Tycho: A web-based homework system

Tycho, a powerful computer package which will enable you to put as much (or as little) of your course on-line as necessary to maximize your students' learning, has two main components, a grade book and homework drivers. The grade book provides both students and instructor with secure access to their progress in the course from any web enabled browser. The homework drivers allow the instructor to choose from a large variety of exercises ranging from sophisticated interactive examples to traditional homework problems to surveys for just-in-time teaching.

Traditional homework problems

Tycho uses two different types of traditional homework problems called Homework A and Homework B.  Homework A problems are purely quantitative problems, each with multiple sub-questions. With these problems, students receive immediate feedback whether their answers are correct or not.  Students can resubmit answers as many times as needed until they answer the question correctly.  Homework B questions are a mixture of quantitative and qualitative questions, but unlike Homework A problems, students do not receive feedback until after the due date.  Again, students can resubmit answers as needed, but only their final submission is recorded.

Just-in-time teaching

Preflights and pretests are modeled after the "Just-in-Time Teaching" concept developed at IUPUI and the USAFA.