Chapter 7--Building Thinking Classrooms

 Homework

Grrr... I really hate the whole concept of grading homework. I just feel like too many teachers use it punitively. When you give a student half credit for "late" homework, what lesson are you teaching them? You are not teaching them History or English or Spanish or Math. I also hate the idea of going through and grading all of a student's homework problems, then giving a percentage. Aren't they supposed to be learning? How is getting 50% on a homework assignment helping them learn? Which is more important, completed homework or learning? I could grind this axe all day. Needless to say, I really like Liljedahl's findings on homework and am not the slightest bit surprised. 

I have begun by changing the hw symbol in Google Classroom to cyu. Not one student has asked me about it yet, but, as with questions, I plan to bring it up to the class one day and have a discussion about homework and how I feel they should use the check your understanding. One thing I have begun to do in some cases is create a "worksheet" of the problems we did on the board in class that day. I hand it out and say "if you want to review what we did in class today for yourself, here is a copy of the problems, otherwise, you may want to save this to review for whatever quiz we have eventually." Either way, I make it clear that this is a resource for them to use, not an assignment they have to turn in. 

I realized as I read this chapter again, that I am still giving a "completion" grade for some work. I guess I really need to rethink this practice. Right now, 90% of their grade is from standards and 10% comes from completion of certain assignments. Some of them are Desmos activity builders or Khan Academy. I'm not sure I should continue to grade these now. I've kind of put myself in a corner because that is how my gradebook is set up for the semester and it isn't easy to change midstream. I may just have to wait until next year to change this policy. In the meantime, I'll really have to think about what gets done for credit--definitely not the check your understanding problems.