6 ms·

Has anyone done a study to see if this kind of aided solving actually helps students learn? I'm worried that "Eh, I'll just write this solution down today, I'm

by tgb 10y ago

Has anyone done a study to see if this kind of aided solving actually helps students learn? I'm worried that "Eh, I'll just write this solution down today, I'm sure I'll learn it tomorrow" is what's happens. Awesome software though.

empath75 10y ago
Yeah, seems like it's going to be used for cheating on homework. (ie: "Show your work")
- maxerickson 10y ago
  It should be used to replace homework! A system that can break a problem out into steps should be able to assess the students understanding of the steps and even give them appropriate practice problems.
- digler999 10y ago
  the biggest cheating is done by the TA's and profs who don't even grade homework anymore. they just send you to a website where a $100 per-semester, per-student SaaS daemon runs a glorified strcmp() on your answers and marks your problem wrong even if your answer is logically correct but the strings dont match.
- nerdponx 10y ago
  As if you couldn't already copy off your friend?
closed 10y ago
It really seems to boil down to how the software is used. I'm not sure how effective simply presenting the steps is, but some of the most well validated intelligent tutoring systems are built around simple algebra problems like these. The big difference is that they test students on each step, and try to give useful feedback if they get a piece wrong. (although, I just glanced at the wikipedia article for a tutoring system and it doesn't seem conclusive, so maybe I need to look again.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_tutor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_tutor)
j2kun 10y ago
In my experience as a teacher, most students don't learn it either way until they have to use the skill to do something else. That's why we joke: calculus is a class where you finally learn algebra, differential equations is a class where you learn to integrate, etc.
- snarf21 10y ago
  There is big difference between understanding something, knowing something and application of that knowledge. It is easy to sit in class and follow along and feel like you get it. Much harder to explain it to the class from scratch. "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough." -Einstein
  - minxomat 10y ago
    > The quote "An alleged scientific discovery has no merit unless it can be explained to a barmaid." is popularly attributed to Lord Rutherford of Nelson in as stated in Einstein, the Man and His Achievement By G. J. Whitrow, Dover Press 1973. Einstein is unlikely to have said it since his theory of relativity was very abstract and based on sophisticated mathematics.[1] Also, see the next answer for a more direct source. The list of misattribution is entertaining, too.[2] [1] - http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/a/22409 http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/a/22409 [2] - https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein#Misattributed https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein#Misattributed
    - snarf21 10y ago
      Very interesting. There is so much of this in what we learn. Only through deep research are the fact separated from the story. :)
    - mindcrime 10y ago
      "Most quotes on the Internet are made up" - Abraham Lincoln
dahart 10y ago
I don't know of any studies, I'd love to see some! But, I'm a little torn on the concept you're getting at, which is whether seeing answers is less helpful than struggling to find answers and arriving at them yourself without having seen the answer first. We do have a strong and pervasive belief in our society that the struggle itself is important, and that struggling to derive how to get to the answer without someone giving it to you is the only "right" way to learn. (The same goes for money, btw, but that is a meta topic for another time...) In many ways, I believe in struggle myself, but I don't have any concrete scientific evidence, I'm just becoming aware that it's a belief and not necessarily a truth. Recently, as a parent, I think I'm seeing some evidence to the contrary. When my kids ask for math help and I force them to struggle through each step and think about how to do it and explain and show their work, it works eventually, but it takes a long time and it is a struggle for all of us. When I show them the answer first, and then we talk about it later, they learn quicker with less struggle. Usually I will make them rewrite anything I show, but I'm starting to feel that learning by example without the forced struggle is a lot more efficient. I still want them to be curious and interested in researching their own solutions, so of course I'm a little worried that by doing too much handing out of answers, I might do damage to their desire to explore math (or any subject). But so far, I'm not seeing that, I'm seeing increased interest and enjoyment in math, we spend more time talking about subjects beyond homework. In some ways it makes sense, we learn how to talk and eat and behave by example, some subjects we can only learn by example (like, say, history). Math and physics are weird ones where we pile on extra struggle to derive the rules because we think it's helpful for learning. Anyway, I'm certain struggling to learn rules is important, I'm just becoming less certain that it's always important. I do believe that learning by example works and is useful and sometimes more effective than learning rules.
0xfaded 10y ago
+1 also curious. Have millennial children fundamentally learnt to learn differently using computers? I decided to understand the math behind the Kalman filter, and despite having read the Wikipedia page and impemented these, I still had to go back to pencil and paper. (Did you know that the Kalman filter is a least squares estimator?) I was thinking this morning that if the requisite knowledge needed to make incremental advances continues to increase, we risk a technological platuea as fewer and fewer people will have enough knowledge. One solution is to teach humans more, and I'm curious if technology has or can facilitate this.
jnbiche 10y ago
It's an n of 1, but when I went back and reviewed calculus and linear algebra last year, using symbolab.com to talk through the steps of various problems was a huge help in refreshing my knowledge. In some cases, it even helped me really grasp a concept that I never really had learned well the first time around.
pablo_aguilar 10y ago
My wife did a very similar research project for her PhD (https://goo.gl/vSZ69s https://goo.gl/vSZ69s) They studied using the system in 5 groups (taking the same class) and got a statistically significant delta in the 3 experimental groups' scores vs. the 2 control groups. Both exp and ctl solved the same set of exercises, both worked with a teacher, but exp groups also used the system. The results about the learning deltas haven't been published yet, but you can e-mail her at <np at mathdip.org> if you're curious.

