Around half of all university students in Germany pursue a degree that involves mathematics. Many of them encounter significant difficulties, and dropout rates are high. While measures taken over the past decades have often been locally successful, they have hardly changed the overall situation. Possible reasons include a lack of individualization, binding structures, and coherence in the support offerings, as well as insufficient integration into the respective degree programs.
The HALMA project aims to explicitly anchor binding, individually tailored, and subject-coherent pathways in the curriculum that are adapted to competency profiles and study objectives. Its related goals are: (1) establishing a foundation of mandatory offerings to ensure study-readiness relevant to professional fields; (2) revising mathematics curricula based on expected school-level knowledge and geared toward the specific requirements of degree programs; (3) strengthening mathematics offerings relevant to specific professional fields; and (4) individualizing instruction. Achieving these goals requires a fundamental structural transformation of the teaching architecture in the participating degree programs.
HALMA involves an agile, evidence-based process with the participation of everyone involved in the teaching and learning process — from both mathematics and the relevant subject areas. The Competence Center for University Mathematics Didactics (khdm), as an institution with experience and an international network, will coordinate this process and advise on the measures.