| > It is not cheating. It is leveling the playing field. This is not even remotely true. I think you seriously under-estimate the value of parents/tutors. Students with tutors/parents will not just get the right answer. They will also be led to the right answer, over and over, and told what they need to practice in order to improve. Explanations will be tailored to their learning style. So they get direct help on assignments, but they also get regular indications about how to improve their performance in scenarios where they don't have that help. Wolfram Alpha just gives the answer. If homework in 90% of the grade, maybe it levels the playing field for letter grades in the course course... until a few years down the road when the student who didn't actually learn the material is screwed and has no way of catching up. If homework is a more reasonable 20-50% of the grade, then the reckoning comes at midterm/final time. > What this really show is that homework isn't the best tool for gauging student prowess Well, that's certainly true. |