Abstract:

An open learning environment, the tutor-web, has been under development for the past decade in the University of Iceland. Educational material within mathematics and statistics is available within the system at no cost for the users, including over 4000 exercises. After answering questions the students are provided with elaborated feedback. The system runs on tablets and smartphones and the user does not need to be connected to the Internet while answering exercises, only when they are downloaded to the device. This feature makes the system ideal for use in rural areas where Internet connection is limited.

How to allocate exercises to students as well as how to grade their performance in open learning environments such as the tutor-web are interesting research questions. Novel algorithms for allocating exercises to students as well as grading with the goal of increased learning have therefore been developed.

The system has already been used under very different conditions in Iceland and Kenya. Formal experiments have been conducted in Iceland in order to investigate students' learning in the system as well as how different grading algorithms change students behaviour.

Keywords:

Learning environments, mathematics education, statistics education, formative assessment.