PREP 2011 Web Conference I

Prep 2011 Main Page > Web Conference 1

Web-Conference 1: Introduction, background information

Date: May 26, 2011; 2-4pm EDT

Presenters: Jason Aubrey, Gavin LaRose, Paul Pearson

Resources

What a WeBWorK Problem Is

Conference Problem Authoring Document

Main PREP_2011 WeBWorK Course

Notes from the Web Conference

media:Webwork-PREP-2011-Webconference1-Slides.pdf (the last page has links to other resources)

media:WeBWorK_Problem_Authoring_Tutorial.pdf‎

Agenda

1. Introduce presenters
2. Outline of goals
   1. develop participants' technical skills to create and identify high-quality WeBWorK problems
   2. create a broadly useful and appropriate library of problems and homework problem sets for different undergraduate mathematics courses
   3. frame and initiate the development of assessment and development tools for the existing WeBWorK National Problem Library (NPL)
3. Overview of the remainder of the workshop:
   1. Web workshop 2 (good problems) - June 2?
   2. Web workshop 3 (model courses & NPL problems) - June 9?
   3. Web workshop 4 (web conference wrap-up, NPL curation, pre-Carriage House workshop logistics) - June 16?
   4. Carriage House workshop: 23-26 June
   5. Post-workshop web conference
4. Wiki: this page and surrounds. We will be developing this in the course of the workshop.
5. Problem groups:
   1. Need to frame these from poll results.
6. Problem Authoring
   1. What a WeBWorK Problem Is
   2. Introduction to Problem Authoring [This should the bulk of the conference.]
7. Group authoring--comments on how to do this, observations about how to make it work
8. NPL: Explore in the sample WeBWorK course

Conference material

• Project description, dates and requirements
  • Goals: 1. develop participants' technical skills to create and identify high-quality WeBWorK problems, 2. create a broadly useful and appropriate library of problems and homework problem sets for different undergraduate mathematics courses, and 3. frame and initiate the development of assessment and development tools for the existing WeBWorK National Problem Library (NPL)
  • Dates: webconference dates:
    • 1: 26 May; 2 - ; 3 - ; 4 -
    • Carriage house dates: 23-26 June
  • Requirements:

1. There will be some work to be done between the web conferences
2. Attend web conferences as much as possible
3. Attend Carriage House worksohp

• Wiki & Course: Go through exploring what we have for the wiki pages and work course
• Set up problem groups, provide work course in which each group can work
• Technical skills and knowledge to be covered:
  • Problem authoring tutorials and resources
    • Basic editing: we cannot assume that everyone comes in knowing Basic Problem Authoring
    • Index of Problem Techniques
    • Subject Area Templates
  • Discussion of problem authoring, MathObjects and Context
• Set up a work model for creating problems: have a problem authored by one person, handed off for review and modification by another
• Explore NPL enough that participants can explore it to provide base for critiques and directions for improvement

Assignment for next web-conference

• Find 2-4 problems in the NPL that we "like," in the sense of being "good" problems, for the first assignment in each model course.
• Draft WeBWorK problems that model each of the following (or find a similar problem that the participant has already authored for WeBWorK)
  • Find the equation of the parabola through (0,1), (1,0) and (2,0).
  • Identify all points where the function f(x) = |x| + |x-1| is non-differentiable.
  • Determine if the function f(x) = sin(x^3)/x is positive, negative, or zero, and increasing, decreasing, or neither at x=2.
  • Find all critical points of g(x) = x + 1/x.
• Read two papers on effective problems
  • R. Hubbard, Thinking about the question we ask our students, International Journal of Mathematical Education in Science and Technology (1994) 25(5):717-725
  • D. Rohrer & K. Taylor, The shuffling of mathematics problems improves learning, Instructional Science (2007) 35:481-489.