Expert TA Blog

In 2015, the AP Physics Exam experienced significant changes. AP Physics B was split into two exams and two courses: AP Physics 1 and AP Physics 2. In addition, the amended approach emphasizes the processes of scientific inquiry and reasoning, experimental design and working symbolically. As shared in a previous Expert TA blog, the number of students who took the AP Physics exam doubled in 2015, but the percentage of students who scored a 3 or higher (and therefore received college credit) declined from 59.7% in 2014 to 39.2% in 2015. Examination of score distribution data from the College Board shows that the number one reason for the decline in passing scores in 2015 was lack of sufficient preparation for the free response questions.

Students are not getting enough practice with solving problems symbolically, which is a big part of the exam. In the free response section, test takers are asked to show all their work, and as stated in the course and exam description from The College Board, even correct answers may not receive full credit if supporting information is insufficient. This supporting information almost always includes fundamental symbolic relationships and equations. Preparation Material for the exams should not just require students to regularly deal with symbolic expressions, but should also continually reinforce the problem solving process. This gives students the opportunity to think about why a given equation is important within the context of a specific problem.

We believe that many homework platforms are not properly preparing students for exam day, because they simply ask a student to provide a final numeric value. However, to fully understand the material, and do well on the AP Physics exams, it’s important to know and show the process of arriving at the final answer. Based on our research, we see strong evidence that reinforcing the problem-solving process can have a significant impact on exam results for Physics students in college-level courses.

Our development of the Expert TA Online AP Physics I Study Guide is an effort to help AP Physics students receive the same practice that has guided students through rigorous Introductory Physics courses at the college level. In an effort to provide students with much needed practice, specifically using symbolic problem solving, we worked with AP Physics teachers to build modules for each of the key areas of the exam using our best symbolic problems. Additionally, Expert TA is not just for exam preparation, many high school teachers use Expert TA to assign homework in their courses. AP Physics teachers have the option to create weekly homework, quizzes, or tests, and allow their students to engage in guided practice through the study guide.  

For those working in the education realm these days, it seems that you can’t go far without hearing about new educational technology tools, and Instructure’s Canvas LMS is at the top of that list. While Expert TA has no affiliation with Canvas, we always love learning about new classroom technology being used in higher education. Therefore, we decided to dig a little deeper to see what all the buzz surrounding Canvas was about. Although Canvas has a lengthy list of features, here are some of the items we think instructors and students will appreciate most about the system:

1. Data/analytics reporting. All Canvas users receive access to Canvas Data at no additional cost, and instructors can export this data into an analytics tool of their choosing. With this functionality, instructors can quickly see student activity by date, assignment completions, grade distributions and individual student activity. We at Expert TA are big fans of this kind of insight because we provide an extensive analytics reporting tool as well. When both your LMS and homework system help to find learning trends and weak points in understanding, the instructor and students benefit greatly.
2. SpeedGrader. Teachers can easily view and markup student work without downloading or uploading files. This includes highlighting, strikeouts, and freehand drawing. Text messages and other media formats are also available for communicating with students.
3. Canvas Commons. Canvas has a learning object repository (LOR) that claims to have a more intuitive platform for searching and sharing content. Instructors can digitally share educational content, teaching resources and ideas for the classroom in a central hub that is organized and searchable.
4. Organization. In a review by students at Penn State, enthusiasm centered around the planning tools that allow students to keep track of deadlines and assignments. Besides the calendar tool, students can utilize the Files feature to organize documents, ePortfolios to feature project work, and setup news subscriptions among a long list of other tools meant to help students stay organized.
5. Collaboration. Student groups can collect shared documents, interact in threaded discussions, and convene online group meetings in order to efficiently complete group projects and assignments. In addition, the Chat feature allows students and instructors to communicate in real time, a perfect way for instructors to create virtual office hours. The usability seems to be one of its featured benefits over competitors as one reviewer commented, “It simply feels better to use”.

Although many would think that in 2016, technology’s intrinsic value in the classroom would be a given, educators still debate how important technology is in education as they struggle to implement it in a helpful way. We believe that every instructor who is able to get over the implementation hurdles will continue to discover tools that get more exciting every day, leading to greater benefits for both teachers and students.  

Case in point: This article from Education Week highlights the four pillars of “personalized learning” that were created by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation and EDUCAUSE.  As we gain insight from emerging research, we push ourselves every day to further develop our products in order to provide more value to students. We are thrilled to play even a small part in the future of this concept, because it combines two of our biggest passions at Expert TA: big data and student understanding. We hope you enjoy the article as much as we did. 

Hints and feedback are often used interchangeably in the world of online homework systems. However, while they both hold an important place in student learning, they are not synonyms. Too many companies suggest their systems offer feedback when they truly mean hints: static suggestions based on the question and not on an individual student’s answer.

What is the difference between hints and feedback, and which is more effective for students?  First, let’s define the terms. A hint is a slight or indirect indication or suggestion. Educationally, hints are not meant to give students pinpointed help, but offer generalized, pre-programmed instructional advice. When a student is staring at a blank sheet of paper, not sure where to begin, hints are the right tool to lead them down a good path.

By contrast, feedback is defined as information given specifically based on a person’s performance, usually offered as a basis for improvement or better understanding. This means feedback within a homework system should always consider a student’s incorrect answer and respond accordingly.  Feedback helps a student course-correct after having veered off track. Both hints and feedback have learning value,  and each have their place helping students achieve a successful outcome.

Expert TA is one of few companies with the technology to offer both hints and feedback, and our human-like feedback is the product of analyzing five years’ worth of student data across hundreds of schools. By looking at incorrect answers and mining the data for which portions students commonly got wrong, we were able to isolate specific parts of each problem, then tailor feedback to address appropriate misconceptions. We then ask our staff of instructors to help us create guided, Socratic feedback from this data.  We want the feedback to be shown in a similar way to how an instructor might explain a wrong answer to a student during office hours if they were working the problem together. (Read more about our data-mining process here and then dive into one of our Expert TA Analytics case studies.)

Let’s look at some examples of hints and feedback in Expert TA. For context, instructors using Expert TA have access to thousands of comprehensive introductory physics problems. All of our problems have a difficulty rating of 1 to 5. The following problem is a level 5 and illustrates the difference between hints and feedback in the context of one of our more challenging problems. 

The highlighted section below shows a hint that a student could access for this question:

When a student makes a mistake, the resulting feedback is specific to their error:

As a company, offering individualized feedback is the result of an intentional desire to give students an effective homework experience that serves their individual needs.  Hints are there to help all students holistically. And when used together, students experience a learning environment where they have the right tool at their disposal no matter where they are in the problem-solving process.

NOTE: Ultimately, hints and feedback are both ineffective if students never choose to access them. That is why Expert TA encourages its professors to first fine-tune their settings to maximize effectiveness for students. Then, a short conversation with students takes place at the beginning of each semester to encourage them to take advantage of hints and feedback, and to explain the advantages of each and how it will help maximize their student learning.