Online Homework Systems?

I have been grading final exams this week, and having to resist the temptation to vocalize dramatically when I see what students do too commonly on basic problems.

This, of course, is nothing new; I suspect that most of us have this reaction at the end of a course, and that my students have not created anything that has not been seen thousands of times before. During formative assessments, this ‘interesting’ mistakes are actually a great opportunity to explore the thinking and improve understanding.

My worry is that the rate of doing these ‘interesting’ mistakes might actually be increasing in my courses. We adopted e-books and homework systems for our developmental courses this year — students pay a course fee about $80 that covers the whole thing. Since all students pay this as part of registration, all students have access to the ‘textbook’ from the first day of the semester.

Access has certainly been improved. Performance has not. It’s possible that my subjective assessment is not valid; however, I am fairly sure that students are doing less well in this system. One thought I have — does the online homework system create a false sense of mastery? Students can get quite a few correct answers after looking at hints and doing some multiple choice questions. Or, perhaps it’s the process of doing online homework, where writing problems might or might not happen … how does this impact memory? [We can be pretty sure that writing out problems will improve memory and learning.]

I like my students having access to the book from day 1; I really like all of the resources that come with the e-book (like videos). Informal conversations with some colleagues suggests that the impact on learning has not been that good.

Since online homework is becoming fairly standard … I wondered, and thought I would raise the question. Feel free to comment!!

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Learning math | Jack Rotman | December 16, 2011 3:42 pm

6 Comments

By Rebecca, December 16, 2011 @ 5:27 pm

I am torn on these systems. I teach statistics at a community college and have used one for the last year.

PROS:
– Student gets immediate feedback when they make a mistake. If they take advantage of the resources, they will could use the system to improve their understanding.
– I don’t have to try to read their handwriting or figure out what they were trying to do on a page full of chicken scratches.
– They can try a problem multiple times to figure it out and the system generates a different set of specific numbers each time.

CONS:
– They really don’t seem to remember it as well as my classes in prior years have.
– System spoon-feeds them the problems. Later they can’t break the problems down for themselves.
By jane parker, December 16, 2011 @ 8:50 pm

I tutor students who use these online homework systems. There isn’t much procedural training. Lots of punching the calculator and putting in numbers. Without writing things down in the process there isn’t a good way to find your mistakes. But my students are doing well in the course. Definitely a different type of homework experience.
By Brenda, December 16, 2011 @ 9:20 pm

Which software are you using? We adopted online homework fall 2010 for our lab classes. I think students do more trial and error with the online homework. I also wonder if they are missing some important link in algebra by not writing out their steps. I’ve been wondering if there is research on this.
By Jack Rotman, December 17, 2011 @ 3:59 pm

For the courses I teach the most, we use Math Zone (beginning & intermediate algebra). We’ve also used MyMathLab for pre-algebra and others. I may come back with a post about the research on the topic.
By Peter Brown, December 17, 2011 @ 8:33 am

Interesting thoughts Jack. I have been preaching the benefits of the online homework system (emphasis on homework) as a way to free up clastime for deeper and more meaningful context and connections.
By Michael Wolf, December 19, 2011 @ 1:14 pm

I also find online homework not very helpful to students. I am wondering though, if we are near the day when students can do math by hand (literally) on an ipad or other tablet, and write out their work, even while having access to calculators. That might free us from the multiple choice problem in the online assignments, and force students to be somewhat more actively engaged about how they do the work.

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