MATLAB Grader in online environments
I organized in September 2019 a one-week workshop in a hybrid set-up (students could attend the workshop either on-site or fully on-line). Beyond the hybrid nature of the workshop, the workshop was "flipped": the workshop attendees had to study some handbook specifically written for the workshop, watch some short videos summarizing the main concepts and answer online quizzes. During the workshop, most of the time was spent on hands-on coding exercises and assignments, during which the workshop attendees had to apply the concepts presented in the handbook and videos.
All coding exercises and assignments were carried out with MATLAB Grader. The platform provided the same coding environment to all workshop attendees, irrespective of whether they attended the workshop on-site or remotely. Furthermore, by providing a coding template and rigorous assessment tests along each exercise, having all students converging to the right "solution" was painless. It allowed me, as a teacher, to entirely focus on helping the students in solving those exercises, which was extremely rewarding.
This teaching set-up, combined with smart IT solutions as e.g MATLAB Grader, favors deep student learning, since the students learn by doing (active learning) and are continuously supported by the teacher in their learning.
I will soon teach in another course along the same principles. The course was supposed to be given on-site only, but because of the outbreak of Covid-19, it will be given entirely online. Thanks to MATLAB Grader, the migration to a online set-up is straightforward.
In case you want to read more about some of my past efforts in the development and application of student-centred pedagogical approaches, you can read more about those at: https://www.chalmers.se/en/departments/physics/news/Pages/Teaching-the-algorithms-that-are-crucial-for-nuclear-reactor-modelling.aspx and https://www.chalmers.se/en/departments/physics/news/Pages/Online-educational-efforts-to-ensure-nuclear-safety.aspx
I will also be glad to answer questions and provide help to those of you who want to get started with online teaching.
Christophe
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Hello Christophe,
One question. For the course that you said will teach entirely online, do you use primarily MATLAB Grader? Or do you use other tools like MATLAB Online? Also, do you use pre-recorded videos or live sessions via platforms like Zoom?
I will use primarily MATLAB Grader, even if the students have access to the desktop version of MATLAB and might use it for further "playing" with the exercises.
My part of the course also includes pre-recorded short lectures combined with online quizzes and a short handbook I wrote specifically for the course.
The live hands-on training exercises will be given via Zoom, and I also plan to use Piazza for discussions with the students after the live sessions.
Thank you Christophe, this is a great post full of insights and practical information about Online Learning. I look forward to continuing our successful collaboration.
Christophe--this is excellent. We appreciate the expertise you bring to this discussion and look forward to continuing our dialogue about ways to improve distance and online learning. Thank you! Stay well---
Thank you, Christophe, for sharing your experiences. We've also added a link on our site to the video you created.
https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/topics/distance-learning/community-videos.html
