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PracticeZone.org

Who we are

PracticeZone.org was founded in 2007 by Chuck Wight, Professor of Chemistry at the University of Utah. Chuck has been creating and using online learning tools to support his teaching since 1998.

Subject material

The database is currently populated with more than 1000 quiz and homework questions in General Chemistry. As the site matures, we plan to expand to cover material in other introductory college courses.

Why we created this site

Chemistry and many other technical disciplines are taught from a problem-solving approach. Lots of practice is required to build a solid foundation of skills for using knowledge to solve scientific problems. We create web sites that provide immediate feedback so that students can learn problem-solving skills through repeated attempts without having to wait long periods of time for their assignments to be graded by human instructors.

Learning versus testing

Usually, web sites with dynamic content like this one are best used as learning tools, not assessment or testing tools. For this reason, we have configured the software to allow students to submit proposed solutions to the problems as often as they want, in order to improve their scores. The objective is for students to use the feedback to correct their errors prior to the deadline for the assignment.

Quizzes

The quizzes presented here are designed to encourage students to read and understand the textbook used for the course. The questions are based on material presented in most introductory General Chemistry textbooks. The question items have straighforward answers not requiring detailed calculations. Questions are presented in several different formats including multiple choice, true/false, checkbox, fill-in-the-blank, and numerical answers. Each quiz consists of 10 questions drawn at random from a database containing many more questions. In the process of taking several quizzes to improve their scores, students will likely encounter some questions repeated from earlier quizzes; however, it is unlikely that any two quizzes will contain exactly the same set of questions in the same order. By assigning quizzes to be completed prior to the lecture, instructors can be assured that their students have some exposure to the material. This allows for more discussion, dialog and engagement in the classroom, and it makes learning more fun (really!).

Video Lectures

A series of 10-minute video lectures on a variety of General Chemistry topics is avialable from the Home Page. The videos are designed to reinforce the main points presented in the textbook.

Homework

The homework assignments are designed to give students practice in solving quantitative problems having numerical answers. Each student can download the assignment, work the problems and submit the answers online. Answers are judged to be correct if the numerical solution agrees with the solution found in the database to within a specified tolerance (indicated for each problem). The site informs students which answers are correct, so that they can rework incorrectly solved problems and resubmit the answers. Each problem is based on a template that draws parameters at random, so the correct answer is different for each student. This makes them suitable for collaboration and working in groups, because even though the group may work to find a correct algorithm for solving a problem, each student will have to use the algorithm to find the detailed solution to his or her own problem.

Practice Exams

Students can take timed practice exams that draw questions from any group of 3 or more topics. Each exam is designed to take 60 minutes or less to complete, and includes a selection of 10 quiz questions worth 2 points each, 5 of the easier homework problems at 10 points each, and 2 more challenging homework problems worth 15 points each. On the student's Portfolio Page, the scores are disaggregated by topic to reveal the student's areas of strength and weakness. Practice exams may be repeated as often as desired. The numerical questions are parameterized, making it extremely unlikely that a student will ever get two identical practice exams.

Portfolio Page

Each student can access a page that gives the score on each quiz and homework assignment. Students who are members of a group (usually a group of students in a class) see two quiz/homework scoores. The first is the best score for assignments completed by the deadline assigned by the instructor. The second score is the best overall score, including optional assignments and post-deadline submissions.Each instructor can view the scores earned by the students in his/her class. In addition, students can see which video lectures have been viewed and their practice exam scores arranged by topic.

PracticeZone Basic and Premium Accounts

Anyone can obtain a basic account at PracticeZone.org at no cost. All of the functionality required for completing quiz and homework assignments is included in the basic account. For a $20.00 USD nonrefundable fee, users may upgrade to a premium account type. There are two features that distinguish premium accounts:
  1. After each quiz or practice exam, premium account holders are shown the correct answers to all of the problems that were answered incorrectly. A basic account shows a maximum of two correct answers.
  2. Whenever the correct answer to a homework exercise is submitted, a premium acccount holder is shown the detailed step-by-step solution to the problem in the database. A basic account simply indicates that the problem was solved correctly.
All PracticeZone accounts expire automatically after a 6 month period of inactivity.

Instructors

If you are a teacher or professor at an accredited non-profit educational institution, you may obtain a free instructor account. This allows you to create/edit/delete groups for your students, manage group enrollments, assign teaching assistants, set quiz and homework deadlines, select question items for the quiz and homework assignments, and view the scores for members of your groups. To obtain an instructor account, please create a free basic account, then send email to admin@practicezone.org from your institutional email address requesting an account upgrade to instructor status.

Teaching Assistants

An instructor may assign any user to be a teaching assistant for a group managed by the instructor. Teaching assistants may view the scores of group members and may view the solutions to homework exercises.

Editors

Any instructor wishing to contribute question items for quiz or homework assignments may request an editor account by sending email to admin@practicezone.org. The copyrights to all question items at this site are owned entirely by PracticeZone.org. The only way that we can keep costs low enough to offer free accounts to both students and instructors is to avoid paying royalties to textbook publishers. Therefore, all contributors of PracticeZone question items are asked to certify that all contributed items are original works, and that the author assigns the copyrights of the items to PracticeZone.org.

Copyright

Creative Commons LicenseExcept where otherwise noted, the content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available by contacting admin@practicezone.org

Terms and Conditions of Use

  • LIMITED LIABILITY.
    • PRACTICEZONE.ORG IS WITHOUT LIABILITY FOR DAMAGES CAUSED OR ALLEGEDLY CAUSED BY ANY FAILURE OF PERFORMANCE, ERROR, OMISSION, INTERRUPTION, DELETION, DEFECT, VIRUS, DELAY IN OPERATION OR TRANSMISSION, INACCURATE INFORMATION, COMMUNICATIONS LINE FAILURE, THEFT OR DESTRUCTION OF OR UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS TO, ALTERATION OF, OR USE OF RECORDS, WHETHER FOR BREACH OF CONTRACT, TORTUOUS BEHAVIOR, NEGLIGENCE, OR UNDER ANY OTHER CAUSE OF ACTION.
  • PRIVACY POLICY.
    • We collect only information that we really need from you to make the site operate properly.
    • If you join a PracticeZone.org group, your information will be visible to the site administrators, group instructor and teaching assistants, but not to other users.
    • We use third-party advertising companies to serve ads when you visit our website. These companies may use information (not including your name, address, email address, or telephone number) about your visits to this and other websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, click here.
    • Other than that, we will not sell or share your personal information with anybody, period.
  • Should any provision of this agreement be held to be illegal, invalid, or unenforceable by a court of law, the legality, validity and enforceability of the remaining provisions of this agreement shall remain unaffected thereby unless otherwise stated.
  • These Terms and Conditions supersede all previous representations, understandings or agreements and shall prevail notwithstanding any variance with terms and conditions of any order submitted. Use of PracticeZone.org constitutes acceptance of these Terms and Conditions.
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