Adaptation of mathematical educational content in e-learning resources

Abstract

Modern trends in the world electronic educational system development determine the necessity of adaptive learning intellectual environments and resources’ development and implementation. An upcoming trend in improvement the quality of studying mathematical disciplines is the development and application of adaptive electronic educational resources. However, the development and application experience of adaptive technologies in higher education is currently extremely limited and does not imply the usage flexibility. Adaptive educational resources in the electronic environment are electronic educational resources that provide the student with a personal educational space, filled with educational content that “adapts” to the individual characteristics of the students and provides them with the necessary information. This article focuses on the mathematical educational content adaptation algorithms development and their implementation in the e-learning system. The peculiarity of the proposed algorithms is the possibility of their application and distribution for adaptive e-learning resources construction. The novelty of the proposed approach is the three-step content organization of the adaptive algorithms for the educational content: “introductory adaptation of content”, “the current adaptation of content”, “estimative and a corrective adaptation”. For each stage of the proposed system, mathematical algorithms for educational content adaptation in adaptive e-learning resources are presented. Due to the high level of abstraction and complexity perception of mathematical disciplines, educational content is represented in the various editions of presentation that correspond to the levels of assimilation of the course material. Adaptation consists in the selection of the optimal edition of the material that best matches the individual characteristics of the student. The introduction of a three-step content organization of the adaptive algorithms for the educational content in the adaptive e-learning resource made it possible to implement individual educational paths in the electronic environment. For each student it was formed a personal space of mathematical educational content that “adapts” to its level of mastering the material, which contributed to improving the quality of the educational process in mathematical disciplines. In this paper, the methods of mathematical modeling and logicalgnosiological analysis, the theory of graphs and hypergraphs, system analysis, dynamic processes and systems control theory, complex systems design and imitation modelling methods were used. Approbation of the proposed algorithms for the educational content organization of adaptation in the adaptive electronic learning resource for the discipline “Discrete mathematics” showed the productivity of the proposed approach in the teaching process. The obtained results could be used for adaptive electronic educational resources construction in other educational institutions of higher education. Further development of the proposed approach involves the development of a formal model of the educational content adaptation, including control rules, based on the expert evaluation methods and the fuzzy-set theory.