exercise groups

[Sean Fitzpatrick]

I'm considering going through the book and moving things to 2-column exercise groups where appropriate, to better match the original APEX layout.

In later chapters (namely, 5-9) WeBWorK code becomes more sporadic.

I recall a discussion with Alex (but can't recall where) that we should avoid mixing WeBWorK and non-WeBWorK problems within an exercise group. Is that the case?

Would it be better to wait, and update the layout as progress is made on WeBWorK code?

[Alex Jordan]

I am working on chapter 5 now, and hoping to get through chapters 6
and 7 by March. (Our calc I, II goes through chapter 7, and I will be
teaching both in our spring term starting late March.)

By "working", I mean I am ironing out issues with WW problems. Part of
my process involves looking at the PDF output, and that does include
assessing when cols="2" is appropriate. For now, I'm not allowing
myself to go higher than 2.

So for those chapters, unless you have an urgent need, I would wait.

It is likely that if a mix on WW and non-WW in an exercisegroup is
happening, the exercisegroup is being used incorrectly. Maybe it
should be a subexercises? There are two kinds of exercisegroup. The
best is when you just have common instructions, and then rattle off
the things to apply them to. Like the introduction is "Find an
antiderivative for the function." And then each exercise simply states
a function.

The other kind is where the introduction gives some information that
will be used across several exercises, but they each have different
instructions. Like the intro has a graph of some weird function with
piecewise curves and different types of discontinuities. Then one
question asks for the domain. Another asks to list points where the
function is discontinuous. A third asks to list maximal intervals
where the function appears to be differentiable. Etc. It's possible
that this type should really be one exercise with multiple parts. But
in some cases, it's all too unwieldy for that to work with parts.

With the first type, it's hard to understand why, if some are WW,
could not they all be WW?

With the second type, it's understandable. Continuing with my example,
so far all those example questions could be WW. But the last one might
be "sketch a derivative of this function" and that needs to be non-WW
(at present).

Why not mix WW and non-WW in an exercisegroup? I'm having trouble
remembering, but I do remember reaching that conclusion. I'll keep
thinking about this. It's possible (but not yet certain) that this
conclusion no longer holds now that we handle the introducitons the
way that we do.

> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "APEX/Active Calculus MBX conversion" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to apexactive-calculus-mbx...@googlegroups.com.
> To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/apexactive-calculus-mbx-conversion/3880d6cb-c59e-48cd-b4aa-049ac10416fan%40googlegroups.com.

[Sean Fitzpatrick]

In chapters 5-10 (with 8 now the diffy q chapter and 10 seq/series) I added subexercises to separate "Terms and Concepts" from "Problems", and where it exists, "Review".

I made pretty much every exercise group 2 columns, and then reverted a couple where that resulted in (noticeably) bad boxes.

In chapters 11-14 (vectors, vector-valued functions, partial derivatives, multiple integrals) I did the same, but then realized I needed to give some attention to the problems that were coded for WeBWorK.

In those chapters, perhaps back weekend this was still the original mbx project, you added WeBWorK code for quite a few problems, but typically you only did every other problem in an exercise group.

(I considered trying to copy your code to do the other half but I don't think I'll have time before classes start in 2 weeks.)

But then it was really obvious in print that half the questions were some differently, because you'd have common instructions at the top, and then:

13. f(x,y)=2x²-3y²

14. Given the function f(x,y)=4xy³, compute:

a f_x(x,y)

b f_y(x,y)

c....

I adjusted the common instructions in the introduction to remove "In the following exercises..." and then I killed all the ordered lists within the ones with WeBWorK code, and did everything in terms of <instruction> and answer blanks.

[Alex Jordan]

OK. I think that ultimately "instruction" is only for "what special
syntax do you need to type the answer here. Or in situations with
multiple answer blanks, "enter this part here" and "that part here".
Sounds like that's what you have done.

I'll get there eventually and comb out any issues that are not so apparent.

> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "APEX/Active Calculus MBX conversion" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to apexactive-calculus-mbx...@googlegroups.com.

> To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/apexactive-calculus-mbx-conversion/CAH%2BNcPYKVtNkM%2BQp0g%3DUH3naLxDhdDVBeQ1UkvfApFubfKZyDQ%40mail.gmail.com.