Teaching Engineering with MATLAB Grader and MyLab Engineering

In this video, we'll be talking about how MATLAB Grader and MyLab Engineering can be used to improve teaching programming in first year engineering. I'm will Martin. And I teach the first year engineering programming course at Clemson University. When teaching first year students, many students are new to programming and need a lot of feedback and repetition of the concepts they are learning.

However, with the traditional model of grading and returning homework, especially for large classes, students may not get feedback for a week or more. This video is going to show you how I use MATLAB Grader embedded in Pearson's MyLab Engineering. To automate grading and give students real time feedback. We'll look at different types of problems and feedback that are available using MATLAB Grader.

Depending on the complexity of the problems, MATLAB Grader can provide different levels of feedback. On a multistep problem, MATLAB Grader can check the intermediate steps to give students targeted feedback on where in the problem solving process they went wrong. For example, in this problem, the student had to calculate the volume of the spheres as an intermediate step to calculating the specific gravity.

If a student has an error in their volume calculation, MATLAB Grader will give them feedback that their volume values are incorrect, and point out things the student should check. So instead of the student knowing there is an error, but not knowing where to start looking for it, the detailed feedback helps students find and correct their errors without directly giving them the solution. In this case, it was a simple issue of inverting the values in the equation.

Once a student has corrected their answer, they can resubmit for additional feedback. This guided feedback helps students work through multistep problems and learn the process of analyzing a program in pieces to identify errors. As students become comfortable with programming problems and debugging their code, you can assign problems that are more holistically graded. Rather than MATLAB Grader pointing out the specific steps where an error occurs, these problems just tell the students if their solution is incorrect.

Often, these problems will give common errors for the problem or things to look out for. But these problems make the student troubleshoot their code to identify their errors on their own. MATLAB Grader can handle all complexity levels of problems, from a simple calculation to nested loops, conditionals, and even data input and output, like in this problem.

It can even check that students use or don't use specific functions or keywords. In this problem, it checks to make sure the students use a four loop and conditional to solve the problem as requested, rather than using other methods. MATLAB Grader can provide feedback on many other types of problems besides calculations. It can be used for problems with formatted output, data input and output, or even plotting.

Grading this plotting problem, traditionally, would be a time consuming process, even if you were just checking for the required elements and values on the output graph. However, MATLAB Grader can check all of that and give students instantaneous feedback on everything from did they enter their initial data correctly to did they include x and y labels.

Because students are getting feedback on their plots right away, it speeds their learning and reduces the number of simple formatting mistakes they make. While using MATLAB Grader has a lot of pedagogical advantages, it has the added benefit of reducing my administrative workload. With MATLAB Grader embedded in MyLab Engineering, I can easily pull from the textbook problems to create practice and homework assignments.

When students complete the assignments, their grades automatically populate the MyLab Gradebook and your course learning management systems gradebook, if linked. That's why I like using MATLAB Grader within MyLab Engineering. It gives the students real time feedback on their work to better learn the material. And they allow me to spend less time grading and managing the gradebook, and more time working with students.