Behind the Scenes Part II: Review Criteria

The topic of the second post in our new “Behind the Scenes” category is reached by clicking on “Review” in the trail or task view in the web portal, as described in the last post. Here, users can request that their trail or task be published. But how can we the MCM team actually access the requests and according to which criteria are the requests accepted or rejected? We will answer these questions in the article below.

All requests for publication converge on the MathCityMap team’s side in the “Reviews” section of the web portal. This special area is only visible to reviewers. Reviews can currently only be performed by members of the MCM teams at universities around the world. In the long term, however, a review seminar is planned in which one can obtain the authorization to perform reviews of trails and tasks.
By clicking on “Reviews” we now get to an overview where all trails and tasks are listed whose review process has not yet been completed. This is either the case if the review has not been started yet or if there are still ambiguities in the tasks or trails that are being reworked by their creating users. In the image below you can see this overview for trails. It shows the title of the trail, in which language the trail was created and when the trail or task was submitted for the first time.

After selecting a trail we get to its overview where we review all tasks individually. When reviewing the tasks, we pay special attention to various criteria:

1. Uniqueness. For each task, an image must be used to accurately identify the situation, or object, that the task is about.
2. Presence. The task can only be solved on the spot, which means that the task data must be collected on the spot. This also means that the picture or the task text may not be sufficient to successfully complete the tasks.
3. Activity. To solve the task an activity is necessary, i.e. you have to do something yourself (e.g. estimating, measuring or counting).
4. Reality. The task should have an application, be realistic and not appear too artificial.
5. Tiered aids. At least two tiered hints should be added to each task.
6. School math and tags. The task should have a relationship to school mathematics, which are assigned to the task as keywords (tags). Similarly, the task should be assigned a grade level.
7. Solution Formats. Each task should be based on a meaningful answer format, such as intervals for measurement tasks.
8. Sample solution. A sample solution should be added to each task (visible to learners only after the task has been completed) to allow comparison of the learner’s own solution with the expected solution.

If all tasks meet the above criteria, there is one last criterion for the publication of the trail in addition to those already mentioned. This is especially relevant if the trail is explicitly designed for school classes.

9. Practicability. The tasks of the trail should be within an appropriate radius for the intended time of realization. Furthermore, it makes sense if the tasks are arranged in such a way that they form a circular trail with the start and finish as close to each other as possible.

However, we would like to show you in the next article of our category “Behind the Scenes” what exactly happens from the application to the publication and how this looks in the portal on the MCM teams side with an example task.