I’ve recently been talking with professors eager to use Cody in the classroom.  From these discussions, I’ve learned of seven great reasons to challenge your students with MATLAB practice problems in Cody:

1.       Great problems to draw on

There are already over 900 ready-made MATLAB programming problems, in just the first year online.  Search for your subject matter of interest.  Check back often, as the Community area is growing rapidly.

2.       Fits into your workflow

Navigate to Cody problems by hyperlink directly from your Learning Management System (LMS), HTML syllabus page or simply link directly into each Cody problem in email to your students.

3.       Engaging for the learner

As Jeff points out on the Community Blogs, Cody has an addictive quality you can use to deepen student engagement.

4.       Can use online and/or with MATLAB

Copy the Cody test suite into desktop MATLAB.  Let students write their Cody function with the full power of MATLAB, then paste their answer back into Cody to verify correctness.  For example, the Times 2 problem could be solved in MATLAB as follows:

testsuite.m:
%%
assert(isequal(times2(1),2));
%%
assert(isequal(times2(11),22));
%%
assert(isequal(times2(-3),-6));
%%
assert(isequal(times2(29),58));


times2.m:
function y = times2(x)
% Modify the line below so that the output y is twice the incoming value x
y = 2*x;
% After you fix the code, press the "Submit" button, and you're on your way.
end


Running testsuite.m confirms the function passes each test case, hence success.

5.       Create your own problems

Try creating a Cody problem for yourself.

6.       Experiment to see how people try to solve your problems

Draw on the MATLAB Central community to confirm your Cody problem challenges exactly the skills you want students to learn.  We offer you a large population of MATLAB experts eager to try out the latest MATLAB programming puzzle.  Use the Solution Map to see outlier attempts, to better understand how your students could react before offering the practice problem in class.

7.       Identify learning gaps

Using the solution map, keep an eye across multiple problems from the point in time you’ve offered in class.  Compare these across problems to identify subject matter areas meriting more lecture coverage.  For example,

Problem 7: Column Removal

shows a cluster of incorrect attempts worth exploring.  You’ll quickly see which topics need follow-up coverage in class.

I’ve also prepared a five minute video to demonstrate the above points.  Please let me know how you’ve found Cody helpful.

Try Cody for yourself at www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/cody, and get your students addicted to learning in MATLAB.