GoodProblems

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Heuristics

• Problems have a clear sense of what they are trying to do (e.g., develop skills, develop understanding, evaluate student understanding, etc.)
• Problems follow Best Practices
• Problems have "nice enough" numbers
• The problems are clean and clear (and well-written)
  • It is clear from the problem what answer is expected of the student
• The concepts that are being communicated and evaluated are clear
• They have hints and solutions: support for students who are stuck or who lack other support structures
• The written solutions inform the manner in which the problem is framed
• They are stable and well tested
• The problem has a clear learning objective, e.g., as a COMMENT()
  • The problem is written to promote students' accomplishment of the learning objective
• Problems are accessible to screen readers and other accessibility tools
  • The problems provide a good idea of what is being asked when a hardcopy is generated (drop down messages, colors on graphs, graph scaling, and table size)

• Add some sort of ranking system in the NPL
• NPL branching: should/could there be a curated version of the NPL that would try to eliminate duplication? What standards could we use? (This list of heuristics, or a rubric score?)

Observation: it may be possible to group these into categories:

• Technical issues (numerical values, available solutions, etc.)
• Functional issues (clear learning objective, etc.)

Rubric

Problem Type	Problem Should Have	Problem Should Not Have
Skill/practice (e.g., find derivative)
Conceptual/multipart

Alternate formulation

Problem Type	Problem Should Have	Problem Should Not Have
Fill in the blank/Select an answer
Numerical
Formula