Tag Archives: Education

WebAssign Continues to Sponsor PhysicsBowl

by Annie McQuaid

For the fifth consecutive year, WebAssign will proudly serve as a sponsor of the PhysicsBowl, an annual competition for high school students and schools administered by the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT).

Physics Bowl Logo

The 2013 PhysicsBowl exam will be given over a two-week period beginning April 3, with 40 multiple-choice questions from topics and concepts covered in a typical high school physics course. The 45-minute exam is open to all high school physics students; the deadline to register to participate is March 4.

We began partnering with the AAPT in 2008 to create an online version of the contest. In addition, WebAssign provides free practice exams to all registered students, who can take as many as five different sample tests from previous years to see if they are prepared for the contest.

“This contest is an important outreach project to encourage students to study physics,” said Dr. John Risley, CEO and founder of WebAssign, and a physics professor at North Carolina State University. “WebAssign is again very proud to partner with the AAPT.”

The College Park, Maryland-based AAPT has created several different divisions and regions of PhysicsBowl winners, and last year 29 percent of the schools that entered were awarded prizes. The 2012 competition drew nearly 10,000 students from more than 250 schools across the United States and Canada, with entrants from China and Italy as well. The PhysicsBowl debuted in 1985.

For more information about the competition and accessing WebAssign’s practice exams, please visit the PhysicsBowl link on the AAPT website.

Professor Spotlight: Andrew Duffy

by candrews2

We love hearing all the ways outstanding WebAssign adopters are making a difference in their students’ lives and wanted to share the following professor spotlight with you all.

Boston University physics professor, Andrew Duffy, has been using WebAssign for the past ten years to help aid his teaching methods and facilitate classroom efficiency.  We are pleased to announce that Andrew was recently named the 2012 winner for the Metcalf Cup and Prize – a prestigious teaching award at Boston University.  This award is given to teachers with significant accomplishments in teaching, pedagogical developments and recognizes the impact teachers have made on their students.  Over the years, Andrew has utilized WebAssign to give students an opportunity to get help in the specific areas they struggle with while cutting down on wasted class time.

Andrew utilizes tools such as clickers, group worksheets, and regular homework assignments in WebAssign.  He uses group worksheets which are done in teams to help facilitate discussion about topics students do not easily understand.  He also uses WebAssign to allow students to attempt a problem multiple times before it marks it completely wrong.  “This gives students the opportunity to slow down and think about why they got the problem wrong and how to solve it,” Andrew explained.

His favorite features about WebAssign are the GradeBook, uploading resources, “practice another version” and being able to propagate assignments.  Andrew also uses WebAssign to host animations for questions and then uses his custom eBook to link questions to WebAssign so students can read more about a specific topic when they are doing the homework. These methods allow him to help his TAs have more time answering questions and interacting with the students rather than spending all of their time grading papers.

Please join us in congratulating Andrew on this exciting teaching award!

WebAssign 101 Virtual Workshop

by Annie McQuaid

New to WebAssign and looking for a crash course in our online homework system?  Or perhaps you want to brush up on our best practice tips to get the new semester started off on the right foot?

We have the perfect solution for you!  You’re invited to a live 60 minute virtual training workshop about all things WebAssign.  Sessions start June 7th and run through August 9th with many dates and times in between.

In these sessions we will focus on:

  • Creating Courses, Assignments (including Tests & Quizzes), and Questions
  • Rostering your classes
  • Setting up the GradeBook
  • Utilizing supplementary materials
  • Other tips and tricks to help your students and save you time!

Visit our WebAssign 101 page and sign up today for a time that works best for you!  Looking forward to seeing you there!

Meet Our Visioneers: Jennifer Ferralli

by Annie McQuaid

I am pleased to introduce, Jennifer Ferralli, our new Math Visioneer. Jenn may be new to the Visioneer Team, but she is not new to WebAssign, as she comes to this team with detailed knowledge of the WebAssign application from our Editorial Department.  As Math Visioneer Jenn is responsible for our math product strategy.

