PREP 2011 Web Conference III

Prep Main Page > Web Conference 3

Web-Conference 3:

Date: June 9, 3-5pm EDT

Presenters: Jason Aubrey, Dick Lane, Gavin LaRose

Residual problem authoring questions.
1. e.g., critical points of f(x) = x + 1/x: [example 1] [example 2] [example 3]
Follow-up on good problem rubric: additional questions and comments.
Follow-up discussion on NPL: in particular, clarifications on how to search for problems, what data are available about NPL problems, and how this plays out in practice.
Model course discussion:
1. What information we need to include in a model course
2. How it should be organized and stored
3. How problems that are newly authored for this are managed differently from NPL problems used for the course
4. How closely or uniquely tied to a specific textbook a model course is
5. How to adapt textbook problems to WeBWorK: what makes a good (or bad) adaptation
Develop an outline for model course construction (e.g., within a group, how the group can manage the distribution of the work as it's been articulated)

Each problem group works on one assignment for their course, including some problems drawn from the NPL and some written new
- For NPL problems: look for a problem that is essentially the same as one that is in the text that is being used, and also look for a problem that is on the right topic and has the right flavor---e.g., on finding cubic polynomials, or finding the extrema of a one or two parameter family of functions.
Each problem group works on the wiki/outline/information for their course

pre-populate model course wiki page with appropriate information
- start out with a preliminary NPL or WeBWorK wiki structure for model courses: how are the data defining the course, its syllabus, and the homework sets managed
add to the good problem wiki page(s) information from previous week's work
pre-populate wiki page(s) giving some information about the NPL