Skip to main content

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 13356))

Included in the following conference series:

Abstract

Proof Blocks (proofblocks.org) is a software tool that allows students to practice writing mathematical proofs by dragging and dropping lines instead of writing proofs from scratch. Because of the large solution space, it is computationally expensive to calculate the difference between an incorrect student solution and some correct solution, restricting the ability to automatically assign students partial credit. We benchmark a novel algorithm for finding the edit distance from an arbitrary student submission to some correct solution of a Proof Blocks problem on thousands of student submissions, showing that our novel algorithm can perform over 100 times better than the naïve algorithm on real data. Our new algorithm has further applications in grading Parson’s Problems, task planning problems, and any other kind of homework or exam problem where the solution space may be modeled as a directed acyclic graph.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  1. Darrah, M., Fuller, E., Miller, D.: A comparative study of partial credit assessment and computer-based testing for mathematics. J. Comput. Math. Sci. Teach. 29(4), 373–398 (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Hagberg, A.A., Schult, D.A., Swart, P.J.: Exploring network structure, dynamics, and function using networkx. In: Varoquaux, G., Vaught, T., Millman, J. (eds.) Proceedings of the 7th Python in Science Conference, pp. 11–15. Pasadena, CA USA (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Poulsen, S., Kulkarni, S., Herman, G., West, M.: Efficient partial credit grading of proof blocks problems. arXiv preprint arXiv:2204.04196 (2022)

  4. Poulsen, S., Viswanathan, M., Herman, G.L., West, M.: Evaluating proof blocks problems as exam questions. In: Proceedings of the 17th ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research, pp. 157–168 (2021)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Poulsen, S., Viswanathan, M., Herman, G.L., West, M.: Proof blocks: autogradable scaffolding activities for learning to write proofs. In: Proceedings of the 27th ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education V. 1. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA (2022). https://doi.org/10.1145/3502718.3524774

  6. Weber, K.: Student difficulty in constructing proofs: the need for strategic knowledge. Educ. Stud. Math. 48(1), 101–119 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1015535614355

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Seth Poulsen .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2022 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this paper

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this paper

Poulsen, S., Kulkarni, S., Herman, G., West, M. (2022). Benchmarking Partial Credit Grading Algorithms for Proof Blocks Problems. In: Rodrigo, M.M., Matsuda, N., Cristea, A.I., Dimitrova, V. (eds) Artificial Intelligence in Education. Posters and Late Breaking Results, Workshops and Tutorials, Industry and Innovation Tracks, Practitioners’ and Doctoral Consortium. AIED 2022. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13356. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11647-6_34

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11647-6_34

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-031-11646-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-11647-6

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics