[Edu-sig] automatically grading small programming assignments

[Andre Roberge]

Hello Brian,

I do not teach (much to my regrets) but I have been thinking about what you
describe.
See below.

On 12/14/06, Brian Blais < bblais at bryant.edu> wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> I have a couple of classes where I teach introductory programming using
> Python.  What
> I would love to have is for the students to go through a lot of very small
> programs,
> to learn the basic programming structure.  Things like, return the maximum
> in a list,
> making lists with certain patterns, very simple string parsing,
> etc.  Unfortunately,
> it takes a lot of time to grade such things by hand, so I would like to
> automate it
> as much as possible.


I envision a number of possible solutions.  In one solution, I provide a
> function
> template with a docstring, and they have to fill it in to past a
> doctest.  Is there a
> good (and safe) way to do that online?  Something like having a student
> post code,
> and the doctest returns.  I'd love to allow them to submit until they get
> it, logging
> each attempt.


I may have a partial solution.  I (co-)wrote a program called Crunchy
(crunchy.sf.net)
which, among other features, allow automated correction of code that has to
satisfy a given docstring. As it stands, it only allows self-evaluation i.e.
there's no login required nor is the solution forwarded to someone else.
(This has been requested by others and may, eventually, be incorporated in
Crunchy.)  So, as a tool for learning, it's working; the grading component
is simply not there.  However, the code is open-source and you could adopt
it to your needs ;-)

André


Or perhaps there is a better way to do this sort of thing.  How do others
> who teach
> Python handle this?
>
>
>                         thanks,
>
>
>                                 Brian Blais
>
> --
> -----------------
>
>               bblais at bryant.edu
>               http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais<http://web.bryant.edu/%7Ebblais>
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