Videos and Apps for service lectures in Analysis

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We want to create interactive apps and animated videos for the systematic usage in large service lectures in Analysis. All content will be tailored towards the audience, with a view for potential use in a flipped classroom setting. Our goal is a better understanding of the material itself, but also in connection with surrounding topics, while supporting the individual learning.

Abstract

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D-MATH is teaching several service courses in Analysis, all of which have several hundred students enrolled. We slowly want to break with frontal instruction and hand over more tools to the students to work individually. This project aims to create interactive applets and animated videos which can be used in a lecture hall setting as well as exercise classes or at home.

The applets will mostly be realized with Geogebra and will be shared with the worldwide community. Geogebra enables teachers and students to visually understand mathematical phenomena by using programmed applets, thus serving as a graphical, pre-programmed calculator. It invites to play around and check if your intuition is correct.

The animated videos will support the lecturer in visualizing abstract material in a much easier way than static blackboard drawings ever could. Especially in higher dimensional calculus, there are many concepts which are hard to teach using only writing, speaking and drawing figures. The videos will be created using animated graphics and video montage.

All new material will be created with a view towards open sources and reuseability in similar courses. The process of creation will be documented in detail.

Success factors

• Collection of roughly 25 interactive applets and videos
• Positive feedback from students
• Usage by other lecturers

Innovative elements

So far there is no collection of applets or videos to systematically teach visually in this kind of lecture.

Room for improvement

We should have aimed for a closer alignment of the applets with the existing contents of the lecture and the exercises.

Opinion of students

Very useful in the lecture to grasp difficult concepts, making them more accessible and less frightening. Some students use the applets to check their exercise solutions themselves.

Tips for lecturers

• Geogebra offers no project management or collaboration tools for building the contents. We needed a clear design concept before we could start working on the content.
• If you have a clear concept what you want to transport with a teaching device (like a visualization), it’s easier to design the device according to that concept.
• An extensive documentation or introductory workshops are needed if other lecturers are supposed to use your newly created tools.