Simon Goldstone, Maritz Snyders presenting, co-author , Margariet Walton

Image taken from here

maritz.snyders@nmmu.ac.za

Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University

Online tutorials can be done in students’ own time or in classes.

Disadvantages

If alone, no immediate support.

Limited scope of questions.

Can’t see how students lay out working.

Feedback not explanations, more like a repeat of the textbook.

Online Tutorial Project Design

300 – 400 students, various programmes.

Started after first semester test.

Marks from Moodle assessments counted to course assessment.

Students must write out full solutions and post online, mostly using phones or scanning. Only get marks for online questions if full solutions are uploaded. Spot checked to make sure uploads were valid. (Not just ‘Henry’s Solutions’ on every page!)

Camtasia software was used to record tutorial videos.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/eb/Camtasia_Studio_screenshot.png

Other software: Respondus (lets you write solutions in Microsoft Word format) but this has a site licence of US$3 000, no known open source alternative that is as good – institutional site licence), Microsoft Snipping Tool, Adobe, MS Word (Equation Editor better than Maths Type).

LMS used is Moodle (the best). Used Quiz, Assignment and URL tools.

Closed quizzes 15 minutes before following class.

Quiz out of 5 (1 mark per question)

Assignment out of 1 (for valid proof)

Tut grade = Quiz grade x assignment grade

Outcomes

20 voluntary students in project. Started with lower grades than rest of class, outperformed them at end of semester.

Second semester, more students volunteered. Again they outperformed other students not doing video tutorials.

Could be that more diligent students volunteered.

Way forward

Compulsory for all students next year.

Motivation to submit online: Easy to manage – students don’t collect paper handed in. (Grrrr…). No more lost papers or disputes when students claim to have submitted.

If students have problems uploading, they can email lecturer. (This happened rarely.)