Introduction to the AIM WeBWorK Workshop

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Introductionto the AIMWeBWorK Workshop

• Davide Cervone
• Michael Gage
• Arnold Pizer
• Vicki Roth
• Eleanna Tsoumani

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Outline

• Overview Why are we here?
• WW adopters How are they different?
• WeBWorK assessment What do we know?
• Specific mechanisms How do we get to our goals?

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Overview Why are we here?

• To make WeBWorK more usable by a greater number
  and wider variety of users

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WW adopters How are they different?Categories
of adopters (Rogers, 1983 Mahajan et al, 1990
Mahajan et al, 1998)
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WW adopters How are they different?Categories
of adopters (Peterson, 1973 Mahajan et al, 1990
Mahajan et al, 1998)
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WeBWorK student assessment What do we know?

• Positive the top of the list
• Immediate feedback
• High homework completion rates
• Negative the top of the list
• Syntax
• No partial grade
• Resubmission still an issue

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WeBWorK instructor assessment What do we know?

• Documentation (online, tutorials, community
  member communication, installation)
• Installation
• Problem library (organized by topic and linked to
  textbooks)
• Code for authoring problems
• Ranking system for problems
• Little or no IT support / Little programming
  knowledge
• More sophisticated problems (algorithmic steps,
  graphical representations, more interactive)

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Specific mechanisms How do we get to our goals?

• Ease of language MathObjects
• More interactive and sophisticated math problems
  Flash
• Documentation and Examples

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Todays Schedule

• Monday, August 6
• 830-855 Coffee, tea
• __________________________________________________
  _____________________________________
• Session 1 Introduction to the Workshop
• 900-1000 AIM Staff Welcome and Info
• Michael Gage Welcome
• Vicki Roth Overview and goals of the workshop
• Eleanna Tsoumani Feedback from evaluation
  process
• Arnold Pizer Todays schedule
• 1010-1110 Davide Cervone MathObjects and how to
  use them (compare old and new)
• 1120-1200 Michael Gage Computer set up (hook
  up to wireless, connect to Moodle, etc.)
• Arnold Pizer
• __________________________________________________
  ____________________________________
• 1200-130 Lunch (at AIM)
• __________________________________________________
  ____________________________________
• Session 2 Authoring problems using MathObjects
• 130-500 Small Groups Exercise Collection of
  existing problems to be rewritten using
• MathObjects
• -Groups of 2 or 3 per computer

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Block Schedule for Tuesday through Friday