ModelCourseDescription

Main PREP Page > Model Course Description

Model Course Description

This description stems from the web conference discussion on 12/14/2011.

We suggest that our model courses will consist, loosely, of several interrelated parts:

• A wiki or web page that describes the topics that are covered by the model course, with links to set definition and set header files. The files that may be associated with these are indicated below. These pages are in progress: College Algebra; Trigonometry; Calculus 1; Multivariate Calculus; Linear Algebra; Math for Elementary Education
  • Set definition files and headers 1: These should give the problems for each topic and information about that collection of problems which is useful for evaluating the problems. The goal of this group of files is to provide users with a "refined NPL" that allows an instructor to browse and evaluate a restricted set of NPL problems that are clearly defined and specific to a course and topic.
  • Set definition files and headers 2: These should give the homework sets for specific course-syllabi, or specific textbooks. The goal of these files is to provide users with a (starting point) for the homework sets in the course that they would teach. Ideally, we would have several of these for different syllabi (e.g., quarters, semesters) and textbooks.
• A model course in a WeBWorK installation: this would be a course such as those with which we are currently working, and would serve to allow users to browse the problems and problem sets to see what the actual problems are. These are, essentially, the WeBWorK courses that we have in progress: College Algebra; Calculus I; Calculus II; Multivariate Calculus; Linear Algebra; Math for Elementary Education
• (eventually) A set of polished model courses in the SVN, e.g., in a .../courses SVN tree, which could be checked out into the courses directory of a WeBWorK installation. This would give WeBWorK users an updated version of all of the set definition and header files described above, and would result in a course that would show up in the "Copy Templates from" drop-down menu when they are creating new courses.

Timeline

To develop these model courses, our goals are:

• To get the topic set definitions on the wiki as we move into next semester
• To get the polished versions of those up as the year moves on
• To get the SVN repository up later in the year

Obviously, the accomplishment of these goals will have some flexibility to accomodate the time that we all have available.