Online Homework and Complete Course Solution for Introductory Physics

What is included with Expert TA’s Introductory Physics Platform?

  • Textbook Independent Library: Over 6200 questions and growing. Developed by active faculty, the Expert TA problems have been designed to work well with any textbook.
  • (New) Edit the Open Stax Textbooks: Edit the eReader form of College Physics and University Physics Vols. 1-3. Click here to try the editor
  • OpenStax: Expert TA has proudly partnered with OpenStax and offers enhanced versions of end-of-chapter questions for both College and University Physics.
  • Problem Authoring: Our authoring tool allows instructors to create any of our powerful question types.
  • Advanced Question Types: Symbolic expressions, interactive Free Body Diagrams, Advanced Graphical questions such as drag-and-drop labeling, ranking, sorting, etc. allow for compelling questions.
  • Supplemental Materials: We provide a collection of resources such as: Lecture Replacement Videos for studio physics and the flipped classroom, Physics Analysis Videos, the Nexus Collection, and instructor generated libraries.
  • Academic Integrity: Expert TA offers a suite of tools to help ensure students are doing the work themselves on both homework and secure remote exams.
  • Cost: $35.00 per student per semester, $23.34 per student per quarter, and we cap the cost per student at $70.


“If you want to know what a student might do wrong on a problem, look at what 50,000 students have already done wrong and you probably have a good idea. Through data-mining and machine learning we have used this concept to provide partial credit and the best possible feedback to students.”
Dr. Jeremy Morton, CEO Expert TA

Expert TA University Physics Textbook (Coming Fall 2024)

We know that many of you are trying to transition to an opensource option for their textbook. We have been providing online homework for introductory physics for more than a decade, and as part of that we have been in conversation with instructors about options like the OpenStax textbooks. We know now that those aren’t a fit for everyone. We have engaged to find out the details of what a good fit would be, and now we have put energy behind making that option available.

Expert TA now has a University Physics sequence underway, and Volume I will be ready for Fall 2024. This text was inspired by the OpenStax offering, and has been modified by our editorial team, based on a tremendous amount of input from the community.

(New) Editable eBooks with OpenStax

As a proud partner of OpenStax we aim to enhance their materials and offerings by providing technology solutions that they may not have themselves. Currently there is no way directly via OpenStax for instructors to customize or edit the texts in an eReader format.

We are happy to help the adopters of these texts by now providing such an editor and corresponding eReader. Instructors will be able to rearrange, rewrite, change/add images, add new sections/chapters, or easily do more advanced things like embed videos or PheT simluations. Your edited version of the textbook will be distributed through an eReader and available to students from the main class management page in Expert TA.

Our Content and Question Types

Expert TA provides a robust online homework tool for all introductory physics courses. The library contains over 6000 problems designed to reinforce the problem-solving process. This includes conceptual, both algebra and calculus-based questions. TA broad range of difficulty allows for use from basic high school to honors-level college classes.
Hints and Feedback: Based on a data-mining initiative, process-specific, Socratic feedback for each incorrect answer is made available to students.
True Partial-Credit: We have analyzed millions of previously submitted incorrect answers. Even if a student only has one attempt on a quiz or exam, if they submit a near-miss, our system is able to give them partial credit.
Scaffolded Questions: In addition to single part questions, which can be useful on an exam, Expert TA has an abundance of multi-step questions that reinforce the problem solving process.

Textbook Independent Library Expert TA has partnered with dozens of institutions in order to create a collection of physics questions that can work seamlessly with any textbook. Not depending on their end-of-chapter questions, instructors can change their textbook from year to year, or even semester to semester, but their homework stays the same.

The majority of our adopters use an option such as Knight, Halliday Resnick, Cutnell and Johnson, Giancoli, Serway and Jewett, Serway and Vuille, etc. for their textbook.

OpenStax College and University Physics We provide coverage of the end-of-chapter question from both College Physics and the three-volume University Physics books. In addition, we supplement this by providing access to questions from our independent collection. The OpenStax problems are enhanced with hints and feedback, scaffolded where appropriate, and designed to leverage our advanced question types.


Automatically-Graded Free Body Diagrams

Not only are Free Body Diagrams automatically graded, but Expert TA does so with partial credit and feedback specific to mistakes within the drawings.

This allows students to participate in guided practice while completing a step that is critical to solving many physics problems. Through flexible Grade Preference settings, instructors are able to control how students will be graded for FBD questions.

“Regarding your free body diagram exercises and drawing tool, I want to say Bravo! FBDs are a source of consternation for my students. This is a great resource for myself and my colleagues who use Expert TA.”
– Prof. Malcolm Rickard, Mt. San Antonio


Symbolic Expressions and Algorithmic Questions

With a focus on reinforcing the problem-solving process, students are asked to solve multi-step problems in Expert TA that require answering symbolic questions in intermediate parts. Of course, we have numeric, multiple-choice, and other question types, but Expert TA focuses its efforts on reinforcing the problem-solving process. Our robust math engine interprets the expressions that students intend regardless of the form and our proprietary equation entry palette makes it intuitive for students to input expressions.

Both expressions and algorithmic questions in Expert TA are designed with specific feedback for the most common mistakes that students make. Our data-mining process is able to identify the most commonly submitted incorrect answers. Our team of physics instructors is used to author Socratic feedback specific to each mistake.


Interactive Question Types

Expert TA has a class of Advanced Graphical questions where students interact with diagrams, schematics, graphs, etc. The question types include Ranking Sorting, Matching, and Drag-and-Drop Labeling. See the cycling animation below for examples.

Studies show that students retain more information when concepts are brought to life with educational exercises that are more interactive.


Drag-and-Drop labeling
Questions can really get students thinking about the material. We have questions that

Ranking
Students actively order elements related to their size, sequence, etc.

Sorting/Categorizing
Students group items based on specified criteria.

Matching/Pairing
Items are moved to be paired with their corresponding relational “mate”.

Solutions

Having detailed and thorough solutions available to students is critical. Expert TA’s Introductory Physics library has comprehensive, step-by-step solutions.

  • Formatted Math: Our solutions utilize MathJax and “LaTeX-for-the-web”, providing textbook quality presentation of math and scientfic equations.
  • Thorough: Students need much more than a list of the formulas used to get to an answer. Our solutions provide in-depth commentary about why each intermediate relationship is used and any nuance of how it was applied.
  • Student Specific Numbers: With our solutions, students see the random numbers from their questions rather than example numbers.
  • Instructor Control: Instructors have full control as to how solutions are released or whether they are released at all.
  • Step-Based: Detailed explanations can be released as students complete each part of a problem. This allows them to see the full solution for Part a of problem, before moving on to the rest of the questions.

To view examples of our full solutions please Click Here.

A Stress-Free Semester

You and your students should be thinking about physics, not about course set-up and technological configurations. Expert TA knows this and has gone to great lengths to make the entire experience as smooth as possible.

  • Simple Registration: You share a registration link, students go through an easy three-step process, and they are enrolled and taking assignments.
  • LMS Integration: Instructors can synchronize grades with their LMS gradebook. For students, single sign-on provides access to all the course materials from one location.
  • A Commitment to Customer Service: The company was created on the idea of building great educational solutions, but to the Account Managers at Expert TA we think of ourselves first as a customer service company.
student working