She received her MA in Mathematics from the University of South Carolina.  As a teaching assistant at South Carolina, Jenn taught College Algebra and Calculus, while also working in the tutoring center and Maple labs.  Throughout her education, teaching and learning have always been a passion and a focus of hers.

Upon graduation, Jenn obtained a job with WebAssign as a Math Coder that seamlessly meshed teaching and mathematics together and provided a way to actively change education for the better.  From there she transitioned to the position of Math Editor, supervising a team of coders and overseeing textbook question coding to completion.  Her attention to detail and passion for making WebAssign the best product possible made her transition to Managing Editor an obvious move.  As Managing Editor, Jenn helped institute better work processes to ensure a higher quality product with a faster turnaround time on projects.

Over her three years in the editorial department at WebAssign, Jenn has worked extensively on textbook and question development within the WebAssign Application and has overseen the coding of thousands of homework questions.

In her free time Jenn enjoys hiking, running, camping, photography, baking, and playing with her dog, Rigatoni.

Feature Contest Top 5 Spotlight: Professor Jared Daily

by Annie McQuaid

Jared Daily is currently a physics/engineering/math instructor at North Platte Community College in Nebraska.  His feature idea of adding the ability to send students text message reminders for WebAssign assignment is one of our top 5 nominees in the Make Your Voice Heard contest.  He has taught at North Platte Community College since 2007 after coming from the College of Eastern Utah, in Price, Utah where he held the same position.  Read more to find out how Professor Daily has used WebAssign to enhance his classroom.

How long have you used WebAssign?

I began using WebAssign in January 2010.  I was disturbed by a trend that I have been observing with increased frequency among my colleagues.  So many math and science teachers are not assigning mandatory homework assignments to be returned for grading and feedback.  It has always been my belief that mathematics should be taught as a language, and the only way to properly learn a new language is through immersion.  Students learn little from reading and even less from lecture.  They must work through problems and get their hands and minds into the work. I am convinced that WebAssign is the first truly useful application of computers in education.

How have you adopted WebAssign in your classroom?

I use WebAssign principally as a tool to deliver assignments and learning tools to my students.  Enhanced WebAssign has been particularly effective on the learning end, and I have switched almost exclusively to those books.  The students use the learning tools (videos, practice problems, book links) a great deal while completing their assignments.  I do believe, however, that student feedback is the most appreciated tool for me as well as my students.  My students like to know when they have successfully completed a problem or an assignment.  I honestly believe that the little green checkmark acts as some sort of intellectual stimulant that drives students to care more about their math homework than ever before.  I find that miraculous, and beneficial to my goals.

What are some of your best practice methods concerning WebAssign or teaching in general?

WebAssign provides an organizational structure for a class that is complex both in its subject and in the content.  We cover so many topics, and I prefer to compartmentalize the topics in the assignments.  I also incorporate writing assignments, analysis of data and many other activities.  With all of these components in one place, the students are less confused and intimidated.  They know what is expected, and they know when it is expected.  I do use the automatic extension feature, because it is so easy to forget an assignment in such an intense course.  They have the option of up to 3 1-hour extensions at a penalty of 5% per hour.  This practice allows students to recover from minor lapses without any trouble.  They only have 1 day to extend, which sets a boundary for those who would take advantage.

How would your new feature suggestion impact your classroom?

The most obvious impact of having text alerts comes from observing the students of today.  Students rarely check email accounts.  Many students do not even have an email account until the college assigns one to them.  They all use Facebook and Twitter, but I do not care to enter those worlds just to reach my students.  Also, students regularly ignore phone calls just by looking at the caller ID, but I have never seen a student ignore a text message.  Nothing seems to stand in the way of checking and answering a text message.

In order to pass a tough math or science class, a student must stay on top of the work.  I can think of no better way to encourage this than to infiltrate their regular communications constantly.  Additionally, text-messaging seems to be an untapped resource for evaluation and assessment of students.  Why not work in an option for students to answer quizzes with their cell phones and have the results for the entire class displayed on an assessment page?  This would be like a clicker system built into WebAssign.

Vote for this idea and others on UserVoice or Facebook now!