instructional Design Elementary Application - aims to co-redesign the first-year engineering courses offered by PoliTo. PoliTo is an Italian public University offering both Engineering and Architectural tracks. Around 5000 freshmen are enrolled every year in the Engineering bachelor’s degree programs. During the first year, the students are divided into 20 parallel classes of about 250 each. The addressed topics provide a common background and include Chemistry, Computer Science, Mathematical Analysis I, Linear Algebra and Geometry and Physics I. The emphasis of this contribution is on the description of the “We have an IDEA” laboratory and on the evaluation of its impact on the University daily lives. In the following section, the theoretical framework is defined. The remaining part of the paper discusses the Laboratory’s design, the Results, and the Conclusions

SAperI: Approaching gender gap using Spatial Ability training week in high-school context

Maria Giulia Ballatore, Gavin Duffy, Sheryl Sorby, and Anita Tabacco. 2020. SAperI: approaching gender gap using Spatial Ability training week in high-school context. In Eighth International Conference on Technological Ecosystems for Enhancing Multiculturality (TEEM’20), October 21–23, 2020, Salamanca, Spain. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 7 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3434780.343657