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The metrics for evaluating students' strengthening of "critical sense" is based on
the use of Ockham's razor[9], i.e. “pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate po-
nendi” and “entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem”.
These criteria applied to the materials (links, papers and so on) in order to re-
duce the overwhelming amount of contents discovered on the Internet (this hap-
pened especially in the beginning of the activities). Initially students have been
supported by tutor in their analysis, and later in this process they proceeded by
themselves. Discarded materials fell basically into the following 4 categories: (a)
duplications; (b) materials not relevant to the topic, (c) materials too complex for
high school students or (d) materials containing mistakes. All materials with ex-
haustive contents, easy to be read and to be understood by students have been
kept.
Table 1 summarizes the results of Ockham's razor principles, applied to mate-
rials collected by students from February to May (During June are held the final
examination, by providing traditional tests on mathematical topics):
Table 1
Table 1 Results from Ockham's razor
Amount of
Materials per month
Material
discarded
Percentage of
Discarded
Month
Material Kept Percentage of Kept
February
93
48
51,61
45
48,39
March
74
40
54,05
34
45,95
April
60
43
71,67
17
28,33
May
55
46
83,64
9
16,36
Fig. 1
Screenshot of ProgettoMatematica PLE
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