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A Gift Born From Peril
Quick summary:
ASSISTments founder Neil Heffernan enrolled in a doctoral program to develop an intelligent tutoring program. He sought to create a program that could offer a series of friendly hints, then assign other problems in the same vein to reinforce the lessons.
But he put that pursuit on hold to join his brother-in-law in a Web startup. Two weeks later, in May of 1998, Heffernan had a seizure. A scan found a tumor the size of a ping-pong ball. Several doctors told him it was inoperable, and that he had two or three years to live.
“Making money didn’t seem particularly important to me any more,’’ he recalled. “I didn’t think I had long to live. I thought, ‘What do I want to leave here? Maybe I should go back to this tutoring system.’ ’’
The cancer went away. Heffernan finished his doctorate, and his tutoring system, ASSISTments, was born: It’s currently used in middle schools across the country.
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Continue ReadingRead how ASSISTments helps teachers and students from the perspective of a sixth grade math teacher in this post by WickedLocal!
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Still using our legacy version? Click HereASSISTments is a free public service operated jointly by Worcester Polytechnic Institute and the ASSISTments Foundation.
The ASSISTments Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization sponsored by Worcester Polytechnic Institute created in 2019.
Worcester Polytechnic Institute is a 501(c)(3) non profit created in 1865.
The ASSISTments Project work at WPI is led by Professor Neil Heffernan.
The ASSISTments Foundation is led by Cristina Heffernan.
