Mobius is a learning platform developed by DigitalEd that can be used for creating and deploying online STEM courses. This tool can be used to provide lessons and interactive learning activities thereby allowing STEM students to acquire knowledge at a guided yet self-defined pace.
The power of Mobius comes because it uses the mathematical algebra package, Maple, to assess student work. The integration with Maple ensures that Mobius can automatize the marking of mathematical derivations. Furthermore, because Maple can solve many types of mathematical problems, you can quickly set up question banks that contain infinite examples of a particular kind of problem. For example, if you ask students to differentiate:
f(x) = axn+ bxm +cxk
You can ask Mobius to generate the values of a, b, c, n, m and k using a random number generator so that every student sees a different problem, which Mobius will then assess for them. In fact, Mobius comes with built-in content packs for teaching topics such as pre-calculus, calculus, trigonometry and linear algebra that are the staples of any first year STEM course so when you deploy this software you may not even need to spend much time writing questions as you can simply use questions that have been developed by others.
Mobius is not free and Queen’s does not yet have a site license for this software. Colleagues who are interested in using it thus need to buy an individual license for every student that will use the software from DigitalEd.
Pilots of Mobius that have been generously funded by the Engineering and Sciences faculties’ innovative teaching fund are currently occurring in the School of Mathematics and Physics and in the School of Natural and Built Environment. Click here to read a report describing How the pilot in the School of Mathematics is going.
If you are interested in using Mobius please get in touch with Gareth Tribello in the School of Mathematics and Physics who can put you in touch with the folks from DigitalEd who Queen’s have been liaising with. The support we have received from DigitalEd in setting up our pilot has been superb. This support has made setting up this software so we can use it in our mathematics course relatively straightforward.
