PROCEEDINGS OF THE 21ST ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON RESEARCH IN UNDERGRADUATE MATHEMATICS EDUCATION
2018
San Diego, California
Pre-journal Award: Red X’s and Green Checks: A Preliminary Study of Student Learning from Online Homework
Page: 46
Homework is thought to play an important role in learning of mathematics. Undergraduate mathematics students spend more time doing homework than they do in class. Many students’ homework is at least partially online. Because homework accounts for the majority of students’ interaction with content, it has the potential to be a rich learning environment. However, we know little about the nature of students’ activity as they complete online homework. This paper proposes an empirically-based model of students’ activity in an online homework context. The model was developed from analyses of (1) video recordings of 9 calculus II students completing an online homework assignment about sequences and (2) follow-up interviews with those students regarding their activity. The model characterizes nuances in students’ activity regarding reasoning that leads to their answers, the points at which they submit parts or the whole problem and why, and how they leverage immediate feedback.