For majors, all homework problems were multiple-choice; for nonmajors, they were a mixture of multiple-choice and short answer (most commonly used to ask the students to describe their reasoning or make connections between topics).
But Mr. Mandela showed quickly he had done his homework, outlining major points of contention with business-like precision.
However, majors reported reworking their homework significantly more frequently than did nonmajors (Wilcoxon rank sum test, p < 0.001).
In reworking the homework problems, majors were using a technique of "deliberate practice," which has been shown to be more valuable than rote memorization for improving conceptual understanding (Ericsson, 2006), especially in the context of feedback such as comparing the correct answer with their own (Gibbs and Simpson, 2004).
If you're being obedient to your teacher then you'll need to stay on top of things like homework, classwork, any major projects, what they require in terms of in-class participation.
Accordingly, majors reported studying and reworking their homework problems more.
To determine the effect of utilizing testing as a learning event in the introductory (majors) biology classroom, we used an online homework platform to give required quizzes throughout the course.
The nonmajors course has a purely human focus and uses almost exclusively human examples in homework and exam questions, whereas the majors course emphasizes human genetics, but also discusses model systems.
"If you are able to say, 'I went to the same college as you' or 'I also majored in psychology,' that demonstrates you really did your homework".
Both courses had regular online homework assignments worth 17% of their grade (majors had 11 and nonmajors had 8; see Supplemental Material A for homework problem examples).
