Connecticut Space Grant College Consortium

Curriculum Development Grant

Project Title:  Applied Lab Projects and Enhanced Homework For an Interactive Web-Based Homework System For Calculus

Abstract

Over the past two years, homework assignments delivered over the Internet have become an important part of the way the Mathematics Department in the College of Arts and Sciences teaches its calculus courses.  The software system WeBWorK is a web based homework system developed at the University of Rochester which allows instructors to create individualized homework assignments and deliver those assignments to students over the Internet.  The system provides automatic correcting of the assignments, opportunities to correct mistakes and immediate feedback to both student and instructor.  It also includes an email system that allows students to ask questions on any particular assignment.

We currently use WeBWorK with great success in our three course calculus sequence for science and engineering students.  We see three important benefits to using this system.  First, it strongly encourages students to do homework on a regular basis, and this is the single most important key to success in any mathematics course.  Second, because students are actively engaged in doing homework, there has been a dramatic increase in class participation, and an increase in contact between students and instructor outside the classroom as they take full advantage of WeBWorK’s email system.  We’ve also found that when students use WeBWorK, especially in entry level courses, they come to expect regular homework assignments, are responsible about completing them, and this translates to greater success as they progress through the entire calculus sequence. 

Our funding is for two members of the mathematics faculty, Mako Haruta and Ben Pollina, during the Summer of 2003.   

The specifics of our proposal are to do the following:  

• Create WeBWorK lab projects. 
  
• Expand the existing Calculus I and Calculus II problem libraries by writing more problems, since currently there are not enough to provide a wide selection.
  
• Modify problems to address deficiencies with original versions.  Specifically, rewrite problems so that students need to supply intermediate steps which WeBWorK can check so that students can more easily identify where they may have gone wrong in solving a problem.
  
• Analyze the data we have gathered from questionnaires given to six Spring 2003 calculus sections regarding attitudes toward WeBWorK, study habits, and the use of other types of technology in the classroom as well as the effect of WeBWorK on student success in the calculus.