Article:
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J. Gallenkämper, B. Heim, J. Kreuzer, F. Rupp, P. v. Stockhausen & N. Viet (2016):
Kaizen Teaching and the Learning Habits of Engineering Students in a Freshman Mathematics
Course, European Journal of Operations Research, 24 (4), pp. 1009-1030.

first published online: 02 SEP 2015

ISSN: 1613-9178
DOI:  10.1007/s10100-015-0416-5
URL:  http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10100-015-0416-5

Abstract:
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Which are the teaching methods that actually contribute to the learning of mathematics?
The answer to this certainly is the holy grail of didactic and pedagogy, and should be
supported by large scale statistical evidence. Our article aims at providing an initial
step into this direction by first illustrating a teaching paradigm that is suited for
the generation of large scale data sets: Based on industry best practice quality assurance
standards we introduce the Kaizen teaching paradigm which enforces Kolb's reflective
learning cycle on the students' side. Second, we present and analyze the data we obtained
through our pilot implementation at a engineering freshman mathematics course in the
Sultanate of Oman. These emphasize the effectiveness of Kaizen teaching and once again
show the necessity of continuous learning. A practice that seems to be forgotten in
traditional university engineering courses due to the mere size of the audience. In
particular it seems that a Markovian estimator for students' performance may have to be
considered.