by tgb 10y ago

empath75 10y ago

Yeah, seems like it's going to be used for cheating on homework. (ie: "Show your work")

maxerickson 10y ago
It should be used to replace homework! A system that can break a problem out into steps should be able to assess the students understanding of the steps and even give them appropriate practice problems.
digler999 10y ago
the biggest cheating is done by the TA's and profs who don't even grade homework anymore. they just send you to a website where a $100 per-semester, per-student SaaS daemon runs a glorified strcmp() on your answers and marks your problem wrong even if your answer is logically correct but the strings dont match.
nerdponx 10y ago
As if you couldn't already copy off your friend?

closed 10y ago

It really seems to boil down to how the software is used. I'm not sure how effective simply presenting the steps is, but some of the most well validated intelligent tutoring systems are built around simple algebra problems like these. The big difference is that they test students on each step, and try to give useful feedback if they get a piece wrong. (although, I just glanced at the wikipedia article for a tutoring system and it doesn't seem conclusive, so maybe I need to look again.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_tutor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_tutor)

j2kun 10y ago

In my experience as a teacher, most students don't learn it either way until they have to use the skill to do something else. That's why we joke: calculus is a class where you finally learn algebra, differential equations is a class where you learn to integrate, etc.

snarf21 10y ago
There is big difference between understanding something, knowing something and application of that knowledge. It is easy to sit in class and follow along and feel like you get it. Much harder to explain it to the class from scratch. "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough." -Einstein
- minxomat 10y ago
  > The quote "An alleged scientific discovery has no merit unless it can be explained to a barmaid." is popularly attributed to Lord Rutherford of Nelson in as stated in Einstein, the Man and His Achievement By G. J. Whitrow, Dover Press 1973. Einstein is unlikely to have said it since his theory of relativity was very abstract and based on sophisticated mathematics.[1] Also, see the next answer for a more direct source. The list of misattribution is entertaining, too.[2] [1] - http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/a/22409 http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/a/22409 [2] - https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein#Misattributed https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein#Misattributed
  - snarf21 10y ago
    Very interesting. There is so much of this in what we learn. Only through deep research are the fact separated from the story. :)
  - mindcrime 10y ago
    "Most quotes on the Internet are made up" - Abraham Lincoln

dahart 10y ago

I don't know of any studies, I'd love to see some! But, I'm a little torn on the concept you're getting at, which is whether seeing answers is less helpful than struggling to find answers and arriving at them yourself without having seen the answer first. We do have a strong and pervasive belief in our society that the struggle itself is important, and that struggling to derive how to get to the answer without someone giving it to you is the only "right" way to learn. (The same goes for money, btw, but that is a meta topic for another time...) In many ways, I believe in struggle myself, but I don't have any concrete scientific evidence, I'm just becoming aware that it's a belief and not necessarily a truth. Recently, as a parent, I think I'm seeing some evidence to the contrary. When my kids ask for math help and I force them to struggle through each step and think about how to do it and explain and show their work, it works eventually, but it takes a long time and it is a struggle for all of us. When I show them the answer first, and then we talk about it later, they learn quicker with less struggle. Usually I will make them rewrite anything I show, but I'm starting to feel that learning by example without the forced struggle is a lot more efficient. I still want them to be curious and interested in researching their own solutions, so of course I'm a little worried that by doing too much handing out of answers, I might do damage to their desire to explore math (or any subject). But so far, I'm not seeing that, I'm seeing increased interest and enjoyment in math, we spend more time talking about subjects beyond homework. In some ways it makes sense, we learn how to talk and eat and behave by example, some subjects we can only learn by example (like, say, history). Math and physics are weird ones where we pile on extra struggle to derive the rules because we think it's helpful for learning. Anyway, I'm certain struggling to learn rules is important, I'm just becoming less certain that it's always important. I do believe that learning by example works and is useful and sometimes more effective than learning rules.

0xfaded 10y ago

+1 also curious. Have millennial children fundamentally learnt to learn differently using computers? I decided to understand the math behind the Kalman filter, and despite having read the Wikipedia page and impemented these, I still had to go back to pencil and paper. (Did you know that the Kalman filter is a least squares estimator?) I was thinking this morning that if the requisite knowledge needed to make incremental advances continues to increase, we risk a technological platuea as fewer and fewer people will have enough knowledge. One solution is to teach humans more, and I'm curious if technology has or can facilitate this.

jnbiche 10y ago

It's an n of 1, but when I went back and reviewed calculus and linear algebra last year, using symbolab.com to talk through the steps of various problems was a huge help in refreshing my knowledge. In some cases, it even helped me really grasp a concept that I never really had learned well the first time around.

pablo_aguilar 10y ago

My wife did a very similar research project for her PhD (https://goo.gl/vSZ69s https://goo.gl/vSZ69s) They studied using the system in 5 groups (taking the same class) and got a statistically significant delta in the 3 experimental groups' scores vs. the 2 control groups. Both exp and ctl solved the same set of exercises, both worked with a teacher, but exp groups also used the system. The results about the learning deltas haven't been published yet, but you can e-mail her at <np at mathdip.org> if you're curious.