Release Notes
From TeacherWiki
This page announces changes to the ASSISTments web application. If you have comments please contact us at: assistments-help@wpi.edu.
For you non-techies out there. In V1.12, V is for version, 1 is for the first version and .12 is for the second effort.
Contents |
V1.16 -- 02-Nov-2010
click here for explanation of the arrs reports
AARS Navigation Tools
For every class, we allow teachers to view reports on student progress, unfinished assignments, and an item by item analysis. For classes with ARRS enabled, we also have another set of reports which are used to track students progression through ARRS. Along with the many links that you will find throughout the reports, we also have a menu that allows you to navigate to the five different reports that we provide.
Summary Arrs Report
We have also increased how fast we can load the summary arrs report. By default we show you the last 5 reassessment tests of the student. This is to cause the page to load faster. You can choose to view more prior reassessment tests from class, but this will result in slower loading times.
Cumulative Reassessment Report
We have now moved the assignment average to the top of the Cumulative Reassessment report. We also provide the total percent correct for all students over all assignments. Moreover, to help identify skills which are really easy or really hard, we perform a significance test on each assignment when compared to the overall average.
1 A green average marks when an average is greater than the overall average at the p=0.05 level. In other words, students have found this skill really easy to remember. They tend to get their reassessment tests correct on this type of question.
2 A light red average marks when an average is statistically worse than the overall average at the p=0.10 level. This skill kids are having a hard time remembering and may need help with.
3 A dark red (maroon) average marks when an average is statistically worse than the overall average at the p=0.05 level. This skill is really hard to remember.
Student ARRS Report Navigation
There is now navigation tools within the student arrs report which will allow for you to switch between students in the class, and between reassessment tests for that student. To help with selecting the days when a student actually took a test, we have added next to certain dates, the words, "took test." This means that a student clicked on their reassessment test that day. It may be the case that the did not receive questions and were instantly complete, or it may be the case that they actually received questions. In other words, although we tell you a student took their test, we are really just telling you they clicked on the link saying I am ready for my reassessment test, and they may have gotten a blank test.
Reassessment Results Per Test
This report shows how each student did on every problem set for a given reassessment test. It shows a student as either answering correct or wrong. We have added in the first column, two possible options when the student did not take the reassessment test.
N\A means the student did not have a reassessment test to take, it would have been empty. A red not completed means the student failed to take their test when it would have contained problems.
Assignment Page Individual Assignment Report =
Individual assignments are given to certain students in a class, and inherently presents a problem to the teacher. The teacher needs to know which students were assigned the assignment, and how they performed on it. To help teachers in this area, our reports only show the students who were assigned a problem set. To help with a quick view, we have added the following support to the page that lists the class assignments.
V1.15 -- 27-Sep-2010
Individual Assignments
We now support individual assignments. These are assignments which are only assigned to certain students in your class.
What do they look like
To the student, they appear just like normal assignments except for they have an i after their name. If it is a mastery assignment it will be red, and if it is not mastery then it will be black.
To the teacher they appear as a regular assignment, but we are working hard on updating this. For starters we will place an i after their name for you to know they are individuals. We will also provide you with a button to display who this problem set was assigned to and for which reason (i.e. data driven assignment).
What about the reports
Current the reports do not know about individual assignments, but we are working on this. We will quickly update all single assignment report pages (item level, mastery report, item level with scaffolding, etc) and will then update the aggregated reports (unfinished assignment report, summary arrs report, progress report).
Data Driven Assignments
We now support teachers assigning individual assignment to groups of students based upon their performance on a current assignment. For example, you can assign all students who received at least a 90 on an assignment an enrichment assignment, and for those kids who did poorly, you can assign them another review assignment. Currently, the only report that allows you to assign differentiated instruction is the item level report. The following picture shows you the two supported types of individual instruction that you can assign.
To the teacher, they are currently viewed as just a regular assignment, but we are working hard on that. We will soon also put the i after their name with a button for you to view who you assigned this problem set to and based upon what criteria (i.e. data driven).
Data driven assignments based upon student overall average
When you click on one of these links, they open a page which allows you to specify more options. The example below is shown for their assignment based upon overall average.
A - You are allowed to enter one problem set number. If you don't know problem set to assign, we include our problem set search feature at the bottom of the page. As more teachers assign material, we will show you what other teachers are assigning. We are also working on infrastructure of recommended problem sets to assign. Also, you can always assign the same problem set again.
B - This is the lower bound for the average. If you want to assign a problem set to all students who scored between 0 and 60, you can make this value 0 or even -1.124.
C - This is the upper bound for the average. In our example you would write 60 here. Warning:: The item report rounds averages based on the 0.5 rule. What you enter here is based upon non rounded averages.
D - If a student started the assignment but did not finish it, you can choose to include or exclude them. This is currently not implemented, but it will soon be a three valued option. You can automatically exclude or include them, or you can include them if they meet the other conditions.
E - You can automatically exclude or include students who did not start the assignment.
F - The problem set is only assigned to students who answered at least F number of problems.
G - This is how many days in advance to release the problem set. 0 here means that it will be released right now.
H - This is from the release date how many days will the students have to do it. Be careful since it is not saying that it will be due in H days from today, but in G+H days from today.
What about ARRS
I - Don't want your students in an ARRS class to get bogged down if you assign them data driven skill building (mastery) problem sets? Don't worry, we provide you the option of whether or not you want the problem set (A) to be included or excluded from ARRS. If it is included, then just those students who it is assigned to will have to master it and then relearn it according to your class settings. If it is excluded, the students will only have to master it and no check boxes will appear next to it. If your class does not have ARRS (automatic reassessing and relearning) enabled, you can ignore this question. If the problem set that you are assigning is not mastery, this setting can also be ignored.
J - There is one last text box where we ask you for the reason for assigning this problem set. This will help us in our research and developing recommended problem sets, so please write something descriptive here.
K - This is our search feature to look for problem sets to assign
Book Homework Report
Are you assigning book homework or other work where you give the students multiple attempts to answer correctly. Do you just care they answered correctly before they were told the answer. We now have a report with this functionality.
The report gives you this help message This report is made for viewing reports made from the quickbuilder, where you give your students multiple attempts to answer a problem. Although it will work on any problem set, the columns will most likely be wrong. Use the item level report if the problem set was not made in the quickbuilder or does not follow this format.
Format of a box of the report
The student eventually answered the item correctly without being given the answer. The student was given the answer or could not answer it. A yellow background means the student got the correct answer, but they did not get it on the first attempt. A student is marked correct (their overall average) even if this yellow background appears. NOTE This is different from the item level report in which a yellow background means the student used a bottom out hint and in which the student is marked incorrect.
V1.14 -- 7-Sep-2010
Assign dates to multiple assignments
Teachers can now assign release and due dates to multiple assignments in their assignment list at the same time. This is accomplished by clicking the new "Group Date Assign" button, at which point checkboxes will appear next to each assignment in the list and a date form will appear. The teacher checks off the desired assignments, sets the dates, and applies them to all of the selected assignments at once. There is also an option to make each assignment release/due one day after the previous one, skipping weekends.
User Preferences
Users can now set global preferences depending on their user roles by clicking on the new "Preferences" link in the blue sub-menu next to "Messages". Currently there are two preferences that can be set. One is for parents to select whether or not they want to receive notification emails from Assistments. The other allows teachers to set the default times for due and release dates, in an effort to eliminate the tedious process of having to set them every time for every assignment.
Change Sections
Teachers can now move students between sections in the roster, while maintaining all of their previous work.
Quality Level Update
We are updating the quality level settings in Assistments by removing all non-WPI Certified Quality Levels and Quality Level Taggings and replaces them with a new Quality Level and new Tag called 'Uncertified'. This removes the ambiguity of the previous Quality Levels. As well, we propogate down Quality Levels from Problem Sets to the contained Assistments. Any Assistments in a WPI Certified Problem Set are now 'WPI Certified' as well. Otherwise, an Assistment is considered 'Uncertified'.
Search Update
Search is being improved in that you can only search for WPI Certified content now. As well, the search page now partitions searches for Problem Sets or Assistments rather than relying on the same widget to search for both.
Problem Set Details
There is a Problem Set Details page that can be accessed from a variety of pages, most likely from the builder. You can view Skill data and aggregate data such as Problem and Assistment count on this page. The skill table's columns are sorted when clicked on.
V1.13 -- 19-Aug-2010
New ARRS Report
- There is now a new summary ARRS report which provides information on a class basis about the current state of students on mastering their assignments, as well as information about how they did on previous reassessment tests. The report serves to have a good idea how students are progressing on ARRS. It has many links to more detailed reports about either a students' progress on all the assignments, about how all students did on a particular test, or how a single student did on a particular test. This new report is designed to be the launching to point to these various other reports.
- The first few columns show the summary information about the current progress of the students.
Outstanding assignments - How many assignments the student could login and complete.
Late assignments - The number of late assignments that the student could login and due.
Original Ones Mastered - Out of all the assignments that have been released to the class, this is how many assignments the student has logged in and mastered.
Number completed - The number of assignments which the student has completely mastered and for which they have reached the maximum mastery level.
- The next columns show how the students have done on their most recent reassessment tests.
N/A means the student did not have a reassessment test to take. This can either be because they have completed assignments, or there is a large period before reassessment tests for their assignments.
A single X means the student was suppose to take a reassessment test but did not.
A double check means the student took the reassessment test and remastered (if applicable) all assignments for which they got a reassessment test question incorrect.
A check then X means the student took the reassessment test and was late on remastering at least one of the assignments for which they answered a question incorrectly
A check then ? means the student took the reassessment test and answered at least 1 question incorrectly, but the due date for remastering the assignment has not passed. It is an outstanding assignment.
The reassessment tests and the whole report is scrollable, so you can see any given test next to the students name simply by scrolling left or right.
V1.12 -- 11-Aug-2010
Essay Grading, critique mode
- Added usability fix to essay grading. The essay grading page now automatically is in "critique mode", teachers no longer have to click the button first to "enter" it. Also, and more importantly, the "Show Critiques" link now only shows up for essays that actually have a critique problem associated with them, eliminating the major headache of having to write down which essays have critique or risk losing them and having to search by memory. (4136)
Sharing data with other teachers
- There is now an option in the item report to show only the report for students in your class but who are also (or were also) in another teacher's class. This is useful if students are coming to your class from the grade below and you want to see student perform depending on which class they came from. (4138)
- To turn this on go to toggle settings on your class list page. You must turn it on for each class.
- The item report will now have one more select box at the top.
- By selecting "Show your students" it will be the same as the usual item report. Notes *** tells you the other teachers whom your students are in a class of.
Rounding
- The item report now properly rounds averages. This uses the usual rounding rule of >=.5 rounds up to 1. (4139)
Improvements to Reports
- (4144, 4145) The item report is now faster, and this change should be noticeable. The skill report is sortable by clicking at the top of a skill report where it states "click to sort by". The comments column are turned off if you do not have parent notification enabled for your class. If you do have it enabled, it will have them on by default but they can be turned off.
The skill summary now is able to be sorted based on the number of questions with a given skill. By clicking on the column headers, it is able to sort by the values in that column. This is shown in the following image.
Builder Improvements
- When using the quick builder, you will be warned if you are about to leave the page if you have unsaved changes. (4146 / Ticket 93)
- Warnings were added to the builder to prevent teachers from putting equations as answers. Quickbuilder now assigns to no classes by default. (4149)
- Added messages to builder when switching between problem types warning teachers about the common pitfalls of the Algebra and Fill-In types. Default problem type changed to Algebra instead of multiple choice. (4151)
Student warnings instead of being marked wrong for non math errors
- System now checks to see if students have mistakenly entered units and warns them about it without causing them to get the problem wrong. System also checks to see if the student is using the correct variables in a similar manner (as in, the question asks for a,b and they use x,y). Finally, system checks to see if the user entered an equation, which is no longer officially supported by ASSISTments. (4148)
- System now informs student they have exceeded the daily mastery limit rather than the generic "You are done with this assignment!" message. (4156 / Tickets: 66 & 69)
Fresh Class Creation
- Class creation and enrollment has been freshened up a little bit. Class creation now more clearly shows the difference between "classes" and "sections". Class enrollment now organizes first by teacher name (Actually in alphabetical order) and then class name. (4162)
Monitoring Students and Teachers from the "school" account
- A school administrator now has more administrative power. From the school tab, you can view all teachers in your school. If you hit delete teacher then you will be able to remove the teacher role from teachers at your school. This can be used if there is a teacher who no one knows. (4157, 4158)
- Also by clicking on the name of a teacher you can view all of their past and current classes and the students who are enrolled in those classes. Moreover you can change those students passwords by checking off the check-box next to their name, and then enter a password \ password confirmation and then hitting submit.
V1.11 -- 25-Jul-2010
Here's a list of what's been fixed and added:
Organize your variablized templates, most teachers do not have these
- In Build > Assistment, allows you to view only variabilized templates. (4128)
Rounding
- In Item Reports, the average now rounds up. (Ticket 68 / 4118-4120)
Improvements to the Quick Builder
- Fixes a bug in the Quick-Problem Set builder:
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- where the builder prematurely created a problem set when you changed the Number of Problems:
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- with any text entered in the individual problems. (Ticket 18 / 4104)
Essay Grading Improvements
- The essay grading page now remembers which essays have critiques associated with them, so you do not have to go searching or write down reminders. (4136,4137)
Item Report Speed is Improved
- Speed up item report generation (4106, 4114-4117)
- When you add or or remove skills from a Problem, improved performance so that ASSISTments more quickly updates the list of skills on a parent Problem Set. (Ticket 92 / 4127, 4129, 4135)
This page was created by Christina Heffernan
