Quizzes | Tests | Activities | Homework | Course Format | Extra Credit | Other
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- Why do we have to get an 80% on a quiz in order to move on in the course? Shouldn't that time spent on quizzes be spent on textbook homework instead?
I got tired of flunking students in this course. I have found that by making sure students have an adequate level of understanding before they move on, I end up with a greater percent of my students passing. Some students find out earlier in the course, that they really don't have the 12-16 hours per week it takes to be successful in this course. I would rather they find that out early in the course, then go through the whole class and fail in the end. Some students make the mistake of trying to accomplish the quiz first thing and then they get frustrated when they can't do it. You should do the textbook homework and other homework before attempting the quiz. If the material is review for you and you think you can already pass the quiz, then go ahead and do it first, but if it seems to hard, then you need to go back and go through the material in order, so that you will be more likely to be ready for the quiz. I would rather students get a 100% on all quizzes, because if you go into an exam and there was still a problem that you couldn't do on the quiz, you are not likely to be able to handle a similar problem on the exam.
- Why is it better to Save my Quiz and Continue later than to Submit it and start a new attempt later?
When you submit a quiz, you have to reenter all of your answers, even the ones that you already got correct. Also, it makes for a long list of quiz attempts to be sorted through if you decide you need to go back and look at what you attempted already. If you avoid submitting the quizzes, you can just go back and edit your prior attempt only making changes where needed. Many problems are from a pool or are algorithmically genearted so if you start a new attempt, you will probably get a lot of new problems. This may be good if you just want more practice, but a bother if you want to enter new answers to problems that you got wrong on a prior attempt.
- How do I get feedback on the problems that I have already tried without submitting my quiz?
Click on the 'Next' button at the bottom of your quiz. This will cause Angel to grade what you have entered without recording it as a completed assignment yet. Click "Save and Continue Later' and Angel will save your work.
- What if I have a question about my quiz? Can you see what I have attempted when I haven't hit submit yet?
As long as you have hit 'Next' after making changes to your work, I can see it, but I don't generally look unless you ask me to or you ask me about a problem. If you have not hit 'Next' then I can't see what Angel has marked correct and what it has marked wrong. Thus it takes me longer to sort through your work if you haven't hit 'Next'. You should always hit 'Next' when you make changes to your work so you can get feedback anyway.
- What if I accidently hit 'Submit' when I wanted to make more changes to my quiz?
If you hit Submit, you can't make more changes to that attempt, but you can start a new attempt. You will just have to reenter answers that you already got correct and possibly rework some problems with new numbers.
- Is doing the quizzes and activities sufficient preparation for the exams?
Absolutely not. The quizzes and activities are just a small sampling of the types of problems that you run across while studying this subject. In this class, like in any math class you need to do a large variety of problems to make sure you have sufficient practice for the exams and to make sure you have hit the concepts from a lot of different angles. Please make sure you can do all assigned problems including the nongraded ones. If I had time to grade all homework problems I would do it to help keep students on track, but it would be very unrealistic to expect me to go over that much work. Instead I count on student maturity to attempt all homework and to ask questions about the homework that they don't understand. If you wish, you can do your textbook homework in Course Compass so you can get feedback there. Otherwise, please check your answers in the back of the book and in the answer section of worksheets and ask questions about problems that you don't understand.
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- How do we take tests? Are they going to be posted online here tomorrow (test 1) or do we have to commute to campus and take them in the assessment center? Any help would be wonderful.
They are available at the Assessment Center on campus, usually about a week before their due date. If you need them earlier, please let me know. See the 'Due Dates' tab for test date ranges. Please avoid planning on taking a test on the last day that it is available. If you miss the deadline, you will not be able to take the original test. You are allowed up to two makeup tests, but it is best to save those for when you don't preform well. Habitually taking tests on the last day or two that they are available will have you rushing at the end of the semester to try and finish everything on time.
- Why do we have to go to a proctor or the Assessment Center to take our tests? It's an online course, can't we just have online tests?
It is the department policy that at least 50% of the points in the course must come from a proctored setting. This helps to make sure that the person taking the course and earning the grade is the same person that is signed up for the course. Since you are going to a proctor to take your tests anyway, I might as well give you traditional paper tests most of the time so you can earn partial credit for your work and I can give better feedback on your work. There are however, a substantial number of points that can be earned in this class outside of the proctored setting and since you are allowed to redo all activities, quizzes, and extra credits you can make sure that you eventually get a perfect score on all of those items. This eases the pressure of taking tests a bit since it gives you a bit more room for error. Notice that in this sample set of grades a fictiuous student completes all of the online extra credits, activities, and quizzes to perfection, but only earns a high 2.0 on his tests and he still ends up with a 3.0 in the course.
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- I did a SCO, but I can't see my grade in the Angel gradebook. What do I do?
Sometimes the problem is simply that Angel takes a while to make a new grade visible to a student after you work a SCO. I don't know why this is, but you will probably see the correct grade the next time you log in. This has also been known to happen on quizzes and extra credits. If you still don't see your correct score the next time you log in, please ask me to take a look and find out what is going on.
