The Calculus Turnaround

For some students in my calculus class, things are looking up. Some of the students who are not satisfied with their progress so far have actually started to do something about it! Not only are they starting to show up to my office hours, but they are also starting to do the homework.

This semester I'd been using the online system that comes with Stewart. Due to various philosophical issues that I have about the grading of homework (specifically of the routine "exercise" variety), I set up the system to be fairly lenient. I configured it so that the students could try the problems as many times as they wanted to and so that there was only a trivial grade penalty for late submissions.

Last time I checked, some of my students have started redoing the homework assignments from the beginning of the semester! In an attempt to earn the points that they've missed, they've started to review the material! It's fantastic!