Products > Why Choose CAMI?

In essence the CAMI learning system developed as the result of the use of new CAI programming techniques (developed and internationally tested by various educational bodies interested in immediate result) in lieu of the older CBT techniques that were used before.
The CAMI learning system was developed in 1984 to ensure that maximum results are achieved in a minimum amount of time, utilising the intrinsic knowledge of how the human learns and forms long-term working memories.

This working and integrated software was created to be:

1. Dynamic in its approach
2. Suit each individual learner irrespective of ability
3. Adapt to the learners owns skills level
4. Encourage long-term working knowledge of all mathematical concepts.
5. Functional, allowing the user to master and fundamentally understand all concepts.
6. Effective in promoting confident and well adjusted learners who enjoy, accept and ultimately master challenges.

Distribution

CAMI distributes the program throughout Australia which also include over 600 000 students and 200 centres worldwide. These centres include:

• South Africa
• United Kingdom
• United Arab Emirates
• Australia
• New Zealand
• China
• Finland
• Kuwait

CAMI Maths - Designing for Results

A computerised mathematics system has to make an immediate and measurable impact on the maths marks of pupils otherwise the considerable investment would have been wasted. This is the exact problem facing schools and parents today as they ponder the question of the effectiveness of mass education.

Keeping this in mind CAMI used a benchmark drill programme in 1984 Students averaged 6 sums per minute, although it was a considerable improvement over "paper" methods, it was intuitively felt that the performance could be enhanced further.

This led to a ten-year process of software improvement following this process:

• Designing
• Testing
• Postulating new methods
• Redesigning
• Evaluating
• Refining
• Questioning the validity of "accepted norms"
• Rethinking previously established methods, when it is put to test in the "mass education environment"
• After the successful completion of this process the same benchmark is today completed at a work rate of 20 to 25 sums per minute - proof of the advantages that can be gained by the correct application.

Literature Search

CAMI started the maths clinic in 1984 by purchasing all the maths software then available on the market. It soon transpired that these systems were too slow to produce results and that they still tried to "teach" but omitted practice, which was found to be integral for effective learning.

As the realisation set in that a new maths system had to be designed all possible material was researched from libraries of top universities all the way through to the latest design trends for educational software. This process was initially confusing as all prescribed an "electronic textbook" version of design, where a little theory is produced, followed by worked examples, followed by a database-driven practice routine.

When this style of programming was used, it failed to produce results, as the system had wasted too much time. It transpired that most of the authors of these textbooks were from the academic fold, and they were never under pressure to produce results.

It was clear that a new type of programme was needed. After studying the application of computers to education we defined three generations of computer-assisted teaching.

Three types of computer based teaching methods

MCQ - Multiple Choice Questionnaires

The first multiple choice questionnaires (MCQ's) were introduced in the early 1960's soon after teletype terminals appeared in schools. It was hailed as a "breakthrough in education" at the time, but it failed to deliver on its promises.

When analysed critically, it was established that an MCQ system is actually just an automatic marking system. No real learning takes place because the student had not "created something" in his mind. MCQ's thus quickly fell from favour in the 1970's when the next wave arrived: CBT systems.

However, in the late 1990's, MCQ systems reappeared in a big way on the markets when Windows programmers realised that it is easy to develop "Educational Software" by sticking a question on a page and attach four buttons to it and Presto!, a new system has been created.

To embellish these offerings further, the "Multimedia" sticker was attached and we now have talking, jumping, animated, graphics-intensive programs that looks impressive, yet the mental development of the learner remains close to zero.

These programs were also evaluated very highly by the software magazines that score them highly on "The use of colour" and the "Use of animation", yet they almost always fail to produce the results. So, the warning intrinsic in this statement is that some of the "most modern" systems are woefully inadequate in educating students.

CBT - Computer Based Teaching Systems

When this style of programming was used, it failed to produce results, as the system had wasted too much time. It transpired that most of the authors of these textbooks were from the academic fold, and they were never under pressure to produce results.

The next generation of educational software was created by teams of teachers and programmers that were determined that "This machine will become the ultimate Teacher". These systems follow the textbook approach where a piece of text has to be read, some worked examples are studied and then some questions are asked.

Some really large systems were built running off database-driven central servers (usually called ILS's - Integrated Learning Systems) and they are sold as the ideal solution because the progress of the child is automatically monitored and prevented from going ahead until a certain level had been mastered.

The worst systems are those that ask multiple choice questions and the better ones do have an element of practice in them. In practice, all these systems ultimately fail because of inefficient use of available time.

CAI vs CBT

The differences between the concepts of CAI, CBT, CAL and CBE have become so confusing that these acronyms tend to be used interchangeably today. It is therefore necessary for the author to define exactly what he means when these terms are used.

