When faculty use one or more problets in their courses,
they could do so within the structure of a controlled test. In a controlled test,
the faculty would go through the following sequence of steps:
- Pre-Test: Faculty would administer a pre-test on the topic of the problet to assess
how much students already know about the topic. The pre-test could be administered
on paper or on-line. A typical pre-test may take 8-10 minutes.
- Practice: Faculty would randomly split the class into two groups, and assign one group
to practice with the problet, and the other group to practice with a printed workbook
or an alternative configuration of the problet (such as no feedback). The practice session
may take 10-15 minutes.
- Post-Test: Faculty would now administer a post-test, which is similar to the pre-test,
to assess whether using the problets helped students learn the material.
A typical post-test may take 8-10 minutes. It could be administered
on paper or on-line.
- Feedback: Finally, students would be asked to fill out a form to provide feedback
about the practice instrument they had used. (4-5 minutes)
Controlled tests may be conducted synchronously within a computer laboratory where
every student has access to a computer, or asynchronously on-line, as long as
it can be verified that students who are taking the test are signed up for the course.
If you are interested in conducting a controlled test of one or more problets in your class,
please contact Amruth Kumar to
obtain copies of pre-test, post-test, practice workbook and feedback forms.
If you are not able to conduct controlled tests in your institution,
you may still be able to
help us at the problets project by gathering feedback (formal, informal, anecdotal) from
your students about their experience using the problets.
Students
Students at other institutions are welcome to work for the Problets project -
by helping us develop additional problets. You could do this over the Summer if
you plan to be in the New York Metropolitan area. If you already have experience
writing programs in Java, you may qualify to get paid for your work.
Please contact Amruth Kumar for further details.
Amruth Kumar, amruth@ramapo.edu