Automated Grading with a Software-Checking Program in the System Dynamics and Control Curriculum

摘要

Automated assessment tools offer benefits to instructors by freeing them from the burden of grading, while improving student self-learning by providing immediate feedback without the need for intervention by an instructor. The power of such tools has become all the more important as new technologies enabling the scaling of knowledge dissemination have arisen, such as with Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). In this work, the authors provide guidelines for employing software-checking programs for the automated grading of assignments in the System Dynamics and Control curriculum that may not be immediately suited to such tools. Specifically, techniques are discussed for modifying problems that may involve symbolic or graphical solutions, or that may be more open-ended. The approaches proposed in this paper were piloted in two courses at the University of Detroit Mercy during the Fall of 2016 and the Winter of 2017. In these courses, students wrote their solutions as scripts in the MATLAB programming language within the Cody Coursework environment offered by the MathWorks. Overall, the authors found the use of the Cody tool helpful in the instruction of their courses. The student feedback offered via anonymous surveys was also generally positive regarding this approach. For example, in the absence of a person being available to grade their homework, the students appreciated the availability of the Cody tool (avg. score of 3.91/5). As a side benefit, the students also found that this approach to the course helped improve their general programming skills (avg. score = 3.96/5).