AT&T Fellows Final Report: Bogdan Vajiac

AT&T Fellows Final Reports

March 2005

Name	Bogdan Vajiac
Title	Associate Professor
Department	Mathematics
Campus	IUN
Project Title	The Implementation of Computer-based Homework Approach Using the WeBWorK Program
Project Goal	The purpose of this project is to implement and develop of the WeBWorK system at IUN. WeBWorK is an Internet-based system for generating and delivering homework problems to students.
Type of Technology Used in the Project	Perl programming, Web, email, Java, Math Server Software installation

Executive Summary of Results

The project brought the WeBWorK system at IUN. It implemented the necessary hardware and software, and it started the problem database for the courses specific to our campus. WeBWorK is a homework delivery system used in more than 100 universities and high schools around the country. Various studies confirm the improved performance of the students that use the system. We implemented the system and plan on continually maintain and develop it at the IUN campus.

Need for the Project

The majority of mathematics courses taught at IUN have homework suggested to students, but rarely collected and graded. This is not in the benefit of the students, who need a structured and supervised environment to practice on the material covered in the class in order to be successful. WeBWorK is an online homework delivery system, which can provide students with the possibility of having their homework graded and with immediate feedback on their work. WeBWorK encourages student cooperation, by providing individualized problems for each student; groups of students can work together to solve a specific homework task, without the possibility of merely copying from each other. It increases the efficiency of traditional homework by providing automatic grading of assignments and by giving information on the performance of individual students and the course as a whole.

Use of Technology

The WeBWorK implementation at IUN brings a new way of designing the homework component of mathematics classes. The project uses an easy to understand web interface and common mathematical symbols, so it requires practically no special training. The web-based homework is new for our students, but the implementation does not assume any previous computer knowledge. While maintaining its simple interface, the fact that the homework is delivered and needs to be answered in a computer based frame, encourages students to use other available technology to solve problems. Quite a few students tried to check answers using computer algebra system such as Maple, or to use calculators in order to solve more complicated homework problems. WeBWorK also allows various types of problems to be used as homework, which otherwise will not be possible; examples include graph recognition, approximating the tangent line, etc.

Instructional Design Plan

We expected students to improve their mathematics skills, by doing homework problems and being checked on the validity of their answer. While we encountered some negative reaction to the fact that a new component was added to the class syllabus, we got mostly positive reactions from students by the end of their class. We noticed that doing organized and systematic homework helped students better prepare for quizzes and exams. We continuously monitor and analyze data; we improved the type of problems delivered from a semester to another. We plan to both implement the WeBWorK component to more classes, and to revise the existing ones, based on students’ comments and performance.

Students were encouraged to work in groups to solve their homework problems. This fact alone will decrease their math anxiety, by recognizing that certain problems are not specific to a certain individual, but common to quite a few students in a class. Most students feel shy to ask what they consider silly questions about mathematics. The WeBWorK system provides a feedback button that students commonly use to ask the instructor about their answer. Most students feel that the computer did not understand their answers, so they provide details about their approach in their emails. This helps the instructors tremendously in identifying specific problems in students’ background.

We used campus support in installing and setting up the mathematics department server. Once the WeBWorK system was functional, we presented it to the mathematics faculty from IUN. Most professors appeared interested in using the system (and some did it), and we would like to be able to involve other people in developing an IUN problem library. We plan to expand the use of the system to other areas of teaching besides mathematics, building on other universities’ experiences.

Potential to Impact Student Learning

WeBWorK increases the effectiveness of traditional homework as a learning tool by providing students with immediate feedback on the validity of their answers. The students have the opportunity to correct mistakes while they are still thinking about the problem. It is a common problem with students to have a hard time knowing whether they are correct or not in a certain solution. Most of the time not having the proper feedback will result in students getting discouraged or learning the wrong argument for a type of problem.

WeBWorK provides students with individualized versions of problems, which means that instructors can encourage students to work together while still requiring that each student develop an answer to his or her own version of the problem. It increases the efficiency of traditional homework by providing automatic grading of assignments and by giving information on the performance of individual students and the course as a whole.

