I think that this type of practice is very useful. I use Canvas quizzes to do the same thing Chapman et al. did in their paper. My course doesn't have these types of virtual quizzes ready made, so I have to make them. I make as many of them as possible formula problems. Mostly the students see different problems from each other. They are a beast to set up, but I should be able to reuse them from year to year, so it's worth the effort.
Like Chapman et al., I also make them infinite attempts and no penalty, but there is a hard deadline. (Usually I give them 3 days to work through the problems.) They are worth 10% of the grade. My goal was ~1 per week but I can't make them fast enough.
I call them "Practice Problems" rather than quizzes because students have an idea for what quizzes are. I have to tell them repeatedly at the start that these are practice and so they are *strongly encouraged* to get help if they get stuck.
The big downside to this is I have no way to give specific feedback on what they are doing wrong. But I do post the solutions after the assignment closes so they can check their work against the way I solved them.
"They are a beast to set up, but I should be able to reuse them from year to year, so it's worth the effort."
I'm working on case studies for the second edition of my flipped learning book and almost every single one says the same thing: It takes a ton of work to set up the pre-class materials like quizzes and videos, but it's a one-time investment with minimal needs for future updates, so later on profs just... teach.
Thanks for sharing!
I think that this type of practice is very useful. I use Canvas quizzes to do the same thing Chapman et al. did in their paper. My course doesn't have these types of virtual quizzes ready made, so I have to make them. I make as many of them as possible formula problems. Mostly the students see different problems from each other. They are a beast to set up, but I should be able to reuse them from year to year, so it's worth the effort.
Like Chapman et al., I also make them infinite attempts and no penalty, but there is a hard deadline. (Usually I give them 3 days to work through the problems.) They are worth 10% of the grade. My goal was ~1 per week but I can't make them fast enough.
I call them "Practice Problems" rather than quizzes because students have an idea for what quizzes are. I have to tell them repeatedly at the start that these are practice and so they are *strongly encouraged* to get help if they get stuck.
The big downside to this is I have no way to give specific feedback on what they are doing wrong. But I do post the solutions after the assignment closes so they can check their work against the way I solved them.
"They are a beast to set up, but I should be able to reuse them from year to year, so it's worth the effort."
I'm working on case studies for the second edition of my flipped learning book and almost every single one says the same thing: It takes a ton of work to set up the pre-class materials like quizzes and videos, but it's a one-time investment with minimal needs for future updates, so later on profs just... teach.