What is ChemSkill Builder? ChemSkill Builder generates personalized problem sets for chemistry students. Each student encounters over 1500 individually generated questions over the course of the 25 units matching most chemistry texts. Student answers are checked immediately, and fully worked-out solutions are presented in response to wrong answers. Records of student performance are saved on the hard drive for use by the instructor.
Instructors and ChemSkill Builder: Chemistry instructors use ChemSkill Builder to assign significant amounts of homework without the burden of grading, which is handled automatically. On a typical campus using ChemSkill Builder, over 80% of the students do the homework on a consistent basis. Valuable lecture time need not be devoted to countless repetitions of basic problem-solving techniques.
Students and ChemSkill Builder: Chemistry students use ChemSkill Builder to learn many basic chemical concepts, as well as how to solve chemical problems. When they make mistakes, they immediately see complete solutions and they can repeat assignments until they achieve the score they want. On each repeat, the types of problems are the same, but the quantities and/or chemical constituents are different, so repetition provides valuable problem-solving practice.
The Problem Generator: Central to the design philosophy of ChemSkill Builder is the concept of problem generation, as opposed to problem storage. Rather than stored problems, ChemSkill Builder is built around stored problem types, and each personalized problem set for a given student is generated from arrays of chemical constituents and concentrations or quantities using random numbers.
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The Chemskil Program: This is the program that presents personally generated problem sets to students. It can also be used by the instructor to get a first-hand impression of exactly what information and problem types students will encounter.
The Student Record File: A student's scores for each of the 5-6 sections in the first 24 units of ChemSkill Builder are stored in a record file on either the student's hard drive or removable drives. Any attempts at tampering that go undetected by the Chemskil program are detected by the Transformer program and reported to the instructor.
The Transformer Program: This program is the means by which the instructor can monitor student performance. A variety of report formats are available, and reports can be printed out or viewed on the display screen. The Transformer program may also be used to merge homework grades with other spreadsheet-based class records. Transformer is provided gratis to instructors, as part of the Expediter Grade Management System.
The Homework InBox: Student records from all classes and sections are entered into a single InBox, irrespective of the origin, or means of record storage. That means that records saved on a floppy disk or USB-Flashdrive are transferred to the same location as records transferred by wireless or e-mail. This makes it simple for the individual records to be merged into the appropriate class files by the SortnMerge program.
The ClassFile contains all the records for a single class section: This file is the common repository for all student records within a single class section. Like individual student record files, class files are encrypted to discourage tampering, and are accessible only via the instructor's Transformer program, which is password protected.
The SortnMerge Program: CSB/3000 offers a variety of ways to transfer the records from the student's computer to the instructor's InBox. The mode of transfer depends upon the capabilities of the institution. The SortnMerge program is used to merge these individual record files into the class file, which in turn is read by the instructor's Transformer program. Both of these programs are part of the Expediter Grade Management System, provided gratis to faculty using the ChemSkill Builder.
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