A Possible Solution To Avoid The Consequences Of The COVID-19 Pandemic And Reduce Dropout In Calculus Education

The effects of the COVID-19 are likely to stay in education for a long time to come. First year students of 2022 have completed the last two years of their high school education, which are the most important for further studies, during the worst period of the pandemic. Compared to previous years, far fewer students were able to meet the requirements of Calculus 1. Although there was a wide range of support material (interactive online interface, films, notes, elaborate calculation exercises) available to the students, they were not able to catch up and progress independently, regardless. The calculus course consists of 2×90 minutes of lectures and 90 minutes of practice per week. The lectures are attended by all the students in the year's batch - nearly 200 students - while the exercises are done in groups of 35. In the second semester we introduced a new course for Calculus 2. The 90 minute per week course provides an opportunity to introduce routine calculation methods and thus provide more personalised teaching in small group sessions. New course gives a chance to understand Calculus 2, and thus could reduce the dropout rate. In our research, we investigate the effectiveness of this new intervention. We analyse student satisfaction. We will examine the extent to which such a cost-effective intervention helps students to acquire a solid mathematical foundation so that they can successfully overcome obstacles in their studies with less help in the future.