LONCAPA CONFERENCE May 22 24 2008 Simon Fraser

LON-CAPA CONFERENCE May 22 -24, 2008 Simon Fraser University Burnaby Mountain Campus

LON-CAPA Beyond Homework Ray Batchelor and Uwe Kreis

In Chemistry at Simon Fraser University the main use of LON -CAPA is in the high enrollment courses with a numeric bias. Weekly personalized lecture or pre-lab assignments with multiple tries, and both feedback and open discussion are the norm. Multiple choice bubble sheet exams are also in general use in the first year courses. The main motivation is to reduce marker workload. Another area in which enrollments seem high enough to warrant automated grading are in the first organic chem courses. We have not yet seen a demand for online organic chem lecture assignments. However, we have been running simple organic chem prelabs for several years. In the last year we have been experimenting with semi-automated Lab Reports or Dry-labs in organic chem. Only a few essay-type responses need to be manually graded.

An Organic Chem Lab Report Published Conditioned Sequence Student chooses own starting material. block cond Next 5 problems depend upon this choice. Parts shown “ 1 -at-a-time”. Default feedback suppressed in some, augmented in others. customresponse, organicresponse, chemresponse, essayresponse, imageresponse, etc…

Simple Linear Sequence with blocking conditions at key points. Complementary condition on alternate pathways to sequence “Finish” needed to maintain continuity with rest of Main sequence. Effectively produces unidirectional, single continuous pathway at any given moment. Blocked until “maxtries” is reached for last part of preceding problem. Effectively hides the rest of the sequence. For problems preceding a blocking condition, problem parts are shown one-at-atime, so that the block is only removed once all parts become closed to further submission.

Grading for second part depends upon response to first part. Result can be 2, 1, or 0 points interdependently upon both the individual limits and on the range. e. g. p-bromoacetanilide Lit. mp 167 -169 °C 1 st Part: 1 point if (162 °C ≤ “upper” ≤ 169 °C) 2 nd Part: 1 point if (0 °C ≤ “upper”-”lower” ≤ 5 °C) AND (155 °C ≤ “upper” ≤ 169 °C)

62% of students score 2/2 33% score 1/2 5% score 0/2

Default system feedback is suppressed. However, submitted JME drawing is redisplayed an optional second try allowed.

Used in a two-part question where the second part is an essayresponse explanation of why anisole is an ortho/para director. The submitted drawing is redisplayed, maxtries=3, and the correct/incorrect status is shown to allow a fair chance to get the essay points.

Mis-calibration of pointer, on rare occasions, is an issue with specific computers. 0 -point question with unlimited tries, allows nocost chance to see how “click-on -the-image” works. No more excuses. Next 3 “click-on-the-image” parts chosen from bands associated with : N-H stretch; aromatic C-H stretch; – N-H deformation; aromatic C=C stretch; C-N stretch; aromatic ring out-of-plane bending.

Final Mark Distribution “From the students we hear Electrophilic Aromatic Substitution Experiment very little; usually only if Lab Report (Spring 2007) they messed up. So that is good news as far as I'm concerned. It means that the questions are well coded, are clear and make sense to them. For us, it's a really Average=23. 8 big time saver… it saves time on marking reports. St. Dev=4. 2 Even the essay questions are easier and faster to mark in the Loncapa system. That frees up time for the TAs to do more cheating checks. ” --U. K