Fleur Zeldenrust about practicing mathematical skills using SOWISO

Fleur Zeldenrust
The students and I really like what SOWISO has to offer for mathematical education
Name
Fleur Zeldenrust
Current role
Docent bij de cursus Mathematics for Biologists (FNWI)

Fleur Zeldenrust is a brain scientist and lecturer at the study programme of Biology. For her course Mathematics for Biologists in the fourth period she noticed her students’ mathematical skills varied a lot. That is not very strange, since her students come from all sorts of different educational backgrounds. To equalize the differences, Fleur makes use of the tool SOWISO.

SOWISO is a tool developed in the Netherlands that makes it possible for students to test out and apply their mathematical skills and to automatically correct exams. SOWISO can generate practice exercises within parameters set by the lecturer. These exercises contain an infinite amount of sums and formulas, which can be solved by the students. This way, two students will never receive the same sum and the exercises stay varied.

If students have questions during the course, they can, at fixed moments, make use of a virtual classroom where the lecturer answers their questions. For each diagnostic test, students have three attempts to achieve the required score of having 75% of the answers correct. Afterwards, the lecturer can view what scores were achieved per test.

Personal guidance

‘I send a personal email to students who did not achieve the required score and ask them how they are doing. That way, I get some insight on what information students still need and which students are not feeling good about themselves at the moment.’

‘I really like what SOWISO has to offer for mathematical education. Students are enthusiastic about this way of learning as well. The support SOWISO offers is good. Furthermore, I liked how I can talk to colleagues at the University of Amsterdam and our own Nijmegen School of Management about their experience.’

 

Contact

Do you want to get started with SOWISO? Please contact the Teaching Information Point of your faculty.