Confusion on Homework

With the changes we are making to our curriculum and pedagogy, many get confused about homework. Homework is the most fundamental aspect about school, probably because it hasn't changed in over 100 years. Student's file into class, the teacher disseminates information, and students head home to do homework. New systems like flipping and SBG (among others) upend this decades-old pattern. This leads to a lot of confusion about homework. Students ask, "What if I don't do my homework?" or "How much credit is homework worth?" or "Are you going to check homework?" Students and parents become very confused because they are not used to seeing systems where the homework may not count for anything (or at least not as much as it used to).

My Confusion

However, I don't want to use this post to discuss my students' confusion over homework, but rather mine, though student (and parent) confusion is certainly worthy of a blog post! Homework, and what to do with it, is confusing for me, too. After all, I too went through the decades-old pattern as a student. 

A few days ago, I was going around my classroom checking students' notes. They had been assigned to watch a video the previous night, and I wanted to check to see how many students had their notes done. This is standard practice - assign homework; check it the next day. Teachers don't have enough time to really check it well, we're mostly just seeing if students completed it (i.e. have something, anything, written down). I carried around a sheet, marking down whether or not students had their homework done. 

SBG Grading Scale

Our goal is to use this rating system as much as possible this year, giving students ratings on different learning targets on worksheets, quizzes, labs, and anything else to which it applies. As a PLC, we agreed to use the following grading scale when putting these ratings into our gradebooks (our system doesn't allow grades that aren't converted to percentages).

What Am I Grading?

So I was about to enter grades into my gradebook for completion of notes, when I thought, "What am I grading?" The rating system is supposed to be a rating of student understanding, not compliance. Does the fact that a student had notes scribbled on a page indicate that she understood anything? Not at all! I didn't really want to record compliance as if it was understanding and therefore muddy the waters of the students' grades. However, on the other hand, do I really want there to be no accountability of students doing their notes? As I discussed here, it's essential that students "Buy-In" to watching and taking notes on the videos. This is the rub that many teachers feel with SBG. "If I don't grade homework, they won't do it!" they say. And they have a good point. There is a place for holding students accountable to do the work they need to do. 

Talk It Out

As I sat at my computer wondering what to do with homework grades, I decided I needed to talk it out. I presented this dilemma to some colleagues and we had some good discussions about how to hold students accountable without compromising our students' grades. I also included the students on this discussion, telling them my dilemma - that I want their grades to be accurate, but that I also want to hold them accountable. I want to push my students to take responsibility for learning the material, for thinking about how well they understand it, and identifying areas in which they excel and need improvement. Maybe this could be one piece to that puzzle. 

This post is already too long. Click here for a later post about how I ended up responding to this dilemma and what came out of the conversations I had with colleagues and students.

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Thank you for finding and reading my blog. One of my goals is to participate in the worldwide discussion of implementing Standards-Based Grading. If you have questions, thoughts, or insights, please leave a comment (click "Comments" below). If you want to receive new posts by email, enter your email address in the right sidebar near the top of this page.