What users are saying about MasteringPhysics...
Instructor comments | Student Comments
"I'm really glad I used MasteringPhysics last quarter. I was a little
afraid at first that the investment of time and effort in learning how to use
the system would be excessive, since I had very little time to spare, but I
was very gratified to find that it took almost no time at all to get up to
speed; it was that easy to use. I also had the best student performance that
I ever had in that course... My students liked it (much more so later in the
course than earlier) and wanted to use it again. I'm certainly going to use
it next quarter. I like the quality of the homework problems, the flexibility
in choosing them, the way they can help students step-by-step, and the
opportunity it gives to monitor the progress of my students much more closely
than ever before."
Ken Bolland, Ohio State University
"MasteringPhysics is the most exciting development in teaching physics I've
seen in many years. An "expert system" like this that adapts its responses
to student errors and misconceptions can revolutionize instruction. My
students are working harder and learning more because of MasteringPhysics.
The single greatest benefit to me, as a professor, is that I can see who is
working and who is in trouble, and I can see globally what problems are
causing difficulty."
Gene Sprouse, SUNY @ Stony Brook
"I've used other web tools... and MasteringPhysics sets the current
state-of-the-art for online tutorial and homework systems. Its ability to
recognize symbolic answers in a variety of equivalent forms is impressive
(and critical, given the ambitious intent of the system). That it recognizes
and prompts for missing factors and sign errors is even better. I typically
allow students multiple tries on each problem. Rather than just "getting it
wrong" once, MP's instant feedback allows students to get it wrong for a
bit, then get it right and get partial credit. More importantly, the
students are motivated to get it right while the homework is still fresh in
their minds. The online nature of MP can test the reliability of internet
connections. The technical support team behind MP recognizes the importance
of a good connection, and have demonstrated their commitment to support
their servers and databases with the same intensity that a major online
merchant would put behind their storefront.
Richard Sonnenfeld, New Mexico Tech
"Making assignments is very easy. The students find the "hints" option very
helpful. The number of students needing to make office appointments to get
through assignments has significantly diminished."
Grant Matthews, University of Notre Dame
"It is clear our students are spending more time on their homework as a
result of using MasteringPhysics. It's also much easier for the instructor
than the system we had been using."
Michael Cherney, Creighton University
"MasteringPhysics is wonderful. It has revolutionized the problem
solving-feedback process in learning. The skill builders and self-tutoring
problems require the students to explore the concepts without the tendency
to immediately substitute numeric values. Coupling these with the
end-of-the-chapter problems [also provided in the system] finalizes the
process by showing the student how the situation can change as the numeric
variables change. The instant feedback is accomplished by the hints given as
students work through the problems along with the complete solution at the
end. Students thoroughly enjoy the feedback process. Use of MasteringPhysics
has increased the enjoyment and understanding of the concepts for all of my
students!"
Brian A. Anderson, Gogebic Community College
"MasteringPhysics is a well thought out and mature online self-tutoring and
homework system. It clearly beats any of the rival systems in teaching
introductory physics. The two main reasons are: its ability to handle
symbolic as well as numerical answers renders it much more flexible than the
typical plug-numbers-into-a-formula question; next, the system provides
optional hints to students who are having trouble which makes it much more
useful as a self-tutoring aid."
Simon Catterall, Syracuse University
MasteringPhysics is clearly better than our previous on-line homework system
and other systems I've encountered. It provides guidance for students as
they work through the problem, optional hints, and intelligent feedback on
incorrect answers, non of which are available in other systems. I've never
had such a positive response from students about a homework system,
MasteringPhysics represents the next generation of on-line homework systems.
It's great.
Laird Kramer, Florida International
"The Self-Tutoring and Skill-Builder problems in MasteringPhysics are very
well suited to assist faculty teaching University Physics in the goal of
equipping students with the content knowledge and systematic problem solving
skills that will allow them to solve a wide variety of problems. Students
using MasteringPhysics can in many cases request the system to provide hints
that will help them through areas of difficulty by focusing on the
fundamental concepts in the problem. In addition, MasteringPhysics does a
very good job of allowing students to enter symbolic answers to problems
that do not involve numeric quantities and providing feedback to the student
in the event that these answers are not correct. This is an improvement
over other systems that only tell the student that the response is either
correct or incorrect.
Doug Harper, Western Kentucky
"[MasteringPhysics] is an excellent tool for aiding students in mastering
scientific concepts, improving analytical and problem solving skills, and
using the language of mathematics. As if that were not enough, it gives
those of us in educational research access to data that has not been
available to us previously for it is capable of showing us in step-by-step
detail students' thinking about a particular concept, their approach to
solving specific kinds of problems, and, perhaps most importantly, the ways
in which they are struggling to learn the material we wish them to learn."
