Discrete Mathematics with Programming

1 The Context
Nowadays many universities throughout the world are widening participation and are frequently
admitting students with a very limited mathematical background to technical or scientific programmes
of study requiring substantial mathematical skills. A plethora of broad, introductory
mathematics courses at basic level have thus emerged in recent years to cater for the needs of
such students. These courses must train the students in the basic mathematical skills of arithmetic
and algebra and acquaint them with the more advanced mathematical concepts required
for their programmes of study. The range of new topics that need to be mastered is often quite
large as students start from a low level and so they must follow a very steep learning curve. The
course Diskret matematik för yrkeshögskoleutbildning (DMY) is such a broad first year mathematics
course. Delivery is for distance students only enrolled on the vocational programme
Nätverksdrift/webbapplicationsutveckling 120hp at ITM. DMY is delivered and owned by NAT.
This report is organised as follows. Section 2 discusses the problems with the chosen course:
high drop-rates, the limited resources available for course development and unhappy students.
The current status of the project work packages is outlined in Section 3. Extensive details of the
e-learning tools developed are given in Section 4 and finally Section 5 presents our conclusions
including pointers to future developments.
2 The Problem
Prior to the Discrete Mathematics with Programming project the DMY course had been a major
cause of concern not only for the course lecturer Pia Heidtmann (PH), but also for the programme
manager Nayeb Maleki (NM). The vocational programme Nätverksdrift/webbapplicationsutveckling
had an extremely low pass rate, and the DMY course was identified as a contributor to this
with its very high drop-out rate and only a handful of students passing the course each year in
spite of a good intake rate.
Course evaluations did not have a sufficient uptake among the students to form a statistically
sound basis for a formal study of the reasons behind the failing course. Through extensive
informal discussions with the students, emails received and messages exchanged on discussion
forums, it came to light that the underlying issue with DMY was a combination of students
with a very weak mathematical background and insufficient motivation due to an inability to
comprehend the relevance of mathematical topics in their programme of study. Most students
seemed to perceive the course not only as being impossibly hard but also completely detached
from their other courses.
Based on the feedback from the students, PH identified key areas where new materials and
approaches seemed to be appropriate in order to create a better student experience. She had
initiated a major overhaul of the course material in 2007 and had revised the course plan to
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