We thought about it at the Vancouver code camp and Arnie Pizer helped us outline how it could be implemented. He suggested we post here to see what the community thinks, and especially to see if anyone brings any further considerations. We also emailed Peter Staab about this, and his expertise may make it happen long before we (being pretty new to all this) can make it happen.
- In the Hmwk Manager/Editor editor there would be a third data field for each problem after Weight and Max Attempts. For now, call it 'Show How' although we may need a better name.
- 'Show How' would be -1 by default to not use the feature.
- If Show Another were n >= 0, then once a student had used n attempts on that problem, their problem screen would get a new button (perhaps next to Email Instructor). For now, call this button 'Show How'. Also, may the button becomes enabled once they have a correct answer regardless of attempts.
- Pushing this button, one of two things happens depending on a setting in the Course Configuration.
- In a new tab, a re-seeded version of the problem appears. Regardless of due date, for this version, the student can see everything, including the walk-through solution if it exists.
- In a new tab, the original version of the problem appears. Regardless of due date, for this version, the student can see everything, including the walk-through solution. In this case the student gets a new seed for the problem that counts for credit.
- From the problem editor, we can already cause a newly seeded version of a problem to appear in a new tab, complete with a record of its seed for answer checking.
- The parameters that let professors see previews of solutions before due dates could be used too.
- This has to be something enabled problem by problem. While a global setting could be there too, there are too many problems for which this would be entirely inappropriate.
- We might want a course configuration parameter that prevents students from using this button too many times. If they push it too many times and randomization is weak, they'll get enough of a record to have been given the solution of whatever counts for credit at the moment.
- Under the setting that students keep the originally assigned problem, the new problem they get to see could be forced to use a fixed seed, say 1234.
- It should be crystal clear to the student that the new version does not count for credit, even though it would still have answer checking.
- The button should not appear until the Show-Another-number-of-attempts has been used (or possibly once the student has 100% credit).
- The data field in the Homework Editor seems to allow space for this without cluttering it up.
- The setting of which type of Show me Another is employed really should be in the course configuration (not problem by problem or set by set), since employing both for different problems or different sets could confuse students.
- While we'd eventually like the Show Another parameter to be saved in set definition files, that might be something to hold off on at first until the proof of concept is up.