[ARCHIVED] I am looking for away to give a Calculus exam in Canvas next week and I have no idea how to do this in Canvas. I use Webassign for their homework but Webassign only has a lockdown browser. Any ideas or suggestions?

[jessica_m_riege]

I am looking for away to give a Calculus exam in Canvas next week and I have no idea how to do this in Canvas. I use Webassign for their homework but Webassign only has a lockdown browser. Any ideas or suggestions?

[James · Accepted solution]

 @jessica_m_riege  

I'm not sure what you're after when you say that WebAssign only has a lockdown browser. What was it that you were looking for it to have that Canvas has but WebAssign doesn't?

The bigger picture is that Canvas doesn't have support for understanding mathematics like WebAssign does.

You won't be able to automatically grade any kind of problem that requires mathematical input from users if you use Canvas.

• You can use essay questions and make them enter their own content using the equation editor. I did this with college algebra homework a couple of years ago. It's a terrible idea to spring upon them with a test if they haven't practiced it beforehand.
• You can create multiple choice questions and then Canvas will automatically grade them.
• You can use formula questions, but they are restricted to numeric decimal values.

You really need a program dedicated to mathematics (a partial and unordered list includes: WebAssign, MyMathLab, WebWorks, MyOpenMath, Edfinity, etc.) to effectively grade math content.

In the end, the coronavirus thing is making all of us do things a little differently and we may have to change what we do.

I've decided to still issue paper and pencil tests to my classes. WebAssign has allowed free access and 4 of my 7 differential equations students have used it in calculus, but the other 3 have not and I didn't want to switch over to online.

I'm making several versions of a PDF exam available as a question group inside a Canvas quiz. Once the students start the quiz in Canvas, they will get a link with a PDF. They can print it if they have a printer or write their answers on paper if they do not. It's timed and at the end of the time, they scan their work with Adobe Scan and upload it into Canvas.

I toyed with the idea of having a quiz question that was a file upload so it was all there in one spot, but it had some severe drawbacks for me. I had to do download the submissions, individually, open them with Acrobat Reader (I've got the full version), mark them up, save them, and then attach them as a submission comment to the students. They would need to have Acrobat Reader (or another reader that supports comments) to read the comments I left.

Instead, I opted for creating a separate assignment where they could submit the actual exam as a PDF. Then I get to use DocViewer to mark on the exam directly and they students don't need any special tools to read it. I also created a rubric with a criterion for each question that has the number of points that question is worth. I grade mine on a uniform scale using awesome, good, okay, fair, poor, none and so I can mark up the points and let Canvas total it. The students get to see how they did on each question, even if I don't write something on their exam with DocViewer. Then, I use a tool that I'm writing that downloads the rubric results so I have a record of how each student did.

Grading on paper is a lot faster, but this approach (I just used Monday night) was pretty good for electronic submissions.

I know that they are going to cheat. Well, I guess it depends on what you call cheating. I know if you let students be at home (which we must) in front of a computer (which we must) that has internet access (which it must), that you cannot expect them to not use resources available to them. I'm not going to use some proctoring software because there are typically ways around that as well and it puts some of our students at a disadvantage. They may not have had a webcam available and they can't go get one now and we don't want to throw that cost on them.

I'm going to put in an honor statement basically saying it's okay to use non-human resources and then make the questions the kind that students won't be able to do in the time allowed if they don't already know what they're doing. Yeah, they may pull up Maxima to do some simplification, but I do that in class as well - I don't want to spend 50 minutes doing algebra on a power series solution when we're already spending 20 minutes doing the differential equations portion. If I'm assessing (in differential equations) something that requires partial fractions or integration by parts, am I really concerned that they can do that by memory or do I want to focus on the content of the course we're on?

Now, if they were face to face with me -- yes, I would monitor the situation while they take the exam and make sure that they're not using any other tools. But these are extraordinary times and I have to realize I have to change what I'm doing because the old way just won't work anymore.

I shared your question with the Teaching Math in Canvas‌ group to see if someone there has additional thoughts.

[Shar]

Hi James,

Wonderful insights into  a paper math test that's uploaded and the rubric for each question so they know how they did. And I agree that any test that's a take home exam should be timed and questions written that cannot just be "looked up".

I used to teach a flipped Algebra course where the students received the test in class to take home and complete, enter their answers in the multiple choice and bring the test back in for the rest of their score "showing their work". Oh and before they took home the test, we spent the class time going through practice test with very similar questions. I spent a lot of time making feasible answer choices if certain mistakes were made in the calculations. | 4 - 5 | = 1, -1, 20, -20, or 9

But what I'm really interested in from all that you said is:

Then, I use a tool that I'm writing that downloads the rubric results so I have a record of how each student did.

Oh yeah? What's that tool? A new canvancement on the horizon? :smileygrin:

Sometimes I enjoy going through Quiz statistics and looking at the answer spread on particularly challenging questions, just for my own knowledge, and I think it would be great to have something similar for an assignment rubric so see how folks met different assignment criteria.

Good luck math teachers everywhere!
Cheers - Shar

[James]

Yes, Kona and I were planning on presenting about it at InstructureCon this year.

It's usable with the main flow I use. I need to test it with some of the other techniques (no points, not used for grading, etc.) Most of those are coming back as non-issues or minor tweaks. I've got some statistics in there (for example, it can report the average for the criteria or tell you how many students scored at least 75%). It uses Excel to do the calculations and you can add your own custom calculations. It comes out as a multi-sheet Excel file rather than a CSV. The main thing holding me back is making the exporter work with the importer. The importer was thrown together quickly and is way too flexible. The exporter needs to reorder some of the columns.

Well, actually putting my courses online is the main thing holding me back right now. I haven't had time to work on anything fun like Canvancements for a couple of weeks.

[Shar]

Oh! yeah.. presenting at InstructureCon this year... Virtual Webinar showcase perhaps then?

Nevertheless, I'm excited about this new tool when you get around to finalizing it, it sounds amazing!

But get back to those online courses, and stay home, stay healthy! Hug your babies!

Cheers - Shar