WeBWorK Problems

"Try Another with solution" option version 10?

"Try Another with solution" option version 10?

by tim Payer -
Number of replies: 7
Hello all,

We (two instructors at HSU) have just completed our first semester using WeBWoRK with our first semester calculus courses. The feedback from the students was mostly positive, but the one criticism that was repeated from our students was that webwork (in its current form) does not have an option for elaborating on the solving procedure required for a given problem when a student gets "stuck".

As an instructor I can't help but prompt the students to read their notes as virtually every problem assigned to the homework sets has a parallel  problem that was covered in class. Still many students wanted at least one of the following options for the tougher problem sets in webwork:

1.) A link to a short video that shows a lecture on the solving procedure of a very similar problem.

2.) an option to "try another with solution" where the solution with step by step instructions are shown for a similar problem. Then after digesting this they try a similar version of the problem with the wording and the coefficients altered.

First, I know that the instructions for uploading video links was shown in the Problem authoring course, and I have only to review the lecture notes and video on this to make this work.

But it is the second option that I am most interested in.

Given that we have written extensive algorithmic solutions for each of the 337 problems assigned for our calculus students, is there a way that we can allow students to see just one of these solutions for a specific seed value in a link, but then require the student to solve the problem for a different seed value in their homework. The solution link would still have to show the student's solution for the seed value that they attempted after the homework assignment was closed.

Thanks, Tim
In reply to tim Payer

Re: "Try Another with solution" option version 10?

by Alex Jordan -
Hello Tim,

Item 2) is actually pretty easy to enact if you have a more recent version of WeBWorK. See here for an early blog about Show Me Another. Some details of how it can be operated (relating to set definition files) have probably changed, but the overall tool is still there, and mainly controlled through the Course Configuration menu and problem by problem settings in a Set Details page. You can make it so that students push a button, get a new version of the problem (assuming randomization allows for a new version) and then depending on your settings, they can see the walk through solution for the new version. [The original version remains the one which must be done for credit.]

For item 1), I advise you to think hard before you insert video links into actual problem files. Doing that might hurt the usability of the problem files in the future. Also such things won't make it into the OPL, and if problem code is improved in the OPL, any problems that you have local versions of won't benefit from that. 

We have inserted such video links (and pdf links, web site links) into set header files instead. For pre-college courses, we maintain a collection of set definition and set header files for our faculty to use (and they can customize from there if they want.)

At one point, I thought about some way to automate using a problem's metadata to point to appropriate videos at Khan, etc. Maybe some day we can figure that puzzle out too.
In reply to Alex Jordan

Re: "Try Another with solution" option version 10?

by tim Payer -
Thank you Alex 

for the reply and link.

But as we are currently using the free-trial version of Webwork V2.10 it seems That the option for "Show me Another" is only available for Webwork V2.11 ?

Is this the case?

 We feel fairly seasoned now, so maybe we will forgo the last semester of the free-trail and move up to Webwork V2.11 for this feature.

Tim
In reply to tim Payer

Re: "Try Another with solution" option version 10?

by Alex Jordan -
Show Me Another was released with 2.10. Do you see Show Me Another configuration options in your Course Config menu? I think they are in the PG/Answer Display submenu.

For 2.11, there will be a few things different with the default behavior when there is no value for a problem's SMA attempt threshold, after we noticed some less-than-ideal default settings. Also since Geoff designed the version 2 set definition files.



In reply to Alex Jordan

Re: "Try Another with solution" option version 10?

by tim Payer -
Hi Alex,

Okay yes I found the "Show Me Another" option under the course configuration menu and PG answer sub menu. However I am still not getting the button of Show me another to fully display.

Can you see what I have not yet done?

Trouble shooting:

1.)  The Show me another button has been turned on: "False" changed to "True".
2.)  The SMAcheckAnswers, SMAshowSolutions, SMAshowCorrect, SMAshowHints,
 options have all been checked.
3.) The homework assignment has been reopened.
4.)  There is an existing algorithmic solution written for all the assigned problems.
5.)  I have entered "-1" , for unlimited, and also 3 for the  of attempts for the show me another solution can be shown.

In each attempt: 

I can see the grayed out inactive "Show me another" button in the problem display. But it never shows an active blue button for which to check a parallel solution. Also the problem is not registering my attempts.

Do you see where I might have missed something here?

Tim
In reply to tim Payer

Re: "Try Another with solution" option version 10?

by Michael Gage -
Is the "submit answer" button active or only the "check answer" button?  Do you have the open and due dates set appropriately?  Just a thought
In reply to tim Payer

Re: "Try Another with solution" option version 10?

by Alex Jordan -
Is your item 5) only referring to a number from the Course Configuration menu? Because you also must make settings in the Set Details page for the set (or have those settings built into the set definition file before importing the set.)

There are two numbers which can take values {-1, 0, 1, 2, ... }.
  • In the Course Configuration, there is a number like this I'll call the "cap". This caps how many times a student can use SMA (per problem). So with 0, they can never use SMA. With something like 2 here, you might be worried about students seeing 10 versions of the same problem and deducing some pattern from the answers. And then they enter a correct answer into the version that counts for credit without having learned what they were supposed to. I'm not personally worried about that with the problems we use, so I set this to -1 for no cap.
  • In the problem set's Set Details page, you still turn on/off SMA for each problem using another number, which I'll call the "threshold". The original purpose of this is so that you can just turn it off problem by problem. You might do this if you had multiple choice questions, because SMA will simply show them the same question with the options in a different order, and give away the answer to the version that is for credit. As long as we were making an option like this, we decided to make it fancier. So first, having -1 for a problem means SMA is just not available for that problem. But then having 0, 1, 2, 3, etc. means that the student must attempt the problem that many times (with the submit button) before SMA is available. You could use 0 if you just want it immediately available [what I typically use]. Or you might use something like 3 if you want them to struggle more with the original version before getting access to SMA.

    Setting the threshold numbers for each problem in a set that already exists might be a pain if it is a large set. You can store these settings in a set definition file once you have set them once. 
I believe you get grayed out buttons in two scenarios. One is that you have not yet submitted an answer enough times to meet the threshold. Another is that you have already used SMA as many times as the cap. In either case, I believe that hovering the mouse over the grayed out button should reveal why it is currently grayed out. I'm guessing you ended up with threshold values that are greater than 0, and so if you visit those problems and submit a few times, the button will become available. Or you can reduce the thresholds to 0. Also, if it appears that the thresholds are blank when you go to visit the Set Details page, it may be that some system default of 2 or 3 is in use.




In reply to Alex Jordan

Re: "Try Another with solution" option version 10?

by tim Payer -
Thank you Alex and David!

Yes it is working now. 

it may have been an a refresh of my browser that was required, or that I had exceeded the threshold of attempts?

In any case it is working smoothly now.
Thanks so much, this will be  big improvement for next semester.

Tim