You like the idea, BUT THEN WHAT? - Maplesoft like the idea, BUT THEN WHAT? Maple T.A. content...
Transcript of You like the idea, BUT THEN WHAT? - Maplesoft like the idea, BUT THEN WHAT? Maple T.A. content...
You like the idea, BUT THEN WHAT?Maple T.A. content authoring and implementing at Waterloo
Tonya Noël Online Learning Consultant Centre for Extended Learning
Session Abstract
Between September 2007 and August 2014, more than 100,000 University of Waterloo students completed an assignment inside of Maple T.A. This number continues to grow exponentially as we work together with Maplesoft to improve our fully online and blended courses, develop high school outreach resources, move some of our online math courses to an open space, and create a content authoring tool specifically targeted to those in a STEM-related discipline. This presentation will summarize how we transform ideas into tangible learning objects and discuss some of the implementation challenges we’ve encountered and overcome (or encountered and are still trying to overcome) over the years.
Today’s Agenda
Who we are What we do and How we do it
Implementation challenges
Key Stakeholders
Three groups of people work with Maple T.A at Waterloo: Faculty Champions, Faculty Support Staff, and University Support Staff
Image retrieved online June 11, 2015 from hBp://www.formalofficesuites.com/img/home-‐box2-‐reIna.jpg
Outreach materials use Maple T.A. quizzes in the form of self-‐assessment ac;vi;es students can use to check
their understanding
courseware.cemc.uwaterloo.ca
Some courses allow students to take Maple T.A. prac;ce quizzes before aBempIng their graded assignments.
An increasing number of these quizzes are being posted publicly: open.math.uwaterloo.ca
Some courses/programs include scores on Maple T.A. quizzes as part – or all – of students’ grades
Maple T.A. is used to administer Waterloo’s
Math Readiness Exam to thousands of high school
students every spring
We hope that the upcoming authoring tool will save us development ;me
Usage – students per faculty
Faculty 2007 & 2008 2009 & 2010 2011 & 2012 2013 & 2014* Total
Math 4029 17,450 27,060 12,013 60,552
Science 1436 13,578 12,613 10,778 38,405
Engineering 362 2805 2090 2559 7816
Arts 0 400 407 309 1116
TOTAL 5827 34,233 42,170 25,659 107,889
*Excludes data from fall 2014 term
Thanks to Paul Kates for the data!
Usage – courses per faculty
Faculty 2007 & 2008 2009 & 2010 2011 & 2012 2013 & 2014* Total
Math 13 45 71 33 162
Science 2 32 32 26 92
Engineering 3 11 11 10 35
Arts 0 3 6 5 14
TOTAL 18 91 120 74 303
*Excludes data from fall 2014 term
Thanks to Paul Kates for the data!
Open Site Analytics
cemc.courseware (high school outreach)
open.math (university undergrad)
Sessions to date 62,333 915
Average dura;on 8:06 min 12:43 min
Top 3 countries Canada (80.7%), Trinidad & Tobago (5.4%),
United States (5.2%)
Canada (92.2%), China (3.6%),
United States (1.9%)
Data presented as of June 1, 2015
Why the Drop?
We think there are two reasons numbers dropped: 1. We stopped actively recruiting, and 2. Faculty assignments changed
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What
How
How Support Staff are Trained
DocumentaIon
Ok
USE IT!
Direct support from Maplesob
BeBer
Support for Support Staff
Instructors Support Staff
????????
1
2
3 Both Faculty and University Support
How Support Staff work with Instructors
Both Faculty and University Support
Why Faculty Support is a Good Idea
Avoid redundancy
Quality control
OrganizaIon More Ime for faculty
Early Day Challenges (Getting Buy-in)
1. Steep learning curve 2. Misdirected frustrations
3. Performance rumours
4. Quality concerns with public exam bank
5. Considerable changes between upgrades
Image retrieved online June 11, 2015 from hBp://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Emoji_u1f44d.svg
Resource Challenges
1. Success leads to more work 2. It takes time to learn/train 3. It takes time to “do more”
4. Younger employees might not ask enough questions
Design Challenges
1. Number of parameters 2. Level of difficulty 3. Sufficient amount of feedback
4. Blind trust from subject matter experts
Technical Challenges
1. “Annoying little things
2. No syntax highlighting
3. Can’t comment the back-end code 4. Can’t edit Maple worksheets
directly in T.A.
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Questions?
Tonya Noël [email protected]
https://ca.linkedin.com/in/tonyanoel
Paul Kates *Sean Scott
Mark (Stu) Stewart Stephen Tosh
Rachael Verbruggen *Tim Zhou
-- Carey Bissonnette
*Steve Furino Firas Mansour