Learning to Identify and Solve Problems on the Web

1. Learning to Identify and Solve Problems on the Web Xiaoheng Zhang Hong Kong Polytechnic University Hong Kong ctxzhang@polyu.edu.hk June 7, 2010

2. Limitations of Multiple Choice Questions • Multiple choice questions are the most popularly-used exercise and test items in education. • However there is the serious limitation of guessing by the students.

3. Methodology for Improvement • The problem can be effectively solved by deployment of an extra tier of fill-in-the-blank questions. • In a fill-in-the-blank question, the student must supply an answer out of their minds instead of selecting from an existing list, effectively eliminating the possibility of obtaining the correct answer by guessing or just by chance.

4. Supporting Problem Discovering and Problem Solving • By combining multiple choice questions with fill-in-the-blank questions, we can create very powerful tests or exercises which will assess and train the student’s ability in both problem discovering and problem solving. • For example, we can ask the student to point out incorrect words in a text by means of multiple choice questions, and when an incorrect word is successfully identified the student will go a step further to provide a correction in a fill-in-the-blank format.

5. Software Implementation • The Enhancement of a multiple choice question with a fill-in-the-blank component can be realized on the WWW by adding a new feature variable in the HTML code of the question to provide the teacher’s correct answer(s) to the fill-in-the-blank question. • If no correct answers are given in the variable, the fill-in-the-blank part will not be launched. Otherwise, a following up fill-in-the-blank question will be generated and the student’s answer will be checked against the standard answer(s) of the teacher. • Details of software implementation is given in the full paper.

6. WWW Presentation of a Multiple Choice Question Template

7. Two Example Questions in Language Learning • Recognizing and correcting English spelling mistakes in a natural text format, • Learning Chinese traditional and simplified characters in a standard multiple choice format.

8. Demonstration

9. Demonstration

10. Demonstration

11. Demonstration

12. Conclusion And Discussion • In WebQLd 2010, wehaveeffectivelysolvedtheproblem of quessing of multiplechoicequestionsbyaddinganoptionallayer of fill in theblank sub-questions. • Ithelpsto test and enhancestudents’ ability in recognizing, analyzing and solvingproblems. • Onbothlayers of questionstheteacher can prepare on-line explanations and comments in response tothebehaviors of thestudent. • The software alsoallowsteacherstoprovidealternativecorrectanswersto a questiononthemultiplechoicelayerorthefill in theblanklayer. • And in the cases of fill in theblankexercises, thestudent can displayanswers and furtherexplanationprovidedbytheteacher. • Furtherimprovement of WebQLd: thecopy-and-paste methodforadding new questionsshouldbemade more userfriendly. And in additiontousingstrikethroughlines, thereshouldbe a number of otherrepresentationstyles of correction.

13. Thank you for your attention