PROCEEDINGS OF THE 23RD ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON RESEARCH IN UNDERGRADUATE MATHEMATICS EDUCATION
2020
Boston, Massachusetts
How do students engage with ‘practice another version’ in online homework
Page: 124
Homework is one of students’ opportunities to learn mathematics, but we know little about what students learn from homework or how they learn it. Online homework platforms contain a variety of resources students might access. This paper explores how students used a ‘practice another version’ (PAV) feature. Findings indicate students used PAV problems for extra practice, as templates, to see the steps for solving a problem, to make sense of a solution method, to troubleshoot when their own method did not work, to see the form of an answer, to maximize their score, and to check that their method was on the right track. The primary uses were for sensemaking, to see steps, or to use the problem as a template. This work lays groundwork for future work characterizing what students learn from homework and how features such as PAV help (or hinder) their learning.