"I have the possibility to switch to electronic textbooks and more online
assignments (Specifically the "Mastering" package from Pearson). I was
wondering what experience others have had with these."
I have used the Mastering Physics system for student homework (and
self-tutoring) at a community college for a calculus based general physics
course. I have not used the electronic textbook option. I thought the
homework system was useful and certainly saved me grading time. The
students were not as positive about the system as I was. Some of them
really disliked it. Most seemed neutral to negative. I think most of the
problems students ran into involved:
1) Their lack of understanding on how to use the system (there is an
introductory lesson on how to use the software, but this seemed not to be
enough for some of the students, especially the older ones). I would get
student emails asking for help on a particular problem which usually
involved their not understanding the software.
2) The lack of flexibility in whether a student's solution is correct or
not. There is a numerical tolerance put on solutions, but students with
answers just outside the tolerance would complain. For symbolic answers, if
the student doesn't use the exact symbol, or arrangement of symbols, that
Mastering Physics wants, they are marked wrong.
3) Not all problems have worked solutions provided after the student answers
the question. As an instructor, I had access to all worked solutions
(including the symbolic ones), but students didn't have the same access. I
suggested to Mastering Physics that they provide such access to students
(2010), and they said they would consider so doing in the next version of
the software.
4) Some of the problems had incorrect solutions. Students found 3 of these
erroneous solutions during the semester, which I reported to Mastering
Physics (which has a very user unfriendly error reporting system).
In general, I think the homework system should be useful for motivated
students (especially with the self-tutoring features) and is certainly
time-saving for the instructor.
Don
Dr. Donald Polvani
Adjunct Faculty, Physics
Anne Arundel Community College