No internet connection
  1. Home
  2. Ideas

Features that support discussing student solutions of exercises in talkyard

By Michael S @michaelS
    2020-03-24 09:51:10.657Z

    Recently (because of the corona crisis) I tried using talkyard for discussing student solutions with other students of a course. A student posts his solution as "idea" and other students and the teacher/lecturer can comment as well. However it would be great to have some software features that support that process:

    • I assign which student should present which exercise solution

    • A students posts a solution to exercise x of sheet y

    • Other students or the teacher comment, mistakes are discussed and corrected, maybe some misconceptions adressed, there maybe suggestions to the form etc.

    • Then it would be nice if the student that posted the solution (or maybe another student or even the teacher) makes an improved solution out of the comments and posts this as well

    The last three points may have several iterations since the improved solution may lack of some things as well.

    • However if a state of an acceptable solution is achieved, it would be great to move the accepted, improved solution somewhere to the top such that it can serve as an easy to find reference (for example if the students prepare for the exam).

    • The accepted solution should be marked a such one by the teacher (or someone with high enough reputation; may be configurable)

    • It would be great if other students has to click explicitly an agree button to show that they recognized and understood the solution and don't have further questions about it at the moment.

    Another problem with discussing solutions to exercises is that they tend so get scattered around and don't occur in the same order as on the exercises sheet.

    Finally the coming vote and reputation system should work also with this new type of forum contribution somehow.

    So do you have other ideas of how to improve this process of presenting a solution online and discussing it between students and teacher and to make it well arranged by introducing new features to talkyard or by using existing ones in a clever way.

    Reply
    • 1 replies
    1. KajMagnus @KajMagnus2020-03-28 22:08:11.707Z

      This sounds like a nice collaborative way for students to help each other & learn from each other :- )

      I might not understand the details of how all this works. It seems to me that:

      • There're different question sheets — is that sth like an Excel sheet, or MS Word or PDF file? And it's been handed out to the students.

      • A student is to present a solution to a question from the sheet.
        S/he then creates a new Talkyard topic, of type Idea, with a proposed solution.

      • The other students can comment and leave feedback?

      Each question gets solved by exactly one student? (with help & feedback from the others)


      it would be great to move the accepted, improved solution somewhere to the top

      To the top, but where? In the forum topic list? (Or ... is this about replies inside a discussion?)

      I get the impression that a solution is in its own topic? And replies inside that topic, is feedback? ...

      ... Making me think you'd like to move the whole topic up in the forum topic list somehow? So it appears above earlier draft solutions for the same exercise? (So the students find the final & best solution to the problem, rather than earlier drafts?)


      discussing solutions to exercises is that they tend so get scattered around and don't occur in the same order as on the exercises sheet

      The exercise sheet has ... Numbered paragraphs with questions? And there're different sheets, with sheet numbers? Like: Sheet A, problem A1, problem A2, problem A3. Sheet B, problem B1, B2, B3, B4?

      What if each exercise sheet, could be a sub category?

      And the topics in the category, could be sorted not by time, but alphabetically?

      Then the solution ideas could be named like "Sheet-A-question-1: Solution version 1", and "Sheet-A-question-1: Solution version 2", 3, 4 , ... . Then, all solutions to the same problem would be listed next to each other. (Or "Sheet-A Q-1: Solution v123: ... Solution Title ...")

      Any thoughts about this? (Maybe I'm misunderstanding something b.t.w.)


      vote and reputation system

      (I'm curious about what the students think about reputation points. I'm wondering if maybe some of them feel nervous about getting too few point? Or if maybe some of them think rep points is really important and want to focus on gathering points? )

      Reply
      ReplyAdd progress note