The Joy(?) of Homework!

One of the biggest challenges I face as an educator is how to handle homework in the middle school classroom. Ask ten different people about the topic, and you will likely get ten different opinions. Ideas about homework range from banning homework completely to assigning work every single night. There’s a general rule suggested by the National Education Association that says students should have 10 minutes of total homework multiplied by the grade level each night. For example, a student in 4th grade should have a total of about 40 minutes of work each day, which includes all subjects. This means my 8th grade students should expect an hour and twenty minutes of work each night. That…feels bad.

Over the years I have evolved on this topic, as I have with pretty much everything else I do in my classroom. My first year, all of the students sat at individual desks, seated in nice neat rows. Now they sit in table groups or roam around the room working at various vertical whiteboard stations (more on that in another post later). Most of my early lessons were direct instruction in the model of “I do, we do, you do” (how thrilling). Now I do mostly problem-based lessons where the students work together and I provide support and keep them on track. I used to assign homework each night from the textbook, based on the lesson we did that day with the answers to the odd problems in the back of the book (remember textbooks?). The only reason I assigned homework that way was because that’s what I experienced as a student myself, and that’s how the math department did it when I got hired. I did what was being done.

As I got more experience, processed thousands of pages of student work, and sat through many, many parent conferences, I started to grow suspicious of the efficacy of this system. Some of the main problems that I recognized were:

• A standard homework assignment in which a student needed to complete and properly correct 15-20 math problems could take one student 15 minutes and another student 60 minutes or more. The time commitment was not equitable.
• Some students had a high level of support at home, and others did not. Students having access to family help or paid tutors had a distinct advantage over those who did not.
• Since the homework was based on the lesson that day, many students did not have the conceptual understanding yet to complete the problems on their own. Learning a brand new skill and practicing it on the same day was not working for most kids.
• Making the homework worth a percentage of the grade in the class was only detrimental. This was an advantage to the students who had the time and support to complete it, and a disadvantage to students who did not. I can only imagine the number of students I had over the years whose overall grade was negatively affected by forces outside of their control.
• Grading homework rewarded “completion” and dishonesty. I quickly lost count of the students who copied answer keys, had tutors (or parents) do work for them, or copied work from a friend. When I graded homework, integrity died. Work assigned outside of class could not be assumed to have been done by the student.
• Processing 180 pages of homework each day was time consuming and not beneficial. The only thing I learned from looking at homework the next day was who was cheating on it. I would spend 1-2 hours every day checking homework, and all it got me was more parent conferences focused on integrity.

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

Changes needed to happen, but what were the right ones? Honestly, I don’t think there is a perfect system. Some students need to practice a math skill many times over many days to get the concept down. Some kids understand the skill quickly and lock it down after only a few attempts. Every student is different, so the system needs to be flexible. Assigning every student the same amount of work each night is not equitable, or even necessary. I’ve taught many students who have done little to none of the work I have assigned outside of class, yet they still showed consistent mastery on their in-class assessments. Clearly, they just didn’t need to do that much work. After much thought, multiple professional development sessions, and some new guidance from the district, my homework system has turned into:

• All assignments are a collection of spiral review. Newly taught math concepts do not show up on homework until the topic has been thoroughly covered in class over multiple days. This gives students a better chance at doing the practice independently.
• The homework assignment is posted on Monday morning, and “due” by Friday afternoon (students can finish it later if needed). Students have a week to work on it, using the time they have in their own family schedules, free time we have in class, or during the tutorial periods we have at school.
• Homework is not part of the overall grade in the class.
• All assignments are on DeltaMath, which provides access to worked out solutions and help videos if students get stuck on a topic. This provides equal access for help to all students, assuming they have an internet connection for the school-provided Chromebook. Not a perfect system, but far more equitable than before.
• I’m still checking homework completion, but only put it in a gradebook category worth 0% to provide feedback to parents. This takes me about 1 hour per Friday, rather than 5-10 hours per week. I can’t begin to tell you how beneficial this has been for my own mental health.

Photo by Keira Burton on Pexels.com

I evolved into this system over many years, and it’s not without its flaws. Since the work is not worth a grade, some students don’t see the point in doing it. They are so focused on what will raise their grade in the class that they don’t see the value in doing the practice. It’s a tough sell for the highly extrinsically motivated. I try to emphasize the value of practice, but that is not effective for some students. Since I refuse to grade homework anymore, I’m not sure what the answer is to that…yet (I will gladly take suggestions).

One thing I would like to try next year is to abandon the whole “weekly assignment” model altogether. I’m envisioning creating a new assignment on DeltaMath every time we finish a Learning Target, and having the assignment active the entire school year. With no specific due date, students could access the assignment at any time and practice the skills when they need to. If I offer formative assessment opportunities in class with feedback, students can make informed decisions on what they need to practice. This could help students make better choices on how they spend their time, and teach important study habits. Instead of me telling them what to practice, they choose what to practice and when. 

The ideal scenario is that homework is only viewed as a positive experience that allows students to check whether they understand a topic or not. In my dream scenario, every single one of my students would be able to say to themselves, “yes, I totally understand this and don’t need to practice it” or “looks like I need to work on this some more”, then know how to move forward. This is what highly functional adults do every day, right? Is that too much agency for a 13 year old? Maybe? But I’d like to find out.