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Spreadsheets are a core computational tool for practicing engineers and engineering students. While Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets, and other spreadsheet tools have some differences, numerous formulas, functions, and other tasks are common across versions and platforms. Building upon learning science frameworks showing that interactive activities are advantageous, an interactive textbook from zyBooks was created to provide students the opportunity to acquire spreadsheet skills by doing. Interactive components include stepping through animations, completing multiple choice and matching questions, and evaluating spreadsheet formulas and functions using 100+ auto-graded, randomized questions. While the interactive reading participation was discussed in previous work, the focus here is on auto-graded questions, sometimes called online homework. Fraction correct regardless of attempts, number of attempts before correct, and number of attempts after correct provided metrics to examine deliberate practice across three cohorts encompassing over 250 students. Sections grouped as General spreadsheet skills or Functions generally showed greater median correct, ranging from 76 to 90%, than sections categorized as Advanced spreadsheet skills, which led to median correct of 68 to 81%. Median correct also varied between different question types and decreased with question order, which aligns with questions being scaffolded. Finally, a hypothesis was tested: Adding a Copy sheet feature to the auto-graded questions would encourage deliberate practice and improve fraction correct between cohorts. Over 80% of students used the new Copy sheet button, and a statistically significant increase with large effect size in fraction correct between cohorts was found, which supports the hypothesis.

Student success and attempts on hundreds of online homework problems housed in a fully interactive online textbook, Material and Energy Balances zyBook, were studied over three cohorts of students (n=284). Auto-graded homework questions with randomized numbers and content can explore proficiency in the course material. Students are allowed to attempt any question as many times as needed, and a median success of 94% was found. Also, students completed thousands of attempts after correctly answering without the incentive to improve grades.

Inspired by YouTube videos, students created homework problems as part of a class project. The project has been successful at different parts of the semester and demonstrated learning of course concepts. These new problems were implemented both in class and as part of homework assignments without significant changes. Examples from a material and energy balances course as well as a transport phenomena course demonstrated the breath of topic, rigor, and type of problem (concepts or calculations). Students using the YouTube homework problems for one section of material achieved improved grades on a single exam problem in a heat transfer course when compared with students completing textbook homework problems covering the same material. Surveys of participating students in 2012 showed that 88% of the students feel they learn from the student-written YouTube problems. Overall, a new method to develop homework problems can help faculty avoid using textbook problems repeatedly, whose solutions manuals are readily available on the Internet.

Personalized, online homework was used to supplement textbook homework, quizzes, and exams for one section of a course in material and energy balances. The objective of this study was to test the hypothesis that students using personalized, online homework earned better grades in the course. The online homework system asks the same questions of each student while changing one or more numeric values in the problem statement. A comparison of performance on common quizzes, exams, and final course grades between students using the textbook and online homeworks versus students completing textbook homework and simple, multiple choice reading quizzes showed a statistically significant increase in achievement for the students using online homework. Of note, 91% of the students using online homework achieved C or better as their final course grade compared with 72% of the students in the control group. Student evaluations show that 66% of the students prefer textbook homework in combination with online homework to maximize learning of the course material.

Interactive digital technologies provide a mechanism to capture big data for higher education faculty to monitor student progress in real‐time. By measuring both performance and perseverance using auto‐graded problems, this learning analytics research examines several tenets of deliberate practice. Specifically, online homework problems integrated into an interactive textbook for chemical engineering titled Material and Energy Balances zyBook were examined. Across three cohorts totaling over 250 students and 84,000 questions, the fraction correct, attempts before correct, and attempts after correct provided metrics to examine question type and order. Fraction correct and attempts before correct varied with statistical significance as a function of question type and order, including many differences having medium and large effect sizes. Multiple choice questions led to the highest fraction correct and the least number of attempts before correct, while questions requiring multiple numeric responses led to the lowest success and the largest number of attempts before correct. Next, multiple metrics were aggregated into a deliberate practice score, to broadly quantify problem difficulty. Fraction correct, modified correct, first quartile attempts before correct, and median attempts before correct were combined at different thresholds leading to a deliberate practice score between 0 and 8. Questions with higher deliberate practice scores were disproportionality used for practice (61% of attempts on 13% of questions); practice attempts do not receive course credit. Overall, combining metrics in a deliberate practice score exhibits the potential to optimize the length of homework assignments and give students more credit for solving more challenging auto‐graded problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For about a century, textbooks have provided a consistent framework for faculty to teach fundamental, common courses across colleges and universities. However, little quantification of students' textbook reading is documented in higher education. An interactive textbook from zyBooks documents students reading through clicks. With large data sets, including three cohorts with over 280 students and 280,000 reading interactions, measurable differences between students were found using effort‐based reading analytics. Median textbook reading participation at the due date above 90%, which is significantly higher than reports and surveys in the literature. Reading participation increased with every higher final course grade, and a statistically significant difference in reading participation between B and C students was measured. Also, female students read statistically significantly more than male students. Additional reading data taken at the conclusion of the semester found that many students completed reading without the incentive of earning a course grade. Median reading participation increased after the due date, which encompassed 30 to 50 clicks by median and over 400 interactions for some students. Overall, interactive textbooks generate large data sets that monitor reading participation and reinforce proven study practices, such as spaced practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a project for the development of new, quality, course content through a practice called YouTube Fridays, for students to produce textbook-quality homework problems based on YouTube videos in Material and Energy Balances and Transport Phenomena courses. The project involves the identification of a YouTube video and the creation of textbook-quality homework problem based on the content of the video by small groups.