CBT (Computer Based Training) programmes originate when the programmer defines the role of the computer in the learning process as being that of a "tutor". In other words, the computer is in control of the learning process. The programmes provide a considerable amount of assistance in terms of guiding messages, feedback and control dialogue. CBT programming techniques are therefore based on " teacher replacement".

In contrast to this, the CAI (Computer Aided Instruction) focuses on mental retention. In other words, CAI programmes are based on the concept of "teacher assistance". CAI programmes are super fast because all the excessive interruptions, obstructive dialogue, superfluous keystrokes, etc. have been removed from the programme flow.

As such, they develop systems to mimic what the teacher has already done. These systems can therefore be classified as knowledge transfer systems, where the aim is to impart knowledge to the student. In contrast to this, CAI systems are knowledge retention systems where the aim is to lay down each layer of knowledge by cementing recently taught subject matter.

Knowledge Transfer vs. Knowledge Retention

In essence, people learn by doing things over and over until they become perfect at it. Pilots spend hours in flight simulators, handling emergencies, so that they can react with total automation when a crisis develops in real life. Similarly, Drill and Practice systems on a computer, conditions the mind to react with total automation when a problem is solved.

To give you another analogy: After watching Wimbledon tennis for two weeks on television you will be able to talk like a tennis pro. Knowledge transfer has taken place and you will be able to discuss the merits of each shot intelligently. However, you will not be able to play tennis like a pro. To play proficiently, you will need the skills transfer that comes from knowledge retention, i.e. from drill and practice.

CBT programmes are therefore ideal for the case where there will never be a teacher and you need to get the message conveyed, but CAI programmes reign supreme in anl environment where the attainment of results are required.

The following table sums up the major differences:

This table clearly defines the CBT systems as tutoring or knowledge transfer systems. A dead give away is that there are always a number of teachers on the board of the software design committee. Teachers are taught to transfer knowledge, hence the systems are designed in a similar fashion. The designers of these systems were never put into a situation where the software was needed to produce results and at best it is a rendition of what this board thinks will work.

In contrast, CAMI was always under severe pressure to produce results and to this day, it is still the way in which we evaluate any piece of code that we write.

The developers of the CAMI computer-aided maths instruction system realise that there is a place for all three methodologies and have incorporated the best of the three in their programs.

The test is simple: "Will it produce results, and will it do so quickly".

Insufficient time - The time element

CBT system developers normally punt that: "Independent studies have proven that retention of data improves exponentially from: what we hear, to what we hear and see, to what we hear, see and do".

The problem is that there is just not enough time available to do all of these things. The reality is that the students will only have 30 - 45 minutes of extra time per week.

So taking the slogan of the CBT people, the student has heard already, he has heard and seen in class, and he is now interested to learn how to do. This is where CAI systems are supreme.

This lack of time was incidentally the major driving force behind CAMI's development. Parents brought their children to the maths Clinic for extra lessons and the task of making an immediate and drastic improvement in the marks of pupils was made onerous by the fact that we were given only 30 minutes (or at best, 1 hour) per week as teaching time. Given this fact the CAMI system ultimately became a system that delivered results and delivered them quickly.

Animation and boredom

There seems to be universal acceptance today that a program needs colourful animated characters on screen before a child will use it. In fact, one of our competitors stated that they have "included colourful animations to counter the boredom of conventional drill and practice systems".

The use of animated graphics was discounted in the software design due to the time that it consumes. In the few seconds that it takes for 9 bunnies to hop onto the screen, the learner could have done three more problems.

But the argument about boredom was intriguing. During ongoing research it has been found that children prefer the CAMI systems with its "serious maths" user interface to the funky looking animated systems, and that they become bored with these constructs despite the care and attention given to their design.

When this phenomenon was analysed, it transpired that the animated graphics had a very short period of utility. For the first two or three times, the young child preferred the animated look. But he soon lost interest because the graphics in computer games (Play stations, X Box’s etc) are so life-like that the graphics in the educational systems looked very primitive.

To our amazement however, boredom proved to be a function of the responsiveness of the system. A child has a restless spirit, and he wants to keep moving, keep discovering, maintaining a high level of stimulation and interest. A number of pupils were subjected to different educational systems, and it was soon seen that the fast, responsive systems held the attention span far longer while the slow, animated systems allowed boredom to set in due to their unresponsiveness. The child waiting for a rocket to blast off before he gets the next question, sits and taps his fingers, becoming fidgety and bored in the process.

This is another point to consider when evaluating educational software. Do you really need all that animation? Have you seriously considered all the negative aspects of colourful animation i.e. a waste of precious time and the early onset of boredom.

