Automated Assessment in Mathematics

Abstract

Assessment of learning and assessment for learning are at the core of the research on new teaching strategies involving the use of new technologies recently performed by University of Turin. The practice of automated assessment in Mathematics using the grading system Maple T.A. has been introduced in many undergraduate scientific courses and, after the initial success, it has been diffused in high-schools through several projects aimed to improve Maths teaching and learning. The following paper is intended to describe the effectiveness of automated assessment as a learning tool, the strength of Maple T.A. for grading Mathematics and its integration in a learning content management system, and the results obtained at University and in high-schools.

Influence of computer-aided assessment on ways of working with mathematics

“…Another possibility is to provide hints to get further with the problem if the answer is wrong. This is mentioned as an important feature by Barana et al (2015). They write:…”

“…is a widespread system that has been available for several years and there are reports from experiences of its use from a number of countries, here demonstrated by examples from Austria (Winkler et al, 2012), Italy (Barana et al, 2015), Portugal (Brito et al, 2009) and USA (Blackman, 2014). Among the advantages of using Maple T.A., these authors report that it saves resources used for correction, that it enables rapid feedback, and that randomization of examples will reduce copying of solutions.…”

“…has been used in education for many years and there are several reports on experiences from using it (e.g. Brito et al, 2009;Winkler et al, 2012;Blackman, 2014;Barana et al, 2015).…”

Sharing system of learning resources for adaptive strategies of scholastic remedial intervention

“…One of the many potentialities of the software are the adaptive questions: they allow students to submit real-life problems, leaving more space to the reasoning process and giving them more attempts to find a solution. In case of failure, a guided path towards the solution is proposed, dividing the proposed problem into successive steps that guide the student's reasoning (Barana et al 2015).…”

Adaptive Teaching Supported by ICTs to Reduce the School Failure in the Project “Scuola Dei Compiti”

“…After completing an assignment, immediate feedback is returned to students, and the details on the given answers remain available online both for teachers and for students. The Moodle gradebook is integrated with Maple TA, so that it is possible to monitor the progress of students and to reveal their difficulties [20]. This AAS also supports the creation of adaptive questions and adaptive assignments.…”