Driving student-centred calculus: results of a comprehensive case study for Kaizen learning in the Sultanate of Oman

Abstract

The art of teaching freshmen students is undergoing a rapid paradigm change. Classical forms of teaching are not applicable any more and an unmanageable offer of new multimedia tools and concepts is glutting the market. Moreover, compared to previous courses, the class size triples. In view of these challenges, we implemented a new teaching concept best described as Kaizen learning. By Kaizen learning, we define a teaching philosophy that is based on a concise mix of short learning units (with feedback loops and tests) and of carefully chosen repetitions (also with feedback loops and tests) to calibrate a course for the students. Here, this intensive blended, student-centred learning paradigm is analysed together with its direct impact on the students' performance. This case study leads to easy-to-implement key drivers for successfully teaching science in Oman, such as (1) human-human interaction, (2) clearly communicated expectations, (3) avoidance of a short-term learning attitude, (4) a no-calculator policy, (5) continuous Kaizen learning, and (6) balanced combination of traditional teaching and e-learning.

The Effect of Online Self-Esteem and Awareness Training Program on University Students

“…It can be thought that using six-stage Bloom taxonomy in the context of this study, has made individual gain awareness for his self with different techniques in each stage, understand and comprehend his own problems in all aspects, produce solutions by analyzing, being able to express them unreservedly , focus on the his positive, aspects and increase the internal motivation. However, the use of kaizen model being used in different training studies can be considered to have a positive effect on the results of the experimental work (Heim et al, 2014). Because in the implementation phase of the training program, it is considered participants interaction through the system, actively research their own answers to the question and the share of results to be effective proportional to kaizen's continuous improvement, development philosophy.…”

A Study of Calculus Instructors’ Perceptions of Approximation as a Unifying Thread of the First-Year Calculus

“…In recent times the mathematics education community, both on a national and international level, has become increasingly concerned with issues related to the teaching and learning of calculus (Heim et al 2015;Lang 1999;Rasmussen et al 2014). For example, the Calculus Concept Inventory [CCI], designed to measure students' basic conceptual comprehension of the foundational ideas of differential calculus (Epstein 2013), has been administered to students enrolled in first-semester calculus courses on an international level (Chai et al 2015;Epstein 2013).…”