View article

To promote student learning in a relearning situation in university-level mathematics, we developed the learning method TAU (Think Ask Understand). TAU provides support (i.e. a role script) for students’ interaction during a collaborative problem-solving phase at the beginning of the learning process, while content-related instruction is delayed until a subsequent phase. As the contents targeted in university-level mathematics are complex, withholding instruction will most likely result in students’ failure to solve problems, even in relearning situations. However, there is reason to believe (e.g. Kapur, Instr Sci 38(6):523–550, 2009) that due to their collaborative grappling with the contents, students will be better prepared to benefit from the subsequent instruction phase and thus ultimately learn more than students who receive instruction right at the beginning. In a four-week, in vivo experiment …