automatically grading small programming assignments

[Brian Blais]

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.

Or perhaps there is a better way to do this sort of thing.  How do others who teach 
Python handle this?


			thanks,


				Brian Blais

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              bblais at bryant.edu
              http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais