Can online weekly quizzes contribute to learning in mathematics?

Abstract

It is widely known that assessment drives student learning, dictating what and how students learn. The students studying mathematics at the author’s university are not any different. In the mid-semester student-staff meetings, students from all year-levels expressed their preference for increased continuous assessment during the semester, to provide an incentive for keeping them “up-to-date” with their studies. More precisely, students asked for online weekly quizzes; these students have been undertaking other science units that involved weekly quizzes, finding value in the weekly incentive to study, the immediate feedback, and the flexibility offered in terms of time and place where quizzes can be taken.

This paper describes the author’s personal journey to accommodate the students’ preferences, by integrating online weekly quizzes in a first year calculus unit involving 250 on-campus students. The platform used for this purpose was WebCT, the learning management system licensed to the university. The paper considers the pedagogical and technical issues involved. Are weekly quizzes a good instrument to foster mathematics learning? What kind of learning can occur with clicking and pointing? How to best direct students learning with simple multiple choice or short answer questions? What kind of questions can be asked online using the currently available technology? Should the quizzes have a limited time to complete? How many attempts should be allowed? What kind of feedback can be provided to students? What mechanisms could be used to avoid student guessing and to ensure that students do their own work? Will success in weekly quizzes correlate with a successful performance in the subject?

These questions are investigated in the context of this development. The paper outlines the design of the online quizzes and their integration to the teaching and learning activities of the subject. It investigates students’ response patterns, and attempts to measure the effect of the online quizzes on achieving the learning objectives of the subject.