ANOVA - The analysis of variables

Charl Voster, one of the developers of CAMI is a professional engineer, and engineers prefer to analyse systems in terms of process flow diagrams. The teaching process was thus similarly analysed in accordance with the traditional process flow diagram. Once defined as a process, it became apparent that the productivity and teaching capacity of the system is determined by the throughput, or the work rate, a variable that is measured in "sums done per minute". The CAMI activities then centred on the measurement of this variable and the optimisation and improvement of all the variables that influence the work rate.

Many CBT and ILS systems traditionally require the pupils to complete "ten problems correct in a row" before they are put into another exercise. If they make an error on the ninth one, they have to restart another cycle of ten problems. This was found to have a major psychological impact on the pupils, to the point where they preferred to slow down their work rate to ensure that ten problems are done correctly.

Even worse, the big ILS systems that were designed to automatically remediate, sometimes put the child back into totally unrelated work, thereby demoralising the learners. For example, if a child cannot add two fractions, it is either due to him being unable to find a common denominator, or otherwise, because he cannot determine the equivalent fraction of another fraction. A teacher can make this diagnosis on the spot, but the ILS invariably placed the child into the wrong slot for remedial work.

It slowly dawned that the CBT and ILS systems were actually counterproductive because the computer was trying to substitute the teacher, using (and wasting) valuable time in doing so and that the design of the CAMI software avoided these pitfalls.

The progressive nature of maths

The duration of a lesson in class is approximately 30 minutes. If there are 40 children in class, the teacher will have less than 1 minute per child to answer any questions, let alone progress with new work. So, inevitably the teacher will continue with new work when about 50% of the class understand the previous work, hoping that the rest will catch up through homework.

The problem with this approach is that once the child falls behind it just gets worse and worse because maths is a progressive subject where each year builds on the foundation laid in previous years. A brick wall can illustrate this where the effects of one bad brick in the foundation can cause the collapse of a major section of the wall in subsequent years: And it is so easy to lose a brick through Overcrowding, Noisy classroom, A child that is sick or a daydreamer, Previous teachers that did not complete the curriculum in an earlier year, etc.

A design criteria was then to develop a system that can cross curriculum boundaries, in order to easily remediate or accelerate .

10 years of development - CAI

Having rejected all of the traditional methods of software design for educational software and more specifically, having rejected the "learned opinions" documented in the various textbooks, it was necessary to concentrate on the new method of software design: CAI. There was only one way to do this: empirical observation through practical experimentation.

The children coming to the Maths Clinic for extra maths lessons were closely monitored whilst working on the new software programs over a ten year development period. Their acceptance or rejection of programming steps were closely monitored closely examining their usage of superfluous keystrokes and to study the aspects of boredom.

Particular attention was paid to the mental development of the child, ensuring that effective learning has taken place step by step. In every program that was produced and designed for the "Aha" moment - that moment when the child's face light up and he says "Aha, now I understand this aspect!"

This means that we created a system that was quick responsive re-introducing theory as a non-intrusive context sensitive help system in what we call a dynamic, interactive tutoring system.

When you evaluate educational software, it is necessary to study the mix of the three educational elements: Theory vs. Examples vs. Practice. The worst CBT systems are the so-called "electronic textbooks" where the textual material had merely been transferred to computer. From there onwards, the mix will gradually change as you evaluate different systems until you get to the CAMI system that stands out as a highly effective drill and practice system, with only the vital theory and help systems embedded in it.

In this way, a "racehorse" has been created with a dynamic, interactive tutoring system, which is in reality a one-line context-sensitive Help system. The Help system is thus non-intrusive and minimalist, yet it is fully focused on the task at hand.

Practical testing

Having defined an alternative method of applying computers in the maths classroom and developing programs to suit, it was necessary to test these techniques in practice, external to the CAMI maths laboratory.

A private school, the Tersia King Learning Academy, was the first recipient of CAMI at the end of 1992. Within one term the average marks for maths jumped by 20% and have been steadily improving since.

Another good proof of results happened in 1995. CAMI was installed at the software at the W A Russouw Primary School in Montaque in July of 1995. From then to the end of September's test series, they had used it for 9 weeks, thus each student had only 4 and a half hour's exposure to our system.

When CAMI received their September results, we also requested a copy of their June 1995 results, to quantify the difference. Although the graphic on this page is without scale, the biggest difference was in the Year 5 class where it had jumped by 64% and the average of the school was up by 9.4%.

Conclusion

• Computerised maths tuition is today within reach of many families, but it is the quality of the software that determines the effectiveness of the system.
• CAI programmes allows for mass education of maths making it an attainable reality for all families.
• CAI programs are fast, efficient, effective and productive.
• CAI systems produce the results, and quickly.

 

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