Hi
I am new to Moodle, asking for guidance.
I am teaching math at high school. I am looking for a tool to let the students practice math questions that I prepared for them (hopefully I can use parameters to generate similar questions).
Is Moodle the right tool for that?
Is there a quick ramp up guide for similar task so I could learn and duplicate as a case study?
Thanks
Yigal
Hello there and welcome! I am not a Maths person myself (not very good with numbers ) but I moved your post from the chat forum to the Mathematics tools forum where hopefully you should get some basic advice to get you started. Moodle's Quiz module (click the Quiz link to look at the documentation pages) is very good for numerical questions and there is a Mathjax filter which you might also like to look at, for rendering equations.
Is there any math tool anywhere that allows you to do that? (Well at least as I am reading your question and interpreting it properly.)
As Mary said, MathJax is available, and should be available to students via the text editing tools, but they will need to know how to write equations in MathJax, so some explicit teaching around that will help. TeX is similar, so this page may help you develop that class, just do not get too carried away with it though.
If your version of Moodle does not support MathJax, then you may need to activate the TeX filter. Read the Moodle Docs carefully and get your host, or system guys, to install the appropriate tools - if you cannot do it yourself.
Hi Christopher & Colin
Thanks for answering. I guess I need to explain better what I am doing and what I am looking for,
For start, I decided to learn moodle, I heard the name many times, so it;s time I know what is it really like. So I am now installing moodle server on old laptop at home (Ubuntu).
As for my target, I would like to use it for homework, on line exams, and means of communication with my high school students.
I would like to ramp up fast something simple, such as getting numerical answers only. For example, what is the intersection point of a function with the x-axis, y-axis?
Perhaps I could generate simple macro with random function to create more of the same.
This will allow me to learn and practice the basic of the basic of the system.
For that, I would appreciate a ramp up guidance, because there is a lot of material out there and I don't know where to start. What do I do once moodle is installed?
Also, a very important issue: it seems that high school hardly use desktop computers, laptops, and even tablets. All their life is focused on the smartphone, so I hope there is a way for them to access the moodle via app, not web page.
Thanks
Yigal
Hello there. Moodle's quiz has a number of Question types - perhaps if you look on that page, the Calculated types might be useful to you?
I suspect I might be wanting a similar thing that Yigal wants. I've been fiddling using the Quiz format with calculated questions for physics practice. It seems to me there is a short coming though. For practice, (as opposed to testing) it would be useful if the student can see 'tips' or 'sample solutions' quickly. But I haven't been able to figure out a way to get them decent tips quickly.
What I've organized right now works this way:
1) I provide a question.
2) The student can try-- and submit 'check'.
3) If they do it correctly great! (They then likely don't need much more practice. We are done.)
4) If they do the problem wrong, they can retry. They can keep retrying. The interface merely tells them they did the problem wrong-- showing a red 'x' and filling the entry box red and showing them a red banner telling them they did the problem 'wrong'.
5) The student can then submit the 'final'-- at which point they get the 'feedback'-- which I can write to be useful for helping them actually learn how to do the problem if they are stuck.
This fine if the goal is assessment. In that case, I want them to try, finish the test, get graded, after which they can see the solution to the full test. But it is all very time consuming if the point is to provide multiple practice problems which students can repeat until they feel confident they can do problems correctly. For practice problems, I want to have something that mimics students being able to flip open to a text book and see examples as they try to work individual problems . It's fine with me if they mimic "monkey see-monkey do" at first-- getting 'credit' for 'solving' problems after first trying, then peeking, then just copying the solution.
Later one they can do problems without seeing the solution-- and that's gaining masterly.
If there is someway I could let the student see a worked out solution to simple problems (like "compute the centripetal acceleration give v=foo and b=bar after clicking "check" but before 'submitting final solution" that would be great for practice. But-- at least as far as I can tell-- right now, 'quizzes' require quite a few time consuming clicks for this purpose. I can make a test and advise them how to work around the 'issues' to see tips, but it's suboptimal.
(I admit this could be my deficiency as it may be I just don't understand how to get moodle to do what I want. If there is someway to let them see a worked solution after clicking 'check' but before submitting final, I'll take this all back! )
This sounds like a longer term project you are just starting, rather than a high pressure solution in an existing environment. If so, then it would seem to me that the level of interactivity you are looking for may be better handled with a SCORM project. Build your solution in HTML5, Javascript and CSS3 then set it up as a SCORM package. Moodle handles SCORM well, and it gives you the ability to to create whatever interactivity you actually need. I am thinking that you would still need to use the MathJax, and/or ChemJax plugins but it should work irrespective... mmm I reckon I like your idea though... (if only I had the time... Might do something like this during the summer break...mmmm now.. get the missus on board...)
Yep.
I was hunting around to see if someone else had wanted what I want. My thoughts were first make sure it doesn't exist. Afterwards, look at what's involved in writing an extension! I've written trivial plugins for wordpress for my own -- not public-- use. But having only installed moodle last friday, I don't think the time is ripe for diving into writing modifications! (I'm an engineer-- not a programmer!)
I started tutoring in October. I have two students-- but want to ramp up to giving some stuff online. But I know this sort of thing would be helpful for students in physics, engineering and so on. It parallels a long tried-and-true strategy implemented by students in the meat-world for ages. (In fact, it would be more time efficient because it would feed them the info. Later one can randomize -- and of course follow with real quizzes.)
Hmm.. Can I stuff javascript in the problem statements? If yes, I could just get some "hide reveal" functionality into the question. That might do it.
@Lucia,
You might want to try creating paired questions with descriptions with all the worked out info in the description. (Give the description the same name as the question to make it easier to keep track of.) Then create a quiz with one question per page with the descriptions following it's paired question. e.g.
page 1 with question 1
page 2 with description explaining how to work question 1
page 3 with question 2
page 4 with description explaining how to work question 2
etc.
@Yigal,
I have a course full of nothing but various types of random quizzes for my students (7/8 grade) to practice with. I like to create 5 or 10 question quizzes that randomly pick questions from my question banks. I set the quiz for unlimited attempts. For ease of setup for math questions, I mostly use the Variable Numeric type because it can randomly generate values for each student attempting the quiz. It also works well with Mathjax so you can usually setup your questions to "look" like they do in math books.
HTH,
AL
Thanks. I'll give that a try to see how that works. It seems much better than waiting to 'submit'. Student's would need to be 'trained' to know that the even numbered "questions" present the solution. But they'll learn that quickly enough. It's a much quicker solution to my trying to learn how to write a plugins that would eliminate the 'training'.
They key setting here is "How questions behave". You can control this in the quiz settings, but also when previewing a single question in the question bank. This is the best way to learn how this setting works.
The setting you want there is probably "Interactive with multiple tries". However, that only works well if you have added some "Hints" when you created the question.
To see how this is intended to be used, try the "Interactive tour of the Moodle Quiz" at http://www.open.edu/openlearnworks/course/view.php?id=1581 (If you want to do that, you will need to sign up for a free account with your email address.)
