It's just about learning the multiplication table

Abstract

One of the first and basic mathematical knowledge of school children is the multiplication table. At the age of 8 to 10 each child has to learn by training step by step, or more scientifically, by using a behavioristic learning concept. Due to this fact it can be mentioned that we know very well about the pedagogical approach, but on the other side there is rather less knowledge about the increase of step-by-step knowledge of the school children. In this publication we present some data documenting the fluctuation in the process of acquiring the multiplication tables. We report the development of an algorithm which is able to adapt the given tasks out of a given pool to unknown pupils. For this purpose a web-based application for learning the multiplication table was developed and then tested by children. Afterwards so-called learning curves of each child were drawn and analyzed by the research team as well as teachers carrying out interesting outcomes. Learning itself is maybe not as predictable as we know from pedagogical experiences, it is a very individualized process of the learners themselves. It can be summarized that the algorithm itself as well as the learning curves are very useful for studying the learning success. Therefore it can be concluded that learning analytics will become an important step for teachers and learners of tomorrow.