To Homework or Not to Homework:

* MIXED PRACTICE: Traditionally, a typical math assignment provided practice in a single isolated skill. This often led to a "plug and chug" situation where a student brainlessly performs the same process over and over. A issue that arises from students practicing a skill in isolation is that students are then less able to apply the concept in unfamiliar contexts. In our current homework model, each assignments covers concepts from the entire book, forcing students to analyze and think about what mathematical skill or concept is in play, rather than just applying the current concept by default. Our assignments usually contain two problems from the current lesson and the rest of the problems will be from any topic that has been studied up to that point, often in a context different from what students have seen before. This helps to build problem solving and analytical skills in students.

* FEEDBACK: If a student turns in a completed homework assignment, but has done every problem wrong, all that has been accomplished is that the student has gotten very good at doing the problem incorrectly. Doing an entire set of problems improperly is a colossal, counter-productive waste of time. Also, doing a set of problems and not knowing whether you've gotten the right answer or not is not helpful. In order for practice to be effective for learning, I strongly believe that students need immediate access to feedback. To facilitate this feedback for students, I have personally done every single homework problem in the textbook in great detail and published the answers online for students to check and correct their homework. The key to learning is not merely practice, but “good” practice. During homework sessions in our class, students have the resources to figure out if a problem has been done correctly and can take immediate corrective measures if it has not. It is also our hope that when student does not know how to do a problem, the student can learn how to do it by studying the solution key.

* EXEMPLARS: The homework answer keys have been completed in extreme detail and have been worked as thoroughly as humanly possible. The goal is that if a student did not know how to do a problem, they should be able to consult the answer key and learn how to do the problem via the answer key. Also, the answer keys are exemplars; they serve as a model of the quality of answer that I am looking for in student work (on homework, classwork, and tests). I have high expectations for the amount of thinking/work shown and for the quality of answer that I expect from students so I regularly model these expectations in the answer keys. Hopefully, with this regular exposure to our expectations of work standards/quality, students will (with practice) be able to eventually produce this level of work as well.

* TIME COMMITMENT: In my opinion, the homework that I assign is meaningful practice and it is important to the learning process. It gives a chance for students to regularly practice not only concepts from the current chapter, but concepts from throughout the year. However, I also recognize that time is a limited and precious resource for students. Family time, time for extracurricular activities, and down time are all legitimate and important parts of a student’s life. As such, my intent is that students should spend about 20 minutes a night on math homework. In the beginning of the year, it may take a bit longer as students take time to adjust their work habits to my expectations. But hopefully by the end of the first quarter, students will have developed a routine that allows them to achieve quality practice in a reasonable amount of time. Also, homework is not assigned on weekends or holidays. These are sacred rest times for students and I intend to keep them as such.

* LATE WORK: We understand that life exists outside of our math class. Students have responsibilities in other classes, extracurricular activities, family, friends, home responsibilities and much more. Life isn't always neat and orderly. There will be times when there is a family birthday dinner, a sports tournament, a recital, or a fill-in-the-blank event prevents a student from completing an assignment. We get it, life happens!

Traditionally, most teachers have penalized late work in some fashion (deducting points, assigning half credit, or not accepting it at all) for the sake of teaching students a lesson on responsibility and work habits. Our belief is that the practice that we assign are not trivial. Our assignments take serious thinking, hard work, and focused to complete properly. Students need to put forth a good amount of effort to produce a quality product on our assignments. As an 8th grade math department, we believe that student effort should be recognized and honored. Consequently, our 8th grade math department does not penalize for late work. Our position is that if you are willing to put in the time and work required, you deserve full credit for the work (based on the quality of the work), regardless of when the work is completed.

We don't believe in being punitive for punitive sake (ie. lowering grades because work is not completed at a certain time). We also don't believe in punishing a student's grade to "teach a kid a lesson" or in hopes that the punishment of a compromised grade will prevent them from turning assignments late in the future. I previously assigned 50% credit for late work… Under that policy, what incentive does a student have for making up the work if they know in advance that when they turn it in, the grade will automatically be 50% (an F grade)? If we want to encourage completion of assignments, aren’t students are more prone to make up assignments if they know that they will get full credit for the assignment rather than a compromised grade?

Ultimately, the score assigned to the homework should be reflective of the quality of the practice, not reflective of the particular day it was submitted. Consequently, an 8th grade math department, we've decided that a full credit policy makes the most sense to promote work completion, and thus promote student learning. Yes, it is extremely important that students learn to manage their time wisely given the many hats that they wear. However, we believe that time management lessons are best learned via natural consequences. The natural consequence of not doing your homework in a timely fashion is: 1) You will fall behind and have massive amounts of catch-up work to do, and 2) Without adequate practice, you won't be prepared for exams. We don't believe in "grade punishment" as a way to teach life lessons about late work. Students should organically figure out what is best for them as far as how to manage their time when it comes to the many varied pieces of their life. We provide some guidelines, but ultimately they have to figure out their own specific details of how to schedule their time to be successful in all areas of their lives.

Here is Rick Wormeli's take on late work and it makes a lot of sense to me. Watch for yourself and see if you agree with his take on students and late work.