‘Mammath’ Potential
Elizabeth Northrop,
Maple T.A. Product Manager
With inbuilt maths intelligence and an understanding of the theories that form the foundation of learning for multiple disciplines, the Maple T.A. online assessment solution has the potential to improve understanding and enrich education across the curriculum.
Maths is a true universal language - whether you're in London or Lisbon, Milan or Melbourne,
Pi is still 3.14159 no matter where you are. As well as connecting continents, the principles and foundations of maths also underpin all kinds of disciplines and developments in modern technology. A solid foundation in maths is essential for success in engineering, chemistry, biology, medicine, economics, finance, business, computer science - the list goes on!
Likewise, the academic application of a maths-savvy online assessment tool like Maple T.A. isn't limited to pure maths alone. Wherever you find equations, formulae and problem-solving in education, Maple T.A. makes it easy to create tests and assignments, and automatically assess student responses and performance.
And when we say 'assess student responses', we're not talking a blanket right or wrong. The latest release, Maple T.A. 8 supports adaptive questions, partial grading and intelligent evaluation of responses. So if a student is having trouble, the question can be adapted to provide more information or broken down to walk the student through the problem step by step. Alternatively, the student can try a simpler version of the question before retrying the original problem or try the same question again for reduced credit - whatever approach the teacher feels is appropriate. Flexible partial grading lets teachers control how generous or rigorous the grading will be, with the option of giving partial credit for responses that are not completely correct. With Maple T.A. course leaders can ask free-response questions, including questions that have more than one correct answer. Maple T.A. will evaluate responses intelligently, just like a human examiner.
Of course, questions and content don't just materialise out of thin air, and for time-pressed teachers, generating assessments and exercises can often form a stumbling block to adopting testing solutions, no matter how easy to use the authoring tools are! Thankfully, Maple T.A.'s developers have already thought of this and they've made thousands of questions, many of which have been field tested in actual courses, freely available for users to employ and customise for their own classes. Adept are also in the first stages of developing a UK Maple T.A. user group to provide a supportive forum for sharing knowledge and experiences of using Maple T.A., as well as collaborating on content and question creation.
Download the latest brochure to find out more about Maple T.A. or email mapleta@adeptscience.com to arrange a trial or discuss how it could solve assessment issues at your institution.
Visit the Maple T.A. home page.
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