Calculus with Character

Overview

This instructional product is intended to aid in preparing students for a first semester calculus course by covering topics such as exponent properties and function notation. Each module covered concepts that would be relevant within the first weeks of calculus material, all facilitated by an animated pedagogical agent. Modules feature an introduction, interactive instructional content, and a short quiz at the end.

Target Audience

Undergraduate college students. This includes traditional students, 18-22 years old who have transitioned to college shortly after high school, and non-traditional students, 22+ years old who have spent time away from academia.

My Role

• Instructional Designer
• Content developer
• Media production

Design and Development Process

This product was designed with the ADDIE framework.

Analysis

For analysis, mathematics professors at a local 4-year college were interviewed to determine the largest obstacles for undergraduate students taking their first semester calculus course. I took those results and combined them with my experience as a professional tutor at the same institution to determine that prominent issues for students struggling were weak algebraic foundations and mathematical anxiety.

Design

The instructional product was designed to be online modules to accommodate students’ schedules best. In order to assist students in overcoming their anxiety, the animated pedagogical agents were investigated as facilitators for the virtual lessons. The agents would provide a social component to the lessons to create a lower stress and pressure experience while learning. Since the modules would have a facilitator, the new american lecture teaching strategy was used as a means to link previous mathematical knowledge to current situations.

Development

Assets for the agent were already created and repurposed from a prior project, thus the development cycle required the creation of the e-learning modules, animations, and narrations to enhance the agent’s impact on the learning. Learning interactions on Captivate and narration scripts were developed simultaneously to ensure relevancy to the flow of the lesson. Afterwards, narrations would be recorded in batches to then be animated with the agent and instructional content. The batches allowed for a break period between narrations to protect my voice from being overused. In total, 20 minutes of narration and animations were developed for this product, completed within a month.

Implementation

The modules were uploaded and hosted through Google Cloud Services. To access them, links were sent out. Unfortunately, access to an LMS was not available at the time of development and implementation.

Evaluation

The product was assessed by 3 instructional design experts and 3 subject matter experts in mathematics. Each participant in the assessment was asked to evaluate the learning experience, the effectiveness of the animated agent, and the design of the course.

Softwares

• Authoring software: Adobe Captivate
• Animations: Adobe After Effects
• Narrations: Adobe Audition
• Assets and Character: Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator