You like the idea, BUT THEN WHAT?Maple T.A. content authoring and implementing at Waterloo

Tonya Noël Online Learning Consultant Centre for Extended Learning

Session Abstract

Between September 2007 and August 2014, more than 100,000 University of Waterloo students completed an assignment inside of Maple T.A. This number continues to grow exponentially as we work together with Maplesoft to improve our fully online and blended courses, develop high school outreach resources, move some of our online math courses to an open space, and create a content authoring tool specifically targeted to those in a STEM-related discipline. This presentation will summarize how we transform ideas into tangible learning objects and discuss some of the implementation challenges we’ve encountered and overcome (or encountered and are still trying to overcome) over the years.

Today’s Agenda

Who we are What we do and How we do it

Implementation challenges

Key Stakeholders

Three  groups  of  people  work  with  Maple  T.A  at  Waterloo:  Faculty  Champions,  Faculty  Support  Staff,  and  University  Support  Staff  

Image  retrieved  online  June  11,  2015  from  hBp://www.formalofficesuites.com/img/home-­‐box2-­‐reIna.jpg    

Outreach  materials  use  Maple  T.A.  quizzes  in  the  form  of  self-­‐assessment  ac;vi;es  students  can  use  to  check  

their  understanding  

courseware.cemc.uwaterloo.ca  

Some  courses  allow  students  to  take  Maple  T.A.    prac;ce  quizzes  before  aBempIng  their  graded  assignments.    

An  increasing  number  of  these  quizzes  are  being  posted  publicly:    open.math.uwaterloo.ca  

Some  courses/programs  include  scores  on  Maple  T.A.  quizzes  as  part  –  or  all  –  of  students’  grades    

Maple  T.A.  is  used  to  administer  Waterloo’s  

Math  Readiness  Exam  to  thousands  of  high  school  

students  every  spring  

We  hope  that  the  upcoming  authoring  tool  will  save  us  development  ;me  

Usage – students per faculty

Faculty   2007  &  2008   2009  &  2010   2011  &  2012   2013  &  2014*   Total  

Math   4029   17,450   27,060   12,013   60,552  

Science   1436   13,578   12,613   10,778   38,405  

Engineering   362   2805   2090   2559   7816  

Arts   0   400   407   309   1116  

TOTAL   5827   34,233   42,170   25,659   107,889  

*Excludes data from fall 2014 term

Thanks to Paul Kates for the data!

Usage – courses per faculty

Faculty   2007  &  2008   2009  &  2010   2011  &  2012   2013  &  2014*   Total  

Math   13   45   71   33   162  

Science   2   32   32   26   92  

Engineering   3   11   11   10   35  

Arts   0   3   6   5   14  

TOTAL   18   91   120   74   303  

*Excludes data from fall 2014 term

Thanks to Paul Kates for the data!

Open Site Analytics

cemc.courseware    (high  school  outreach)  

open.math    (university  undergrad)  

Sessions  to  date   62,333   915  

Average  dura;on   8:06  min   12:43  min  

Top  3  countries   Canada  (80.7%),    Trinidad  &  Tobago  (5.4%),    

United  States  (5.2%)  

Canada  (92.2%),    China  (3.6%),    

United  States  (1.9%)  

Data presented as of June 1, 2015

Why the Drop?

We think there are two reasons numbers dropped: 1.  We stopped actively recruiting, and 2.  Faculty assignments changed

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 What  

 How  

How Support Staff are Trained

DocumentaIon  

Ok  

USE  IT!  

Direct  support  from  Maplesob  

BeBer  

Support  for  Support    Staff  

Instructors   Support  Staff    

 ????????  

1  

2  

3  Both  Faculty  and  University  Support  

How Support Staff work with Instructors

Both  Faculty  and  University  Support  

Why Faculty Support is a Good Idea

Avoid  redundancy  

Quality  control  

OrganizaIon   More  Ime  for  faculty  

Early Day Challenges (Getting Buy-in)

1.  Steep learning curve 2.  Misdirected frustrations

3.  Performance rumours

4.  Quality concerns with public exam bank

5.  Considerable changes between upgrades

Image  retrieved  online  June  11,  2015  from  hBp://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Emoji_u1f44d.svg  

Resource Challenges

1.  Success leads to more work 2.  It takes time to learn/train 3.  It takes time to “do more”

4.  Younger employees might not ask enough questions

Design Challenges

1.  Number of parameters 2.  Level of difficulty 3.  Sufficient amount of feedback

4.  Blind trust from subject matter experts

Technical Challenges

1.  “Annoying little things

2.  No syntax highlighting

3.  Can’t comment the back-end code 4.  Can’t edit Maple worksheets

directly in T.A.

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Questions?

Tonya Noël tnoel@uwaterloo.ca

https://ca.linkedin.com/in/tonyanoel

Paul Kates *Sean Scott

Mark (Stu) Stewart Stephen Tosh

Rachael Verbruggen *Tim Zhou

-- Carey Bissonnette

*Steve Furino Firas Mansour