An Enhancement of WebWork - a Web-Based Homework Program

这个项目的重点是采用和增强WeBWork，这是一个由罗切斯特大学开发的基于互联网的系统，用于生成和分发家庭作业问题给学生。该项目正在将WeBWork应用于数学课程的几个领域，特别是在小学阶段。它也在研究其在其他学科的应用，尤其是物理和经济学。一旦该项目将WeBWork提高到一个可以在各种环境中轻松适应和使用的水平，它将作为其他客户的资源，包括大学的其他部门，其他大学和州内的几所高中。这个项目正在修改WeBWork的界面，这样一个拥有最低计算机技能的教员就可以独立地管理整个课程。它还开发了一套默认的家庭作业问题，教师可以通过访问关联问题数据库来更改或选择这些问题。WeBWork现在只提供问题的答案。作为学生急需的帮助，这个项目正在开发问题的完整解决方案，并创建一个数据库，该数据库将与家庭作业分开，由“教程”组成，将提供有意义的提示和逐步解决问题的方法。学生们对这样的“习题”库表现出了极大的兴趣。目前，WeBWork的结构只适用于微积分预科和微积分。该项目将其应用于有限数学，涵盖从集合、概率、线性系统、矩阵、线性规划和应用到商业和社会科学问题的主题。WeBWork在这类课程中有许多可能的应用，但目前它还不能适应线性分析，特别是矩阵操作。这个项目是利用WeBWork中的Maple来分析和处理学生对这门课程的回答。这将WeBWork带向一个全新的方向。总的来说，该项目的目标是使WeBWork易于使用，完整和足够灵活，可以在各种环境中使用。为了使WeBWork更容易适应，在学年和夏季举办了研讨会，以便潜在的教师可以更容易地了解如何实施该计划并根据自己的特定用途进行定制。

Mathematical Sciences (21) This project is focusing on the adoption and enhancement of WeBWork, an internet- based system developed at the University of Rochester for generating and delivering homework problems to students. The project is adapting WeBWork to several areas of the mathematics curriculum, especially at the elementary level. It is also investigating its applications in other disciplines, particularly physics and economics. Once the project enhances WeBWork to a level that will make it easily adaptable and usable in a variety of environments, it will serve as a resource to other clients, including other departments at the university, other universities and several high schools in the state. The project is modifying the interface of WeBWork so that a faculty member with minimal computer skills can manage an entire course independently. It is also developing a default set of homework problems which an instructor can change or select by accessing a database of linked problems. WeBWork now provides only answers to problems. As a much needed aid to the students, this project is developing complete solutions to problems and creating a database, that would be separate from the homework exercises, consisting of "tutorials" that would provide meaningful hints and step-by-step solutions to problems. Students have indicated a great interest in such a bank of "practice problems." At the present time, WeBWork is structured to accommodate only pre-calculus and calculus. Thsi project is adapting it to Finite Mathematics, which covers topics from sets, probability, linear systems, matrices, linear programming and applications to problems from business and the social sciences. WeBWork has many possible applications to courses of this type, but at present it cannot accommodate linear analysis, particularly matrix manipulation. This project is utilizing Maple within WeBWork to analyze and process student answers for this course. This takes WeBWork in a significantly new direction. Overall the project's objective is to make WeBWork easy-to-use, complete and sufficiently flexible to be employed in a variety of environments. To assist in making WeBWork more easily adapted, workshops are being held during the academic year and during the summer months so that potential instructors can more easily see how the program can be implemented and customized for their own particular use.