Re: What's in an expression?
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- Subject: [mg132432] Re: What's in an expression?
- From: W Craig Carter <ccarter at MIT.EDU>
- Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2014 03:11:51 -0400 (EDT)
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I've been working on a system which is a hybrid of open-ended programming and multiple choice. See below about how I am trying to incorporate multiple choice. I teach a physical sciences course, and use Mathematica to teach physical scientists math, programming, and visualization skills. The method must scale to a large number of students. The notebooks have several parts: 1) visualization and explanation of a =93hard" some physical problem. 2) exemplary programming examples as part of smaller consecutive steps to solve the hard problem. 3) programing challenges: steps the students must do themselves to progress to the rest of the problem. These are supplemented with a password protected exemplary coding technique. After the students have attempted the challenge and succeeded or failed, then they are given a password which gives them a step by step example. The purpose of this is that the system can continue as the rest of the exercise depends on solving (creating functions, etc) earlier parts. The method is successful. This is from my personal bias and not assessed as yet. The following is where I would grateful accept some help or ideas. However, I find that the students often just click through the instructional parts and example coding. I need to find a way to slow them down so they read; this is where the multiple choice comes in. What I would like is that subsequent cells are opened programmatically only if they get a multiple choice question right. This comes from a cross post question in http://community.wolfram.com/groups/-/m/t/210810?p_p_auth=a1ZC6aN3. Here is a cooked up example of what I want to do: DialogInput[ Column[{ "What is 3 times 2?", TabView[{3 -> Tooltip["Wrong", "Oh you are just being silly"], Exp[3] -> "Wrong", 6 -> DefaultButton["Correct", = DialogReturn[openClosedCell[=93celltag"];True]], Cos[Pi/6] -> "Note quite", "VI" -> DefaultButton["Tu sunt rectam, sed asinus sapien.", DialogReturn[openClosedCell[=93celltag"];True], ImageSize -> Full]}, None] } ], Modal -> True]; I don=92t have openClosedCell[=93cell tag=94] working yet, but I hope its purpose is obvious. The next problem is that I need to embed this into a button that students can use to proceed; something like (although save your work, because you may need several aborts or quit your kernel). Button["Press Here to Continue", DialogInput[ Column[{ "What is 3 times 2?", TabView[{3 -> Tooltip["Wrong", "Oh you are just being silly"], Exp[3] -> "Wrong", 6 -> DefaultButton["Correct", DialogReturn[True]], Cos[Pi/6] -> "Note quite", "VI" -> DefaultButton["Tu sunt rectam, sed asinus sapien.", DialogReturn[True], ImageSize -> Full]}, None] } ], Modal -> True]; ] I have one answer on Math Community that I haven't worked through yet. Thanks, Craig W Craig Carter Professor of Materials Science, MIT On Mar 12, 14, at 3:29 AM, Murray Eisenberg <murray at math.umass.edu> wrote: > On certain strictly symbol-manipulation questions, giving a > multiple-choice question can give too much of a clue as to the correct > answer. This is most especially the case with symbolic integration, > where the student need only differentiate each of the possible answers > and compare with the integrand. > > Getting students to explain, even to organize, their work, is often like > pulling teeth. Terrific if one can do it. > > Certainly the ideal is not just to have students explain what they're > doing and why, but to given them much meatier problems. The reality, > especially in the mass-enrollment calculus courses today, is that > there's too often inadequate resources for reading such written work, > whether on paper or in Mathematica documents. Just the paper-shuffling > (or file-shuffling) is often out of the question. > > In any case, the questioner was asking about testing a basic symbolic > skill, and for that having the student just provide an answer is often > sufficient. > > If a contemporary on-line homework system is being used, then the > instructor can even include a couple of questions in an assignment where > the student, using a palette or keyboard shortcuts for special symbols, > types out an explanation; such a system makes it easy for the instructor > (or TA or other human grader) to go right through all the students' work > in a very efficient manner, without having to handle paper while doing > so and, especially, not have all the time-wasting distraction of handing > papers back in class. > > On Mar 11, 2014, at 3:37 AM, djmpark <djmpark at comcast.net> wrote: > >> You could have multiple choice questions, or you could use pattern > matching >> with alternatives that you would hope would catch the acceptable > answers. >> >> But why not, in this day and age, give students something better? Why > not >> have the students write short mathematical essays in notebook form on >> various topics where they might explain how they got an answer and the >> principles behind it? Of course, that means the teacher would have to >> actually read the notebooks, and the student would also have to learn how to >> write readable and clear presentations. >> >> >> David Park >> djmpark at comcast.net >> http://home.comcast.net/~djmpark/index.html >> >> >> >> From: sam.takoy at yahoo.com [mailto:sam.takoy at yahoo.com] >> >> >> Hi all, >> >> I'm building a little Mathematica system that checks answers entered > by >> students. Suppose the question is "what is Sin'[x]?" ad the student >> responds: Sin'[x] which is "correct", but not the intended answer > (Cos[x]). >> I'm wondering if there is a general way to approach this sort of > problem. In >> particular, is there a way to find out whether a given expression > includes >> certain elements (like Derivative)? >> >> Thank you in advance, >> >> Sam >> >> > > Murray Eisenberg murray at math.umass.edu > Mathematics & Statistics Dept. > Lederle Graduate Research Tower phone 240 246-7240 (H) > University of Massachusetts > 710 North Pleasant Street > Amherst, MA 01003-9305 > > > > > > >
- References:
- Re: What's in an expression?
- From: "djmpark" <djmpark@comcast.net>
- Re: What's in an expression?
- From: Murray Eisenberg <murray@math.umass.edu>
- Re: What's in an expression?