What if math homework was awesome?

To really learn math, students have to practice—even the geniuses.

However, the way we practice math is deeply flawed. Despite major advancements in every aspect of society, students still do math homework the same way they did in ancient Greece, except now students cheat more.

These aren’t the changes we want!

Why is homework so ineffective?

Homework has four major shortcomings that render it almost entirely ineffective.

1. Delayed feedback. Imagine you’re shooting free throws at basketball practice, but you can’t see whether any of your shots make it into the hoop until two days later. Would that help you get better? Not at all!
   
   Well, that’s what we do with math homework. Students spend hours grappling with new lessons, but they only find out which questions they missed days later—and by then, it’s no longer helpful.
2. Easy to get stuck. Athletes have coaches who observe their practice and give them real-time personalized advice on how to improve—e.g. “Keep your elbow up”, “Don’t turn your wrist”, and so forth.
   
   In contrast, math students practice in isolation. When they get stuck on a problem, no one is there to help, so even small misunderstandings can take a long time to fix.
3. Cause anxiety. If we wanted to torture well-meaning kids, then homework is perfect—they have 48 hours to complete an assignment they don’t understand; they won’t get any feedback or support; and they will be penalized when they make a mistake. I’m anxious just writing this :P
4. Students cheat. And given all of the above, it’s no wonder they do! Most students don’t want to cheat—they would much rather understand the material after 15–30 minutes of effort—but when they’re stuck, frustrated, and worried about failing… well, they’re going to cheat and that’s not surprising.

I know this sounds bleak and pessimistic, but it doesn’t have to be.

A journey to make math homework awesome

Last summer in the midst of the pandemic, my friends and I left our jobs in tech to build a free, modern-version of homework—a better way to practice math.

The project has since morphed into Edia, a free website for math teachers to create digital assignments, and it has been wildly successful.

Here, I want to share some of the improvements we’ve made to math homework.

1. Immediate feedback. On Edia, students answer questions and immediately find out if they were correct. By tightening the feedback loop from 2 days to 2 seconds, learning happens a LOT faster.
2. Helpful explanations. Every problem has a step-by-step explanation so that students can see exactly where they messed up. It’s like a private tutor is there to help with the confusing parts.
3. New grading format. Because assignments are digital, Edia can generate an infinite number of new questions. As a result, teachers are able to grade homework in different ways that optimize learning and reduce stress—e.g. “Practice until you get 10 questions correct” is one of our most popular!
4. Block PhotoMath and Chegg. On Edia, students get the same problems with different numbers to prevent sharing answers or finding solutions online (e.g. “y=2x+4” vs. “y=2x+6”). We also built a clever solution to stop PhotoMath.

So… this sounds great in theory, but is it really better? Does it actually help students learn more?

The answer is YES!

As the chart below shows, students that practice with Edia tend to improve over time, whereas students who don’t benefit from instant feedback and access explanations cannot get better.

After just a few questions, the difference is stark—the quality of practice matters.