LON-CAPA: Open Source Course Management and Assessment System

1. LON-CAPA:Open Source Course Management and Assessment System Gerd Kortemeyer Michigan State University

2. Resource Sharing

3. Sharing of Resources • Creating online resources (web pages, images, homework problems) is a lot of work • Doing so for use in just one course is a waste of time and effort • Many resources could be used among a number of courses and across institutions

4. Key to Re-Usability • The key to re-usability is to create course-context free resources • In other words, same resource can be used in different contexts • This means: • No button “next resource” • No button “back to course menu” • No wording such as “as we have previously seen” • etc

5. Using Re-Usable Resources • BUT: how do you use context-free re-usable resources in the context of a course? • You need an infrastructure to • Find resources ina library of resources • Sequence them up(put the puzzle together) • Serve them out tothe students

6. Course Management Course Management Resource Assembly Resource Assembly Shared Cross-Institutional Resource Library LON-CAPA Architecture Campus A Campus B

7. LON-CAPA Architecture Campus A Campus B Course Management Course Management Resource Assembly Resource Assembly Shared Cross-Institutional Resource Library

8. Shared Resource Library • LON-CAPA currently links 118 institutions in eight countries

9. Shared Resource Library • The distributed network looks like one big file system • You can see each institution, the authors at that institution, and their resources

10. Shared Resource Library • Resources may be web pages …

11. Shared Resource Library One XML/LaTeX Source Code • … with math in them … Online Print

12. Shared Resource Library • … or simulations and animations …

13. Shared Resource Library • … or this kind of randomizing online problems

14. Shared Resource Library • …special emphasis on math …

15. Shared Resource Library • … chemistry …

16. Shared Resource Library • … physical units …

17. Shared Resource Library • Dynamic Graphing

18. Shared Resource Library • Total holdings and sharing

19. LON-CAPA Architecture Campus A Campus B Course Management Course Management Resource Assembly Resource Assembly Shared Cross-Institutional Resource Library

20. Resource Assembly • Shopping Cart “Supermarket”

21. Resource Assembly • Nested Assemblies • No pre-defined levels of granularity („module“, „chapter“, etc) • People can never agree what those terms mean • Re-use possible on any level

22. Compiles modules about conservation laws Writes module aboutenergy conservation Uses wholeassemblyin his course Writes module aboutmomentumconservation Resource Assembly

23. Course Management Course Management Resource Assembly Resource Assembly Shared Cross-Institutional Resource Library Dynamic Metadata Campus A Campus B

24. Dynamic Metadata • Dynamic metadata from usage • Assistance in resource selection („amazon.com“) • Quality control

25. Selection Help • Assembling materials for a course Sorted byaccess count

26. LON-CAPA Architecture Campus A Campus B Course Management Course Management Resource Assembly Resource Assembly Shared Cross-Institutional Resource Library

27. Course Management • Instructors can directly use the assembled material in their courses • navigational tools for students to access the material • grade book • communications • calendar/scheduling • access rights management • portfolio space

28. Course Management

29. Course Management • Student homework progress

30. Course Management • Question Analysis

31. Course Management • Enabling new modesof runningyour course Collaborative learning space Computer-enhancedstudent laboratory

32. Communities of Practice

33. User Institutions • Increasing number of institutions • Unexpected growths at K-12 schools

34. Teacher Initiative • Initiative: THEDUMP („Teachers Helping Everyone Develop User Materials and Problems“) • Assembling materials that are appropriate for high school use according to curricular units • Including university materials

35. Sharing Communities • Online communities of practice • Contributors versus users (institutions)

36. Communities of Practice • Disciplines • Data from MSU

37. Some OLD Results - Still True

38. Time On Task

39. Exam and Course Grades Before and After

40. Gender Differential phy231: without CAPA phy232: with CAPA Gender differential Seen in studies at three other universities

41. Discussion Analysis

42. Discussions

43. Problem • A bug that has a mass mb=4g walks from the center to the edge of a disk that is freely turning at 32rpm. The disk has a mass of md=11g. If the radius of the disk is R=29cm, what is the new rate of spinning in rpm?

44. Solution • No external torque, angular momentum is conserved • Bug is small compared to disk, can be seen as point mass

45. Student Discussion • Student A: What is that bug doing on a disk? Boo to physics. • Student B: OHH YEAH ok this should work it worked for me Moments of inertia that are important.... OK first the Inertia of the particle is mr^2 and of a disk is .5mr^2 OK and angular momentum is conserved IW=IWo W=2pi/T then do this .5(mass of disk)(radius)^2(2*pi/T original)+ (mass of bug) (radius of bug=0)^2= (.5(mass of disk)(radius)^2(2pi/T))+ (mass of bug)(radius of bug)^2(2*pi/T) and solve for T

46. Student Discussion (cont.) • Student C: What is T exactly? And do I have to do anything to it to get the final RPM? • Student B: ok so T is the period... and apparently it works for some and not others.... try to cancel out some of the things that are found on both sides of the equation to get a better equation that has less numbers in it • Student D:what did I do wrong? This is what I did. initial inertia x initial angular velocity = final inertia x final angular velocity. I=mr^2, angular velocity = w... so my I initial was (10g)(24 cm^2) and w=28 rpm. The number calculated was 161280 g *cm^2. Then I divided by final inertia to solve for the final angular speed. I found final Inertia by ( 10g +2g)(24 cm^2)=6912. I then found the new angular speed to be 23.3 rpm. This was wrong...what did I do incorrectly?

47. Student Discussion (cont.) […] • Student H: :sigh: Wow. So, many, little things, can go wrong in calculating this. Be careful. […] • None of the students commented on • Bug being point mass • Result being independent of radius • No unit conversions needed • Several wondered about the “radius of the bug” • Plug in numbers asap • Nobody just posted the symbolic answer • Lots of unnecessary pain

48. Quantitative Research • Classify student discussion contributions • Types: • Emotional • Surface • Procedural • Conceptual • Features: • Unrelated • Solution-Oriented • Mathematical • Physics

49. Classifying Discussions Discussions from three introductory physics courses:

50. Classifying the Problems • Classifying the problems by question type • Multiple Choice (incl. Multiple Response) • highest percentage of solution-oriented discussions (“that one is right”) • least number of physics discussions • Ranking and click-on-image problems • Physics discussions highest • Problems with representation-translation (reading a graph, etc): • slightly less procedural discussions • more negative emotional discussion (complaints)