Re: [Tuxmath-devel] GSoC project on "Personalized, adaptive game-play to improve learning in Tuxmath"

[Tim H. <ho...@wu...>]

On Sunday, May 22, 2011 11:00:40 pm Siddharth Kothari wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> Adding Bart to the loop. :)
> 
> I added a new post on question generation, but it still needs work. I
> posted it since I won't be able to update it before a couple of days (i
> will be travelling).
> 
> Tim - The documentation for the "school mode" would be helpful.

Can't help you right now: I deleted my own git tree (I was a git newbie and 
managed to massacre it), and since alioth seems to be down still I can't check 
out a new one. But I _think_ this is pretty thoroughly documented in the doc/ 
directory.

--Tim

> 
> David - I had a brief idea of the code for generating questions. Thanks for
> the details.
> 
> Thanks,
> Siddharth
> 
> On Fri, May 20, 2011 at 11:02 PM, David Bruce 
<dav...@gm...>wrote:
> > Hi Siddarth,
> > 
> > >> 4. In your section on "modifying the game variables," certainly the
> > 
> > speed
> > 
> > >> is
> > >> an important parameter. But a more interesting---and more conceptually
> > >> challenging---issue is how to decide which _type_ of problems to pose.
> > 
> > Is
> > 
> > >> the
> > >> kid ready for addition facts up to 10, or should we stick with 0 to 5?
> > 
> > How
> > 
> > >> can
> > >> you tell when the kid is ready for multiplication?
> > > 
> > > There is an interesting approach Animalwatch (It's a tutor for
> > 
> > pre-algebra
> > 
> > > mathematics) uses for this which is described here Using the student
> > 
> > model
> > 
> > > to control problem difficulty. I am thinking of using a approach on
> > 
> > similar
> > 
> > > lines, will post it shortly.
> > 
> > I don't know how much you've looked at how tuxmath generates math
> > question lists, but basically a lesson file sets a series of criteria
> > for questions:
> > 
> > - allowed math operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication,
> > division) - ranges of allowed numbers for operands
> > - whether to allow negative numbers
> > - format of question (i.e. 1 + 1 = ?, 1 + ? = 2, or ? + 1 = 2)
> > 
> > and so forth.  There are also some variables related to how answered
> > questions are handled - in the "lesson" games, correctly answered
> > questions are considered "done", and the lesson ends with a win when
> > all the questions have been handled correctly.  In the "arcade" games,
> > all questions get reinserted into the list so the game goes on
> > indefinitely until the player runs out of lives.  In both modes,
> > questions which are not answered correctly get reinserted so the
> > player sees them again.  There is an option to reinsert multiple
> > copies of missed questions so as to give extra practice on those
> > facts.  Finally, the code contains functions to support the use of the
> > just the "missed questions" from the previous game as the question
> > list for the next game, although we've never implemented a way to use
> > this feature.  So, some of these features might be useful in your
> > project, but they might not be sufficiently flexible for your needs.
> > 
> > What tuxmath does not currently provide is the reading of a list of
> > arbitrary functions from a text file.  I think we may want to do
> > something like that for your project.
> > 
> > I read your blog, and am eager to hear more about specifics, or to
> > help you work them out.  It seems to me that there are at least two
> > ways in which this adaptive instruction can be applied:
> > 1. Within the same math game, use the player's initial performance to
> > adjust the subsequent questions.
> > 2. For subsequent games, adjust the questions based on results from
> > previous games.
> > 
> > >> 5. Given this tuxmath-as-the-teacher mode of thinking, do we need to
> > 
> > think
> > 
> > >> somewhat about creating mechanisms to explicitly teach, rather than
> > >> just let
> > >> them practice things they've already been taught?
> > 
> > Yes - I've thought for some time that this was a shortcoming of the
> > program.  The only "teaching" is when we show the answer when the
> > igloo gets hit, plus the factoring hints we put in at the start of
> > each level in factoroids.  But there isn't any illustration of the
> > concepts of math.  There are plenty of ways that new activities could
> > be designed for these purposes, e.g. having Tux combine groups of fish
> > to illustrate addition, or having him build stacks of ice blocks in a
> > grid layout to illustrate multiplication.
> > 
> > I think the existing games have been shaped a lot by the ages of our
> > kids at the time when the games were written.  My daughter was a
> > second-grader when I started trying to make Bill's original comet game
> > more flexible, and she was a fourth-grader doing a lot of factoring
> > stuff when I proposed the factoroids game.  Maybe we need someone with
> > pre-school or kindergarten kids to get interested in coding up a new
> > activity.
> > 
> > David Bruce