Lori Breslow, Director of Teaching and Learning Laboratories, MIT
"I like that students can work through problems in detail, getting hints as
needed. They can avoid getting stuck, and work through to a solution
without having to wait for after the due date. The students (and I) like
that they get rapid feedback on whether their answers are correct. This
increases their confidence as they work through the homework problems."
Bob Jacobsen, UC Berkeley
"I like that MasteringPhysics helps me identify individual students who are
having difficulties and what their weak spots are, so that I can intervene
with these students before they fall too far behind."
Wayne R. Anderson, Sacramento City College
"[The Assignment Statistics] feature is extremely useful when assigning
problems so that the instructor can gauge the difficulties of the problems
ahead of time. [The Gradebook] is an extremely useful feature. I can
collect the results of the assignments and easily integrate them into the
final grades. I {also} liked the feature of flagging the students who are
falling behind so that I can help them out."
Jaehoon Yu, The University of Texas, Arlington
"The [Gradebook] is very useful as it gives me the ability to see
immediately how the students are doing in the assignments. The statistics
are simple and easy to understand."
Douglas F. Sherman, San Jose State University
"The flexibility of the program is surprising. For example, it correctly
anticipated the reasons for wrong answers that I deliberately fed to it, and
responded with accurate hints as to how to correct the situation. [The Wrong
Answers] feature shows me clearly areas that I need to be stress in my next
class when describing how to tackle homework problems."
Jay D. Strieb, Villanova University
"[The Tutorial Problems]'s progression is logical. This type of stepping
through is appropriate. Many of my students want to see the details of the
problem and MasteringPhysics provides that. And for the better students, the
program allows them to just move on ahead. [The Wrong Answers feature] helps
me to identify the most common problem areas for my students and allows me
to focus in on that area. [The Problem Statistics feature] is very useful.
Class performance varies from year to year. This would allow me to better
assess the outcomes of my course over a longer time period... so it is a
useful assessment tool."
Richard Gottfried, Frederick Community College
"My students will definitely benefit from this system. Especially the 75%
middle of the class who work through homework with varying levels of
success... I like the way the system leads a student through to a final
answer in a very logical way. The fact that MasteringPhysics adjusts to the
needs of the individual student is a major advantage over other homework
systems. The hints are very helpful - it's obvious that a lot of effort has
gone into writing them.... The problem statistics is an extremely useful
feature. I like everything about it. It provides information on exactly
where my students are having problems. This makes it easier for me to know
what needs more discussion in lecture..... The sophisticated gradebook is an
extremely useful feature. I really like the color coding that enables me to
quickly identify those students with low grades. The links from each student
grade that take me back to the assignment responses let me look into exactly
what problems that students is having. This allows me to assist any student
before he or she becomes left behind."
Jeff Winger, Mississippi State University
Instructor comments | Student Comments
* Overall
- "I love the way MasteringPhysics works! It is really progressive and it explains every step. Thanks!"
- "Great learning tool -- I appreciate it!"
- "MasteringPhysics is cool and fun!"
- "I like that the MasteringPhysics tells you when you have arrived at the correct answer unlike hand-graded homework where you find out week later."
- "It really helps you understand the concepts! Also, it leads you to the answer with hints if you're having trouble."
- "Great problems, they make you think."
- "I like doing these exercises. They're great practice..."
- "I like these problems - they make me think, and really work for the answer."
* Problems that make you work?
- "These type of questions made me think... and really got me involved in figuring out the solution."
- "I like these problems because the difficulty increases step by step."
- "It is really progressive and helps me understand better these concepts."
* Feedback that's specific to each student's wrong answer
- "I like the feature that tells you what is wrong with your answer, such as "check over your signs". That at least lets me know I am on the right track."
- "I like that when you get a step wrong, it gives instant feedback and you can continue to work through the problem until you get it right using hints, etc., instead of just looking at the solution as you would in a book. I really liked it for studying for tests, especially the final review."
- "I like knowing that I got the right answers to the questions, rather than wondering whether I did the problem correctly or not after submitting hand-graded homework."
* Hints that remove the 'I got stuck' roadblock and motivate students to keep trying
- "The hints and followups are very useful and prevent you from getting stuck like in traditional homework."
- "The hints are very, very helpful. :)"
- "The hints are a great way of helping me work step by step through a problem."
- "The hints are very helpful in guiding me to the right solution without explicitly telling me the answer."