This January, two courses brought together students and graduates from the university, as well as external participants, to get closer to probabilities, algebra and geometry. One of these initiatives is available on the DMATV online channel for the community.

With full places, the free summer courses of the Department of Mathematics of the University of La Serena were held, which, for two weeks in January, brought together students from different careers of the institution, also graduates in pedagogy and engineering, in its facilities. ULS and external participants, who wanted to return to the classrooms for a few days this summer.

“Probabilities in Secondary Education” and “Fundamentals of Mathematics and Geometry” were the two alternatives available on this occasion, after a successful first experience of this type in the summer of 2017.

The first of them was intended for 30 teachers, graduates in Pedagogy in Mathematics and Computing from this university and high school mathematics teachers from different municipal schools and high schools.

The activity was funded by the PMI FIP ULS 1501 Institutional Improvement Plan for Pedagogies and its professor in charge was Dr. Ken Matsuda Oteiza, who addressed content such as: Normal and binomial distribution, Mathematical hope, Bayes' Theorem and Total Probability, in theoretical-practical classes that lasted for a week.

During the closing ceremony, the participants received a document for their attendance at the course and greetings from the Director of the Department of Mathematics, Dr. Marco Corgini Videla, the Coordinator of the Mathematics and Computing Pedagogy degree, Mg. Luisa Elgueta Alucema, and the Alternate Executive Director of the PMI FIP ULS 1501, Dr. Fabián Araya Palacios.

Then it was the turn of “Fundamentals of Mathematics and Geometry”, which also filled its 30 places with students and graduates of Bachelor's degrees in Mathematics, Astronomy and Physics, Civil, Mining and Environmental Civil Engineering, as well as Pedagogy. in Mathematics and Computing and Ped. in Mathematics and Physics, along with professionals and external students, who even came from the Atacama Region.

Here there were two modules (Algebra and Geometry) that were taught in one week by the academics of the Department of Mathematics, Dr. Marco Corgini and Dr. Héctor Moreno Barrera, and the evaluation made by the unit is “excellent. We had a significant number of students, very interested, very participatory, with the basic knowledge necessary to understand the topics we covered in this course, which were not simple. “We are all very happy with the final result of this activity,” said the Director of the Department.

“A bit in the context of the 'open university', which was established by Michel Onfray in France, the idea is to welcome the community, the students, the students and the people who are interested in coming to our house of higher education. . That is an obligation that we have, ethically, to deliver to the community what we know how to do, and that is to develop knowledge. Obviously, this is an initiative that does not end here, our teachers, our academics are absolutely committed to this task,” the academic stressed.

For his part, Dr. Moreno commented that “it is the first time that I have participated in this type of instance. We had a fairly heterogeneous level of participants, from school students to graduates, so the dynamics that took place in classes were a very nice experience.”

An equally positive assessment was made by the students of the course, who expressed great interest in initiatives of this type continuing to be repeated in the summers and in addressing different topics, including general training. For Cristian Salinas Madariaga, titled Ped. in Mathematics and Physics from the U. of La Serena, these courses “favor a little the interaction between teachers and also the fact of sharing certain experiences and being in contact with this type of teaching that, of course, is given by the teacher and, of course, One way or another, they make us resume the school year again with a refreshment around our discipline, our subject.”

The students with the best attendance at the course received books as a gift and the document confirming their participation. “Fundamentals of Mathematics and Geometry” is available to the community on the online channel www.youtube.com/matematicasuls, in the Free Summer Courses section.