Individualized exercises for continuous assessment in engineering

Individualized exercises for continuous assessment in engineering 7th Teaching & Education Conference, London S. Pineda 1, N. Alguacil 2, J. P´erez-Ruiz 1, S. Mart´ın 1, A. Ruiz 1 1University of M´alaga (Spain) 2University of Castilla-La Mancha (Spain) May 21, 2019 1 / 20 Funding This work has been supported by ”I Plan Propio Integral de Docencia” at the University of M´alaga 2 / 20 Continuous assessment at University 4Early indications of the performance of students 4Increased sense of inclusiveness 4Higher learning standards for all students 6Increase of professor working load 6Greater study pressure 6Risk of plagiarism 3 / 20 Online teaching platforms It reduces the professor working load by providing feedback to students automatically It alleviates the study pressure since students can decide where and when to use these platforms There exist ways to reduce the plagiarism by proposing exercises whose numerical solutions are different for each student Moodle 4Free and open-source learning management system written in PHP 4Already integrated in several public universities 6Complex operations not allowed 6IT support required to implement changes 4 / 20 Development of web application Goal: automatic assessment of individualized exercises Requirements: Capable of solving complex engineering problems (integrals, derivatives, system of equations, complex numbers, etc.) Flexible enough to implement changes according to students and professors needs Programming language with a smooth learning curve so that IT support is not required Decision: Python: a high-level, general-purpose programming language Django: a Python-based free and open-source web framework 5 / 20 Previous steps 1Divide the course in a series of blocks or didactic units with different learning objectives 2Propose a series of exercises for each block ordered from lower to higher difficulty 3Propose several questions for each exercise and the points obtained by the student if answered correctly 4Write down each exercise formulation with some data depending on parameters α, β, γ, . . . (different for each student) 5Write down the Python code that provides the solution to each exercise for given parameters α, β, γ, . . . 6 / 20 Example of exercise and code 7 / 20 Use of exercises in class Solved by professor: some of the exercises are solved in class by the professor using different values of parameters α, β, γ, . . . . Students have to solve the same problem using the same procedure but with different data. Proposed in class: other exercises are proposed to be solved in class by each student with the help of the professors and the rest of students. If a student has solved correctly the proposed exercise, she can offer help to other students who have not finished yet. Proposed as homework: other exercises are proposed as homework to be solved by each student at home without any help. The student can check whether the solution is correct or not using the web application. 8 / 20 Features of web application (student) Student can check whether a solution to a problem is correct at any time from any place If a question is answered correctly, the student gets the corresponding points Each student can check the total obtained points and her position in the class ranking Each student must answer correctly a percentage of the questions of block 1 (decided by each professor) to be able to check her answers to the questions of block 2. There is a maximum number of tries to answer each question (decided by each professor). If this limit is exceeded, the student can still check whether the answer is correct but she gets no points for it. 9 / 20 Impact: use of web application Course # Exercises # Students # Correct answers EC 175 1505 329495 PS1 62 127 10300 PS2 25 54 2649 Table: Use of web application 16 / 20 Impact: grades ’14+’15+’16 ’17 Use of web application 63 Non attendance rate of enrolled students 12% 22% Pass rate of students attending the exam 24% 64% Pass rate of enrolled students 21% 50% Table: Impact of web application on grades 17 / 20 Impact: student survey (a) The webapp has helped me to work daily on the course (b) The application has helped me to understand concepts of the subject (c) The application is a good preparation for the exam (d) I would recommend the application to other students of this subject Figure: Survey results (5: totally agree, 1: totally disagree) 18 / 20 Conclussions We present a teaching innovation project based on the development of a web application to continuously assess the learning at engineering university courses The web application has been tested in 2 universities and 4 courses. More than 1600 students have used the application and almost 340000 questions have been already answered correctly The use of individualized exercises motivates students to study on a regular basis, increases their understanding of the subject and increase the rate of student who pass the course Surprisingly, the class ranking drastically increased student participation 19 / 20 Thanks for the attention! Questions? [email protected] 20 / 20