proceedings of Student Mobility and ICT: Can E-LEARNING

of the teachers, who were teaching the exercise classes, did not even know that there was a special set-up
for the basic skills testing with Maple TA. For the second semester, when teaching Calculus 2, one these
teachers became more involved and actually worked with Maple TA and participated in making new
questions.
From the interviews with the teachers, the general impression is that the level of difficulty of the
tests was average. Only one teacher out of six considered them too easy. His concern was that the students
were already supposed to have the basic algebraic skills and knowledge, but the results from the tests
showed that not all the students had. Thus, the idea to rebuild the needed skills and bring the students to the
same level was really useful.
From the teachers who were directly involved into the technical part of using Maple TA, it can be
concluded that if there is a sufficient question bank, the preparation of tests is
easy and less time-consuming. Teachers try to optimize their time for preparing the learning materials.
Thus, for larger groups of students it is very convenient to use the testing program. Two of the teachers,
who were not involved in making questions, made the final test on their own, and they did not experience
any problems using Maple TA, even though they never tried it before. They consider it “pretty
straightforward”. For the notation, one of the teachers mentioned that she had to look it up, in order to get
familiar with the syntax of the program, but this she did not consider it as a serious problem.
Finally, for a follow-up of the remedial course, contradictory opinions were recorded. According
to one of the teachers, there should be no need to spend extra time on basic skills that students should
already have from high school. On the other hand, the rest of the teachers think that it is important the basic
skills to be mastered and if some students still need support, they could do that through self-practice. A
digital environment such as Maple TA has this possibility and could be used.
Summary
In the Netherlands five educational innovations took place in more or less the same time frame.
These innovations all have a negative impact on algebraic skills, as was marked by higher education,
although it is not possible to discern the effects separately. The complaints from society and education lead
to considerable political attention. The way the innovations were implemented was severely questioned.
In the meantime, the higher educational institutions saw the algebraic ability of the freshmen drop
over the years. In many higher educational institutes Maple TA is being used. Two cases, the first
mathematics course at the faculty of Sciences and at the Faculty of Economics at the University of
Amsterdam are analysed. With regard to the didactical aspect, the students found the design choice for the
remedial course satisfactory. The results from both the surveys and the interviews indicate that they
considered the level of tests as average and that the content of the tests fit well with their previous
knowledge. Some of the students of Sciences claimed that the level of difficulty of the preparatory tests
lower in comparison to the final test. Therefore, their recommendation was to make tests with the same
level of difficulty. In general, they think that Maple TA helps them to diagnose their mathematical level of
knowledge. The students from the Faculty of the Economy share the experience that the practicing with the
test can be stimulating.
From technical point of view, the students from the Faculty of Sciences were in general satisfied
with the use of Maple TA. Some of them complained about the syntax problems they experienced;
however, they admitted that this could be due to the fact that they did not practice enough. In comparison,
the survey of the students from Faculty of Economics were quite happy with the testing system: both for
practice and for assessment. They found Maple TA for self-preparation more useful than the written
materials (the study book). Since, Maple TA is used in other courses, Calculus 2, e.g., the students from the
Sciences start to feel more comfortable with using the testing system and acknowledge its usefulness. Thus,
to answer the question whether Maple TA is easy to use, the more the students practice, the easier they find
the system to work with.
Conference proceedings of Student Mobility and ICT: Can E-LEARNING overcome barriers of Life-Long learning?” 102