How to Get a Good Job and Improve Your Career – With a PLE - 2nd International Workshop on Evidence-Based Technology Enhanced Learning - page 104

5 Conclusion and Future Works

This paper illustrated an experience in designing and implementing a new ap-
proach, based on the use of PLE, for fostering the creation of a critical and analyt-
ical mind attitude in students, and at the same time improving their mathematical
skills.
The results achieved with the approach were encouraging, since traditional as-
sessment of students showed a significant improvement of their mathematical
knowledge. Satisfaction of students was also collected via anonymous question-
naire, and showed good reactions to the proposed new approach.
The title of this paper is purposely joking on a very serious issue: that of pre-
paring the young generation for surviving in a quickly evolving world, and giving
them tools for improving their careers throughout their entire working life- in the
next 40 years, or even more.
The author claims that this approach has fostered students' skills that will be
useful in their career paths, since tomorrow's labour market will be dominated by
lifelong learners. Even if a careful check of this claim would require a follow-up
of the students' entire careers, the improved skills given by acquiring methodolo-
gies for facing effectively a mathematical problem would certainly improve their
professional chances, whatever job they will choose in the future. The labour mar-
ket is always eager for more talented workers that can apply critical sense when
confronted with new problems, and can systematically search for corresponding
solutions, applying heuristics: this is precisely the value added by the described
approach, on top of the understanding of plane trigonometry.
Concerning future developments of this approach in the school, it will be
important to test it on a broader sample. This approach gradually shifts the
focus of study activities from strict tutor control, in an environment of regulated
learning patterns, towards the acquisition of competences at a higher level; the
latter will be a basic requirement in tomorrow's society, oriented to a lifelong
learning perspective.

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