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4+1 projects at WPI

4+1 projects at WPI

by Dick Lane -
Number of replies: 6
Item 3 of a recent post by Mike Gage
        http://webwork.maa.org/moodle/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=2730#p6046
led me to discover several more interesting projects.

Facilitating WeBWorK Problem Authoring
        http://www.wpi.edu/Pubs/E-project/Available/E-project-043012-012254/
        https://sites.google.com/site/wpiwebworkguitutorial/

WebWork Problems for Statistics I
        http://www.wpi.edu/Pubs/E-project/Available/E-project-030211-210830/

Designing Webwork Problems for Applied Statistics II
        http://www.wpi.edu/Pubs/E-project/Available/E-project-042811-152813/

WeBWorK Tutorials For Statistics II
        http://www.wpi.edu/Pubs/E-project/Available/E-project-022812-132522/

Note: the WPI links are to cover pages in their Electronic Projects Collection.  Those pages, in turn, link to a project report and to at least one supplemental resource.  Thanks to Joseph Petruccelli who was faculty advisor for all 4 projects (and to Mike for the heads-up).

Several reports refer to ASSISTments, another online homework system --- developed at WPI and CMU
        http://www.assistments.org/
        http://teacherwiki.assistment.org/
        http://www.scienceassistments.org/
In reply to Dick Lane

Re: 4+1 projects at WPI

by Vicki Roth -
Dick--I think we're following the same interesting trail.  I had just discovered all of these intriguing WPI projects while we were at work during the Rochester code camp.  (It was time to do an update of our publications list online.)

I've corresponded a bit with Joseph Petruccelli since I wanted him to know how impressed we were with his students' work.

The whole ASSISTments line of thinking should make us pay attention, especially since they have some evidence that a little tutoring help online works better than just immediate feedback alone.
In reply to Vicki Roth

Re: 4+1 projects at WPI

by Dick Lane -
Vicki --- I'm especially interested that two projects (... for stat I, Tutorials ...) designed their work with explicit reference to a learning model (Fading, backwards or forwards).  Perhaps recent work (both at WPI and the Rochester code camp) on macros for compound problems together with simplified ways to provide custom feedback will let us inch into providing a smidgen more tutorial help.

ASSISTments is one of several open-source projects with ideas that I hope we can adapt.  [I'm drafting a separate posting about that.]
In reply to Dick Lane

Re: 4+1 projects at WPI

by Vicki Roth -
I'm happy to hear that you are interested in this line of work.  Maybe we could come up with a defined project to move this idea forward a bit.
In reply to Dick Lane

Re: 4+1 projects at WPI

by Yoav Freund -
Is the code for WebWork Problems for Statistics I:

http://www.wpi.edu/Pubs/E-project/Available/E-project-030211-210830/

Available in the National Problem Library? There is a "supplement" directory on the publication site that has the .pg files and one macro file, but the .pg files ask for more, specifically, a macro called package.pl

Yoav

In reply to Yoav Freund

Re: 4+1 projects at WPI

by Michael Gage -
That file seems to be missing from the zip file provided on the WPI site.
(Is it possible that this file was renamed improvedCompound.pl?).  Other than that suggestion I would recommend getting in touch with the students and the professor at WPI to find the missing file.

You can use .pl files in a single course by uploading those files to your course's macro directory.  Files in this directory are found first so you can also override standard .pl files (on a file by file basis -- the mechanism is not smart enough to override single subroutines). 

*.pm files cannot be changed by individual instructors. For security reasons they can only be changed by the site administrator.

There are many of us who are very interested in this project of creating one or more compoundProblem / sequential problem macros that makes this type of problem easier to write.

Please keep us informed.
In reply to Michael Gage

Re: 4+1 projects at WPI

by Yoav Freund -
After I got some macro files from Prof. Petruccelli, I managed to run the .pg scripts I downloaded from his web page. I now have a working configuration on my WebWork page: https://courses.webwork.maa.org/webwork2/ucsd-cse103/
and I would be happy to add it to the national library if I only knew how to do that ;)

Yoav