Professors Rossi, Driscoll and Luke have received a grant from the University of Delaware's Center For Teaching Effectiveness to expand applications of the MapleTA software for use in pre-calculus, calculus, linear algebra and ordinary differential equations courses. MapleTA is a web-based automatic problem generation tool that provides students unlimited opportunities to hone their problem solving skills. Students can log on to the MapleTA server any time of day, practice problems they are having trouble with, and receive immediate feedback. The problems are generated from a database of templates with randomized parameter fields so the variety is, in principle, infinite. The project is also supporting a pilot program this summer to see if ALEKS (another automated learning package) can improve the performance of incoming engineering majors who traditionally have trouble making the transition from high school pre-calculus topics to college level calculus courses. This grant will have a significant impact across degree programs throughout the University of Delaware that rely upon mathematics as the cornerstone of their disciplines. A team of 5 undergraduate students (Mike Baney, John Brady, Greg Blasdel, Scott Ohlmacher and Matt Thies) and 7 faculty (in addition to the PIs, Profs. Braun, Crissinger, Mwerinde and Seraphin) will collaborate to design and implement problems that will expand the Department's database of problems to support our core service courses in precalculus, calculus and first semester engineering mathematics taken by hundreds of students from disciplines across campus every semester. The Department has also been allocated a new graduate TA line by the College for the maintenance and future expansion of this effort. The project PIs all maintain active research programs while remaining committed to cutting edge educational methods such as those supported by this grant.

Article created: July 3, 2007