In planning my math classes for the fall, I am rethinking the use of online math homework systems. There are some powerful uses of these systems, and I want to take some time to think through some of the hidden costs and missed opportunities they misdirect us from. The following are my own thoughts, and I have yet to dig into the research. If you have any studies or articles that address these issues, especially if they counter my thinking, please send them my way.
Practice vs. Scores
The biggest benefit of online homework systems is to help students practice math concepts and computations. By providing questions, showing correct answers, linking to full solutions and videos, and allowing for multiple reattempts, these systems allow students to practice iteratively. Ideally students use these answers and solutions to identify their errors, correct them, and confirm their new understanding with another question.
An assumption in the above is that students will use this set of questions to practice in this focused way, and subsequently learn the underlying concept. After getting a question incorrect they will take a moment to review the course material, watch a provided video, or some other intervention to address a misconception or computational error. Educators assume students are using these systems in a thoughtful, rational, and metacognitively informed way.
Maybe it was never true that students used these systems in this way, but my colleagues and I have certainly worked with students who seem to have earned a perfect score on the online homework, but cannot answer basic questions that were on the homework in person. These systems track the amount of time students spend on an assignment, and when they complete twenty questions in less than 10 minutes it seems clear that they are completing these assignments in a way that does not align with our assumptions above. When this happens most of us believe students are copying and pasting questions into AI.
Granted, when we ask students to do anything educators should ask "How do they know how to do this?" and think about how to scaffold the activity or action. This can certainly be done by modeling during class, instructional videos, specific instructions, and questions within the assignments asking students for more detailed analysis. Yet essay questions must be graded manually by faculty, which works against the 'efficiency' of these systems.
Isolated Algorithms vs. Deep Connections
When creating assignments within an online homework system, faculty know the broad topics and connections they want students to practice and subsequently understand. Because of the nature of these systems we have to select a finite number of questions, with answers that are algorithmically determined by internal coding. This coding allows for the benefits above, that answers can be marked correct or incorrect, and students can reattempt similar questions with different values.
In presenting questions individually this setup leans into the (false) idea that answering a math question is a matter of answering disconnected questions, like a hellish version of Jeopardy. This is not the intent, as faculty want students to understand topics broadly and build connections. Yet this atomization of individual questions does not give students much of an opportunity to identify connections between questions, and subsequently topics.
Having a limited number of questions to answer gives students a false sense that once they complete the assignment they know the material. While many of us give further directions on when, how, and what to practice, many students will see the 100% in the gradebook and assume they have learned everything they need to.
Being able to reattempt a similar question just with different numbers also supports the idea that each math question can be answered by 'doing something' to the numbers provided. Many students interpret this as a pattern matching exercise, where they need to identify the pattern of what to do with each number, without any attempt at understanding the underlying computation or topic.
Focused Practice vs. The Open Internet
Being online these systems are accessible to students at whatever place and time they want, just an internet-connected device is needed. This allows for a huge amount of flexibility for students, and faculty, to complete assignments and grading.
Being on the open internet a student can very quickly choose to do something unrelated to the course. Anything from streaming a movie, scrolling social media, or playing a video game are a few clicks away. This is before we talk about AI use for homework, which is a plague on its own. This temptation is great for working adults, let alone students who are still developing their ability to learn.
Faculty 'Offloading' vs. Engagement
An issue that I have experienced both in my teaching and as department chair, is when faculty offload much of their thinking and teaching to students on online homework systems in place of real student and content engagement. These systems do allow for lots of data about student work time, question completion, grades, and usually have ways for students to message their instructor about a question. This last feature is invaluable, otherwise many students don't provide sufficient information for us to help them. With a message within the system linking to the question itself, we can go to the question and quickly identify what their answer was.
In order to be useful, the data these systems collect must be reviewed. It is very easy, in the variety of tasks a faculty member has to do, to forget to review student data. I have had success in setting up time blocks each week where I do just that, and sometimes they don't happen because of a fire I have to put out. Ideally, in reviewing this data faculty get to see the topics that students are struggling with, and offer interventions during class or online.
It sometimes happens that a faculty member doesn't review this data, and works on the assumption that as long as students are earning high grades on assignments they are learning. Faculty are often surprised when students perform poorly on assessments, and in looking at this data realize that many students really weren't engaging with the course concepts, rather completing these assignments in a way that does not increase understanding. Setting these systems on 'autopilot' is easy to do, even accidently.
To be fair, we all know of lecture faculty in our academic lives who did not review homework or practice assignments, and focused solely on assessments. Yet I think the difference here is that with those faculty there is no assumption that someone is reviewing your practice work. With online systems there very well could be an assumption of students that their faculty member is reviewing their work, the data the system collects, and messages. If this does not happen, then everyone is put in a difficult spot; students don't get the support they believe they are getting, and faculty don't have data to base interventions on.
Questions to Consider
- Do any of these issues resonate with you or your students?
- Are there assumptions I am not stating about these systems?
- What are ways that online math homework systems could be changed to address these issues?
- Would going back to pen and paper homework, spot checking 1-3 questions at the start of class, address all of these issues? Would it be better?
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