This happens about once a day
15-Mar-08
It seems that SMAC accurately represents my life in a short clip:
Many UM undergraduate math classes have homework based entirely on the web — this semester, the dept. is actually looking to see if the system is working. This analytical spirit is rare, and I applaud it.
Here is the UROP project description (more on UROP later, hopefully I don’t have to file a FOIA request)
This [project] will specifically seek to answer the following research questions:
1. Do students spend more time working on the on-line homework than they do working written homework, and is this affected by the inclusion of the homework as a part of students’ course grade?
2. How does the use of on-line homework change the manner in which class-time is used?
3. Do students in classes using on-line homework perform better on the uniform exams in the course, and do they perform better on questions that specifically resemble homework problems in the course?
4. Do students in classes using on-line homework demonstrate better skills at finding antiderivatives and evaluating definite integrals?
5. Do students work a greater percentage of the homework when it is assigned as on-line homework instead of pencil-and-paper homework, and do they work on problems requiring greater thought when those problems are presented in the on-line format?