The Golf Analogy
You can’t learn to play golf by watching people play, even if you are watching Tiger Woods. You have to practice to learn golf and you have to practice to learn math. The homework system is thus the most critical part of learning and we think that today in education it is broken.

The textbook homework system
From the time that students are given an assignment in class to the time they get it back, if it is actually graded, can take a week or more even with diligent students and teachers. This means that students receive little or very late feedback on their practice. It is like hitting golf balls in the dark — you can’t see where the land. Such practice is useless. Doing homework without feedback can actually be worse because it sends a message, and what is not graded is not done.

Even if students do homework, most of the problems they do are irrelevant because of Goldilocks assignments where 1/3rd of the problems are too easy, 1/3rd are too hard, and 1/3rd are just right for learning. This means that students think of most homework assignments as busy work and do not concentrate on them. Without concentration there is no learning.

Finally, I do not think that the Universal Law of Gravitation has yet been repealed. What goes up fast will come down fast. When homework is cramming for tests or when assignments do not lead to mastery, then students will forget what they learned as quickly as they learned it.

The EnableMath Practice System
We developed an entirely new technology-based homework system that:

1. Provides instant feedback to both student and instructor
2. Adapts each and every problem a student does to the learning level of that student for making homework an efficient process and a good learning experience.
3. Is mastery-based so that students do enough problems to fully lock in the concept and the process. Students can follow their progress up a learning curve that resembles the familiar S-curve for learning physical processes like riding a bike or learning to swim.
4. We provide make it easy for classroom teachers or instructors to see what their class has done in an assignment so that they can modify their lessons based on that data.
5. We provide continuous data to both students and teachers as well as weekly emails to enable teachers to continuously track student performance and to encourage students to do their homework!

This system is so revolutionary that we have filed a patent application on it. We think that it is the way all students will do homework in the future.