Occassionally, a gradebook seting needs to be updated and it wipes out the scores for SCOs in that assignment. Angel still has your results so you don't need to worry, it is just that the results are no longer visible in the gradebook. - Please go back into the SCO as if you were going to redo it.
- Click 'next' to start the program. You will see a greeting with your name and your score as a percent.
- You can now close or quit the program. Your score has been resent to the gradebook.
- I am in the session 4 folder, I see a lot of videos, graph paper, etc? But I cannot find the act2a, act2b, etc. and weeks 5 and 6 are locked.
If you can get in a folder, but you can't see everything that is supposed to be visible in the folder, the problem is likely my fault. I may have the settings such that I can see it but students cannot see it. Please let me know about this right away so I can fix the problem.
- I did a SCO activity, but I am unhappy with my score, can I redo it?
By all means. You are encouraged to redo all activities, quizzes, and extra credits repeatedly until you get a perfect score. This will greatly reduce your pressure to preform well on exams. You may also redo activities, quizzes, and extra credits that you have already acheived a perfect score on so that you can get extra practice. Only your highest grade counts on these, so you do not need to worry about lowering your score.
- I did a discussion board activity and you only gave me 2 points out of 8. Why did I get such a low score?
I expect students to read my responses to all discussion board activities and then to fix any mistakes that were made. You will get full credit for the activity after everything is fixed. I give a low grade on the first attempt, so I can be reminded that you made an attempt when I look in the grade book.
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- How do I turn in my homework?
Homework is not collected, but it is important that you do the homework so you can ask questions about it on the discussion board. If you try to go straight from reading and watching videos to taking the quizzes, you will probably be overwhelmed. If you do the homework first and ask questions about anything that you don't understand, you should be better prepared to take the session quizzes, but if you still have questions on them you may ask. Just beware that needing a lot of help with the session quizzes is a sign that you are probably not yet prepared to take the unit test.
- I want to get started on the material and I can see the folder, but when I try to open it, it asks for a password. Can I get the password, please?
You will have quizzes that unlock the content in the next sessions folder. The quizzes are set up as Angel Assessments. You need to score at least an 80% on a quiz, to get the next folder to open up for you.
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I don't know if I missed a file somewhere but I can't seem to find any due dates for quizzes, tests, etc. Would you by any chance be able to post those or let me know where they can be found?
Look along the top of the course and you will see a tab that says 'Due Dates'. In there you will find all of the test date ranges and recommended dates to complete sessions depending on how fast you plan to work through the course. Pay special attention to test availability dates.
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How do I check my grades?
Click on the Grades Tab at the top of the course.
- Why do we have to get a 100% on the extra credit before we are allowed to take a makeup exam?
If you are taking a makeup exam, you are down to your last opportunity to do well with that material. I want to make sure you are ready. Of course, if you are determined to take an exam without being adequately prepared, you can get around that requirement by getting so much help with the extra credit, that you still don't know how to do the material yourself. Please don't do this to yourself. Get the help if you need it of course, but make sure you go back over all material that you got help with and practice doing those problems again on your own. I just want everyone to be successful in this course.
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- This class is too much work? I have a job and a family to take care of, how can you expect me to spend 12-16 hours a week on just one class? What about my other classes?
It is a 4 credit class and it does take time to learn math. The guideline has always been 2-3 hours outside of class for every hour in class. For an online class, you have to add the hour that you would have sat in a lecture if you were taking a traditional class. That brings the time up to 3-4 hours per credit. This means a student taking 15 credits has a full time job of being a student (45-60 hours per week of school work). If you have other committments, then you probably need to talk to an advisor to arrange for a plan that helps you fit everything in. On the other hand, all the material is going to be posted early this semester, so if you know you are going to have some big projects for your other classes later in the semester, you might want to try to get ahead in this class.
- When a student asks a question on the discussion board, why don't you give a direct answer instead of hinting at the answer?
It depends on the type of question. If a student is asking about a question on one of the quizzes or extra credit, then I will tend to give a hint because I want to make sure that all of the students work through the problem before achieving the 80% required to move on in the course. Learning math is a lot of work and you can't learn by just watching someone else do it, you have to work through the concepts yourself and giving hints can help you do that. However, I am happy to completely work through an example problem that is not one of the quiz or extra credit questions. Just post a question about a worksheet or textbook problem instead and either another student or I can go through every step of the problem on the discussion board. Then you can use that as a reference for the quiz question that you are having troubles with. This is another reason that it is important to do the nongraded homework before you do the quizzes.
- In previous online course if someone posted to a forum it would show up in the side of the screen when you logged in. Is there anyway to get these notices?
If you click the pencil in the title bar of your 'Courses' component on your Angel Home page, you will now notice that you can click posts in the tasks area near the bottom. This will put an icon underneath each course that indicates unread posts in that course.
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Last Update: January 3, 2010
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