Each problem in a set may have a different limit on the number of allowed attempts. Flexible mechanisms are available for handling numeric, symbolic, and string answers. Numeric answers may (at the instructor's option) allow elementary functions which WeBWorK will evaluate, or the instructor can require that the student enter a numeric answer.

Problems can have individualized solutions and/or hints (e.g., solutions can use the same individualized constants each student sees). After the due date, students can review the homework, including the answers expected by the instructor. Solutions to problems, if provided by the instructor, are also available after the due date. Students frequently work old assignments to review for exams.

We noticed a positive correlation between the exam scores and the WeBWorK homework scores for most students. The availability of old homeworks with their solutions proved to be an important tool for strengthening the students’ confidence in their abilities. We are convinced that homework plays a very important role in students’ retention of knowledge. WeBWorK is a very powerful system, with flexible capabilities, which can help an instructor in getting better results in class.

We are also attempting to attract local high schools in using the system. The creation of a database of problems for various mathematics classes will open the possibility for IUN to design a system of testing and preparing online evaluations for the elementary school teachers. We envision a situation where the school teachers that choose to be affiliated with the University can access a system that can help in reviewing notion to be presented to students; it can also provide examples that can be used in the classroom. A few regional Universities (Arizona, Alabama, and others) have taken the task to help local schools in their mathematics preparedness and presentation. We are taking a first step toward this goal.

Assessment Plan

We used student feedback, course evaluations, Math Lab instructors feedback and interviews students to modify and improve our approach. As we mentioned earlier, there were some resistance from students earlier, as seen in comments to the instructors and Math Lab tutors. This fact was accentuated by the difficulty of some problems the first time the system was used. We noticed, however, that there was a positive correlation between the students’ performance at quizzes and tests and their WeBWorK scores. We incorporated a question in the student evaluations at the end of the semester, in order to specifically address the question of WeBWorK effectiveness. The results were satisfactory. It showed that the system is rather easy to use and has a positive effect on the students’ performance. The feedback allowed the instructors to better accommodate students’ needs in term of what subjects/notions should be reviewed or covered in detail. The problem database is constantly improving. We plan on working in both implementing WeBWorK components in the majority of mathematics classes, and to adjust each semester the type or difficulty of problems in the existing classes.

Plan for Colleague Development

We planes several talks in 2004-2005 about our approach and results in implementing this system. In Fall 2004, we presented the results of our approach to the Mathematics Department at IUN. Several colleagues were immediately interested in using the WeBWorK system in their classes. In April 2005, we gave a talk at IUSB about WeBWorK. Since then, they implemented the system and in cooperation with IUB (using one of their servers) they started to use WeBWorK in many classes. We also presented the results of our implementation at the MAA Indiana Section meeting, spring 2005.

In May 2005 we presented the results of our project at the SBC Forum in Indianapolis. We are planning to expand the use of the system for the T101/T102/T103 sequence and to use WeBWorK in the placement test in the Mathematics Department. We will work on having some other disciplines use the same system. While designed for mathematics, WeBWorK was already used in English, Computer Science, Physics, and others. We plan on contacting other interested faculty members at IUN that can use the same system set-up to their specific courses.

WeBWorK also opened the possibility for the Mathematics Department to reach out to local High Schools and to offer them help in using or implementing the web based homework system. We are continuing our approach to contact area High Schools to help them in their mathematics curriculum development; a joint WeBWorK implementation will also help our department attract students to our majors.

Final Comments on Project Results

We believe we met the goals of the project. We implemented the WeBWorK system, and we used it continuously since. We have tremendous potential for improving and development, as we mentioned earlier in this document. We think that the implementation of this new approach would benefit from better marketing. There is little documentation about WeBWorK and spread in various hard to find places. We think that we could have done a better job by organizing a few conferences or workshops with invited speakers from other Universities that implemented and developed this system. Most of the outcomes were expected, in term of students’ initial anxiety and final performance. We were pleasantly surprised to have influenced the IUSB Mathematics Department to sign on to WeBWorK after our presentation.

We shared our experience in several presentations at regional mathematics meetings. We plan on continuously developing the system and attract other Departments and local high schools to the use of WeBWorK.

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