Aaprender: Combining on-line training and virtual learning environments to improve problem solving skills

We have developed a new version of an online training system that allows students to foster their ability to solve problems. The students receive on-time feedback linked with small tutorials and virtual learning environments such as active simulators. The system presents to the student a set of problems, designed by a professor, with five possible answers: the correct one and four distracters. The system allows sharing tests banks and didactic resources among courses and professors and also keeps track of student performance. We present the software system architecture and discuss the problems and distracters design. We have tested the software using a sample of 121 undergraduate students taking physics courses and we show that the students using the software have a larger average learning-gain than those students who did not use it.