Teaching students in our large, introductory, calculus-based physics courses1 to be good problem-solvers is a difficult task. Not only must students be taught to understand and use the physics concepts in a problem, they must become adept at turning the physical quantities into symbolic variables, translating the problem into equations, and “turning the crank” on the mathematics to find both a closed-form solution and a numerical answer. Physics education research has shown that students' poor math skills and instructors' lack of pen-and-paper homework grading resources, two problems we face at our institution, can have a significant impact on problem-solving skill development.2–4 While Interactive Engagement methods appear to be the preferred mode of instruction,5 for practical reasons we have not been able to widely implement them. In this paper, we describe three Internet-based “teaching-while-quizzing” tools we have developed and how they have been integrated into our traditional lecture course in powerful but easy to incorporate ways.6 These are designed to remediate students' math deficiencies, automate homework grading, and guide study time toward problem solving. Our intent is for instructors who face similar obstacles to adopt these tools, which are available upon request.7

Topics
Internet, Functional analysis, Educational assessment, Teaching, Lectures
1.
These are “traditional” lecture courses on classical mechanics and electricity & magnetism taught at Texas A&M University with typically 1500 students per semester (mostly first-year engineers) between the two courses. Students are broken into lectures of ∼120 and further subdivided into recitations of ∼30.
2.
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6.
This has been a three-year program with financial support from the Texas A&M University Department of Physics, Instructional Technology Services, and an award from the Montague Scholarship Program at the Center for Teaching Excellence.
7.
While we have implemented these tools using WebCT, they can be readily deployed via many other software packages or in-house written code. For more information about WebCT, see http://www.webct.com. To obtain copies of our WebCT zip files for the quizzes and problem database, contact the authors. For a nice list of other delivery systems, see Ref. 11.
8.
S. W.
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,
A.
Titus
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R. J.
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Bonham
, 
D. L.
 
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R. J.
 
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Comparison of student performance using web and paper-based homework in college-level physics
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11.
See, for example,
T. A.
Angelo
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12.
For a review of mastery learning, see D. Davis and J. Sorrell, “Mastery learning in public schools,” paper prepared for PSY 702: Conditions of Learning (1995); http://chiron.valdosta.edu/whuitt/files/mastlear.html.
13.
See O.R. Lindsey, “From Skinner to precision teaching,” in Let's Try Doing Something Else Kind of Thing, edited by J.B. Jordan and L.S. Robbins (Council on Exceptional Children, Arlington, VA, 1972), pp. 1–12.
14.
J. Risley, “Motivating students to learn physics using an online homework system,” APS Forum on Education Newsletter (Fall 2001).
15.
We have taken the test item file by E. Oberhofer, D. Curott, and R. Pelcovits from D.C. Giancoli, Physics for Scientists and Engineers, 3rd ed. (Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2000), pp. 1–168.
16.
G. Tang and A. Titus, “Increasing students' time on task in calculus and general physics courses through WebAssign,” Proceedings of the 2002 ASEE Conference and Exposition, Montreal, Canada (June 2002); http://asee.org/acPapers/2002-1657_Final.pdf.
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2005
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