Integral Trainer

Project summary

First year students arrive at university with heterogeneous mathematical backgrounds. Gaps in prior knowledge cause maths anxiety, in particular when it comes to integration skills, much needed to succeed in first year calculus courses. The Integral Trainer is a mathematics training module to practice integration methods in a self-paced, feedback-laden way. Various quizzes lead students through questions on different integration techniques and on all difficulty levels. This allows students to practise what they need. Their learning is supported through optional hints, specific feedback and fully worked solutions to all problems, such that they can work safely and completely on their own.

How does the Integral Trainer work?

Using the Integral Trainer, students can practice the required skills up to mastery level, at their own pace and their own volume. We provide a course accompanying an existing lecture course, consisting of fine-grained self-practice quizzes for all necessary methods and on several difficulty levels in our LMS Moodle. Questions are implemented in STACK, a question type for mathematics available within Moodle and other LMSs.

The questions are equipped with optional hints, automated feedback for common mistakes and fully worked solutions, such that students can practice without needing personal supervision or feedback through manual grading. Students can self-pace their learning by choosing a method and a difficulty level according to their current knowledge. Once they mastered all the methods to a sufficient degree, they can progress to more advanced quizzes, where choosing the appropriate method can be practised. This structure allows stronger students to assess their knowledge by skipping to the more difficult quizzes immediately, while weaker students can start practising in easier quizzes. Students can identify their own knowledge gaps and can close them in a targeted and efficient manner.

Where can I use the Integral Trainer?

The Integral Trainer is available in German as a designated Moodle course here at ETH.

This Moodle course is open for self-registration to all current and former students and members of Swiss tertiary education institutions (like universities and universities of applied sciences) through the SwitchAAI SSO service.

Downloads to use the trainer on other Moodle installations as well as an English translation are in preparation.

Media

Interview: ETH Zurich employs computers as supplementary maths tutors