Motivating Upper Secondary Students to Learn Mathematics with Working Life Exercises

Abstract

This paper describes a massive open online course (MOOC) that targets upper secondary school students. During the years that we have been working in LUMA Centre Saimaa (an organization to inspire and motivate children and youth in mathematics, science and technology), we have noticed that upper secondary school students often fail to see the connection between mathematics studied at that level and their future career plans. This work-in-progress paper describes a construction and first user experiences of project TyöMAA, which aims at strengthening the high school students’ perceptions of the applicability of mathematics in the working life. This is done by giving upper secondary school mathematics teachers real working life examples connected to topics in their courses and developing a MOOC for students in which they can solve workrelated mathematical problems.