A Homework on the Web System

In the early 2000’s, frustrated with the behavior of most computer-based homework systems in the market, my advisor—Bradley Lucier—decided to take matters into his own hands, and with the help of a couple of students, developed an amazing tool: It generated a great deal of different problems in Algebra and Trigonometry. A single problem model had enough different variations so that no two students would encounter the same exercise in their sessions. It allowed students to input exact answers, rather than mere calculator approximations. It also allowed you to input your answer in any possible legal way. In case of an error, the system would occasionally indicate you where the mistake was produced.

It was solid, elegant, fast… working in this project was sheer delight. The most amazing part of it all: it only took one graduate student to write the codes for the problems and checking for validity of answer. Only two graduate students worked in the coding of this project, with the assistance of several instructors, and Brad himself. He wrote a fun article explaining how the project came to life, enumerating the details that made it so solid, and showing statistical evidence that students working with this environment benefitted more than with traditional methods of evaluation and grading. You can access that article either [here], or continue reading below.