Students supplementing classroom learning with computer tutorials is nothing new.
This will be especially helpful for students in the introductory classes, since students who do not quickly master basic skills are sometimes left behind, and become passive observers of material they do not understand. His initial goal, says Butz, was to create a compelling multimedia program incorporating film clips, audio, text and graphics to provide supplemental instruction for students in his introductory electrical engineering class. Current programs have more explicit knowledge of the subject matter being taught and can give expanded explanations to the user. Once it has gathered enough information about the student's learning patterns, it modifies its questions to focus on what the student understands least. Butz expects the software program to be ready for beta testing at approximately 10 colleges, universities and community colleges by September 2002, and the software to be distributed nationally in 2003.