Maple TA webinar (UKPSF K4)

I listened in on the webinar on Maple TA by a Maplesoft speaker. MapleTA is a system for the computer assessment of mathematics.

I had used most of the techniques shown in the webinar.

He used the tags to classify the questions in the repository. For example, he used "lecture 1".

He also showed a page with a lot of training videos.

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As a reminder, the Maplesoft webinar "Creating Questions in Maple T.A. – Part #1" you registered for will take place in approximately one hour. Here is the information you will need to attend this event:

Webinar Details

Date: Tuesday, November 25, 2014
Time: 10:00 am, Eastern Standard Time (New York, GMT-05:00)

Flipped class room (UKPSF V3 A1)

Today I went to a mini workshop on the flipped workshop. This was just maybe two hours long.
There was much discussion about whether the students would look at the videos before the
class started. The experience seemed that they would not. As this is a key part of  the method, it is a
real problem if they don't come prepared.

There is a flipped classroom app.  and see 

Martin uses a problem in the middle of his podcast to make sure the students are learning stuff. I talked to him afterwards and he told me they had not understood what he was doing. The solutions were at the end of the podcast.  He was not doing anything fancy with interactive HTML.

• avatar was mentioned 

MapleTA first thoughts (UKPSF K2 K4)

I have set the first coursework in MapleTA. The exercises were released on Sunday, by Monday, two students told me they were done (although they had a technical problem).

Two students have already had problems, because they inputed probabilities as percentages rather than numbers between 0 and 1. On the second try they seem to have scored better.

One issue with getting Maple to make their results is that it is hard to give them method marks. On the other hand the computer marks them, so they can see any errors immediately. I am hopefully careful not to print out the solutions, as this would give them a big help.

The deadline is November 20th, so they have a long time to submit.

Standard based testing (UKPSF A3)

I enjoyed this discussion of standard based grading.

Notes from teaching and learning conference at Plymouth University. (UKPSF A3 V3)

My notes on the 12th Vice Chancellor's teaching and learning conference at Plymouth University

Prof.  Sue Bloxham  University of Cumbria  --

She gave a talk on how different markers can give very different marks to an essay. The formal  quality criteria were not really used by the markers, but the students tried to use them to get them good marks.
She felt that it was better to talk to the students about pieces of work.

There is no point in "learning outcomes."

The use of first year marks was being used for student engagement. In the past the first year was to allow the students to experiment with new things, so the marks don't matter.

Too much work was marked. Many of the marks didn't apply to the final classification.

In her student days all the assessment was din in two weeks in the third year.

Too much assessment is bad.

This applies  to essay writing.  How does this work for maths?

1) Small amount of essay type question
2) Many issue with maths is the amount of the working required.

Books used in STAT353 (UKPSF K1)

Books used for statistics in 2013.
Renew All Renew Selected
# Title Author Due Date Due Hour Potential Fine Location Status
1 Practical engineering statistics / Schiff, Daniel. 15/01/2014 23:59 Charles Seale-Hayne Library Renewable Renewable
Useful examples

2 Exploratory data analysis / Tukey, John W. 15/01/2014 23:59 Charles Seale-Hayne Library Renewable Renewable

Box and whisper plots. Good for plotting data analysis.

3 Probability, statistics, & reliability for engineers / Ayyub, Bilal M. 15/01/2014 23:59 Charles Seale-Hayne Library Renewable Renewable

Good examples.

4 Applied statistics for civil and environmental engineers / Kottegoda, N. T. 15/01/2014 23:59 Charles Seale-Hayne Library
Lots of good examples


5 Statistics in the 21st century / 15/01/2014 23:59 Charles Seale-Hayne Lib

Not read yet, but lots of interesting stuff.

6 Marine statistics : theory and practice / Goodwin, E. M. 15/01/2014 23:59 Charles Seale-Hayne Library Renewable Renewable

Some useful examples based on sailing

7 Teaching statistics : a bag of tricks / Gelman, Andrew. 15/01/2014 23:59 Charles Seale-Hayne Library Renewable Renewable
Not engeenering enough

8 Reliability engineering and risk analysis : a practical guide / Modarres, M. 15/01/2014 23:59 Charles Seale-Hayne Library Renewable Renewable


9 Practical reliability engineering. O'Connor, Patrick D. T. 15/01/2014 23:59 Charles Seale-Hayne Library Renewable Renewable

Way too much on reliability analysis

11 An introduction to error analysis : the study of uncertainties in physical measurements / Taylor, John R. 15/01/2014 23:59 Charles Seale-Hayne Library Renewable Renewable

Useful for error analysis.

Reflective writing (UKPSF V3)

I sent to a workshop on reflective writing today. One of the main points was that the reflection should not just be descriptive, but there should be analysis as well.

He had a suggestion for a book to read.

There is a drop in center for writing at the University