Homework problem sets allow a student to measure personal understanding and enable an instructor to evaluate individual student and overall class performance. For this study, students were asked to self-grade their homework assignments for a junior-level Fundamentals of Transportation Engineering course. Although self-grading studies have been…

Used correctly, assessments play a vital role in the success of a course: they provide valuable feedback to students regarding their knowledge gaps, encourage deeper understanding of the material, help students to develop critical thinking, and guide students to accomplish a course's learning goals. They also provide a signal to future employers,…

Homework has been shown to provide positive impacts on student performance at the undergraduate level. Providing an incentive for students to complete homework assignments, however, can be challenging and result in grade inflation or promotion of a mentality where students attempt to collect points rather than use these assignments for feedback…

An interactive textbook for a material and energy balances course measured over 1,300 reading interactions and hundreds of auto-graded problems per student each term. Specifically, seven cohorts and 601 students completed over 700,000 reading interactions and 150,000 auto-graded problems. Median reading participation was over 93%. Median correct…

Homework gives students the opportunity to practice new skills in both familiar and unfamiliar situations, and to develop an understanding of related concepts. Although some of these goals can be easily accomplished in online homework, many systems are less useful for handling open-ended questions. Written homework, on the other hand, takes time…

Student success and attempts on hundreds of online homework problems housed in a fully interactive online textbook, Material and Energy Balances zyBook, were studied over three cohorts of students (n=284). Auto-graded homework questions with randomized numbers and content can explore proficiency in the course material. Students are allowed to…

This article describes a framework of Standards-Based Grading suitable for use in a variety of mathematics courses. We detail our experience adapting this framework to various courses, ranging from Pre-calculus to Differential Equations, at four different institutions, including both small liberal arts colleges and large universities, and in class…

Quantitative Reasoning for Professionals is a two-semester general education sequence that teaches basic and intermediate algebra through the lens of quantitative reasoning. In this course sequence, we emphasize communication and inference-making while teaching practical algebra skills for students in programs such as business, nursing, and social…

Standards-based grading (SBG) is an assessment/grading system that attaches scores to the mastery level of specific learning objectives. This methodology is gaining momentum in the K-12 environment but has been largely overlooked at the post-secondary level. In this paper, I will discuss the implementation of this practice in a College Algebra…

Specifications grading is a version of mastery grading distinguished by giving students clear specifications that their work must meet, and grading most things pass/fail based on those specifications. Mastery grading systems can get quite elaborate, with hierarchies of objectives and various systems for rewriting and retesting. In this article I…

Traditionally, statistical computing courses have taught the syntax of a particular programming language or specific statistical computation methods. Since Nolan and Temple Lang's seminal paper, we have seen a greater emphasis on data wrangling, reproducible research, and visualization. This shift better prepares students for careers working with…

This article reports on the implementation of a programme of individualised, peer-graded homework assignments in a large-scale engineering course, with minimal resources. Participation in the programme allows students to receive grades for problem-solving work in a setting more conducive to learning than the traditional final examination. The…

Background: We discuss first experiences with a new variant of self-assessment in higher mathematics education. In our setting, the students of the course have to mark a part of their homework assignments themselves and they receive the corresponding credit without that any later changes are carried out by the teacher. In this way, we seek to…

Like many math educators, I have spent much of my career bound to traditional methods of instruction and assessment. In recent years, motivated by a growing understanding that such approaches may not result in equitable or inclusive classroom environments, my teaching philosophy has shifted radically. In this article, I describe how I transformed…

My goal in crafting homework in calculus is twofold: to provide scaffolding for students to develop a theoretical understanding of calculus concepts and to incorporate good mathematical exposition, including justification and proof when appropriate. I achieve these goals by creating weekly homework sets that students work on in groups of three or…