The beauty of the site, Ms. Piech says, is that at any hour of the day or night a student who is having trouble with, say, polar coordinates or improper integrals can get a mini-tutorial in the subject with a mere click of the mouse. And a lot of students are clicking away. Last fall, when the site debuted, it garnered a total of 600 hits. This spring, the hits are up to 200 a week. When things go badly in one of those science courses, they often go badly in two or more.
Students become dispirited.
We're hoping to stop that chain reaction. Ms. Piech assigns a problem set for every class and gives four exams. Each of those departments is considering setting up a Mother Hen site of its own.