New Homework Policy

[disney junky]

It's really poorly written, but knowing the current thinking about best practices for HW, I would read it as the following

1) If you, the teacher, assign homework, you must in some way acknowledge the students who do this. For example, you might walk up and down the aisle, looking at the work on kids' desks and noting them in a checklist, or have students hand it in.

2) There should be some kind of system where kids receive feedback on their homework, this could be going over the correct answers in class, or providing a copy of corrected homework for kids to check against, or grading it. If teachers realize from the homework that there are common misconceptions among their students they have a responsibility for addressing that.

3) When you are assigning homework, you need to decide whether you're going to grade it, or simply mark it as done or not done.

4) If you grade it, that is, if you go through and check it or compare it to a rubric, then you can count it as part of a student's grade.

5) If you don't grade it but just mark it as done or not done, you can't count it as part of a student's grade, but should use other means to reward or punish homework completion. For example, if you're teaching little ones you can keep them in at recess or call their parents if it isn't done, or give them a sticker if it is done.

I think all of these things are very reasonable. I think that there's a move towards standards based grading, that is that student's grades reflect what they know and can do, and not how well they please the teacher. These guidelines are in keeping with that expectation.

However, I can see how a student, or a teacher with poor professional knowledge and comprehension skills, would read them differently.

The policy is based on a parent's complaint about homework hurting her child's grade. It is not research based nor is it data driven. I posted it to see how many adults caught the part that jumps out at the student, and that is that I can't be penalized for not completing my assignments or doing them poorly. That is the intent of the policy.

 

[Marionnette]

Here is a portion of a new "pilot" homework policy. The rest of the policy deals with the amount and purpose of homework. This is the grading part. Read it carefully, and then offer your comments. I'm curious how many interpret it the way an average student has interpreted it this year.

Grading:
The classroom teacher has a professional obligation to acknowledge, respond, and evaluate the work. Although grading homework is not always necessary, errors and misunderstandings must always be indicated, addressed, and corrected. Positive feedback to students is vital to the education process and must never be ignored. Teachers shall return all homework assignments to students as expeditiously as possible.


Homework that is graded for accuracy should be utilized to help increase the students’ subject specific grade. However, grading homework for completion or as student responsibility shall not be included in subject specific grade. Instead, student completion of homework for responsibility should be identified and discussed with the individual student and parent on a regular basis.

I took the first part to mean that the teacher is expected to collect and correct homework assignments. Those assignments, whether they are graded or not, should be returned to the students in a timely manner that allows them to learn from their mistakes and correct any misunderstandings.

The second part seems to address the homework assignments that are actually graded. I take it to mean that students are not to be penalized because assignments are incomplete or completely missing. If there is an issue with a student who consistently fails to attempt or complete assignments, then the matter is discussed with the student and parents. It also seems to me that the homework which is graded should only be graded for the accuracy of the content and the grade will be used to enhance the students' overall grade. In a way, graded assignments would act like extra credit.

The policy is needlessly wordy and subject to interpretation. It reads as if it was written by someone who recently finished their M.Ed. and is seeking to impress colleagues and parents.

 

[Wishing on a star]

I agree that the entire thing is a lengthy and pompous bunch of hot air.
Good gracious.

Now, the graded or UNgraded thing does not bother me.
Not all homework must be graded... then that is okay....
While I do feel that completed homework should be an opportunty for any student to get credit and/or improve their grade. I don't see this as such a HUGE thing. Any 'to-be-graded' assignments would still serve that purpose.

However, if the teacher has indicated that an assignment is a required, and to-be-graded assignment, then not turning it in would definitely affect the students grade, in a negative way, as they would get a ZERO. Which, if being graded by number-percentages, would be worse than a 57% 'F'.

 

[FlightlessDuck]

I assume this is policy in a K-5 setting where one teacher teachers all subjects....

The classroom teacher has a professional obligation to acknowledge, respond, and evaluate the work. Although grading homework is not always necessary, errors and misunderstandings must always be indicated, addressed, and corrected. Positive feedback to students is vital to the education process and must never be ignored. Teachers shall return all homework assignments to students as expeditiously as possible.

I take this to mean the teacher will not only see that homework is completed, but will actually CHECK the homework for correctness, mark items that are incorrect, but not take points away if the homework is only being checked as to whether it was completed.

Homework that is graded for accuracy should be utilized to help increase the students’ subject specific grade.

If the homework is Math homework and is graded for accuracty, it will affect his or her Math grade. If the the student gets a poor grade, does it LOWER the student's grade in the subject? If not, why not? If so, this sentencne needs to change.

However, grading homework for completion or as student responsibility shall not be included in subject specific grade. Instead, student completion of homework for responsibility should be identified and discussed with the individual student and parent on a regular basis.

Homework only being checked for completion does not affect the student's grade in the related subject. I can't tell from this statement whether there is a "class participation" or "responsibility" grade. If so, homework that isn't complete will affect this grade. If there is no grade at all for general responsibility, I don't know what kind of consequences there will be for a student that doesn't complete homework except "discussion".

 

[FlightlessDuck]

The policy is based on a parent's complaint about homework hurting her child's grade.

That's stupid. Parents need to suck it up.

 

[LilyWDW]

That's stupid. Parents need to suck it up.

Or they will be the ones with kids suing due to bad grades in college....

 

[StitchesGr8Fan]

Or they will be the ones with kids suing due to bad grades in college....

:rofl

 

[Mickey'snewestfan]

The policy is based on a parent's complaint about homework hurting her child's grade. It is not research based nor is it data driven. I posted it to see how many adults caught the part that jumps out at the student, and that is that I can't be penalized for not completing my assignments or doing them poorly. That is the intent of the policy.

Except it doesn't say that. It says that if you aren't checking the homework for accuracy you can't use grades to penalize them, and if you are checking it for accuracy then you can't decrease their grade for not doing it. However, since you can increase their grade for doing it, students who don't do it are still penalized.

The only kids whose grades aren't going to be impacted by not doing assignments are kids who are consistently demonstrating mastery of objectives without doing the assignments, as demonstrated by A's on all tests and formative or summative assignments. In keeping with the movement towards standards based grading (which is in fact part of the data driven movement, and is based on evidence), this makes sense. A child's grade should be an indication of the proportion of the skills and content they've mastered, not a tool for changing student behavior.

 

[taylor3297]

One of the many reasons I left teaching, (middle school math) had to do with grading. When most of us were in school, if we didn't do the homework we got a zero. Well today, the theory is, if you give a zero due to not doing the homework you are grading the behavior, not achievement/accuracy.

So, we weren't allowed to allow homework to count more than 10% of the final grade.

So what many are wanting (School higher ups) is for achievement based grading only. Then give a separate grade for the behavior.

If a child fails a test, then they should be allowed to retake the test until the child passes the test. Also, they should be allowed to turn in assignments anytime without taking points off. This way again you are grading achievement not behavior.

So at one of the many meetings I attended and our principal was explaining this to us, I asked him "So can I turn in my lesson plans anytime I want? Can I enter my grades anytime I want without being graded (my evaluation)?

Of course he said no. So another teacher pointed out that sometimes the "behavior" leads to the achievement.

In the end you can blame most of this on data driven instruction and standardized testing.

Of course there is more to this than what I have written, but there just isn't enough space to really go into it more.

Now if I could just remember the name of the book that many systems are using to backup these changes.

 

[Cannot_Wait_4Disney]

Here is a portion of a new "pilot" homework policy. The rest of the policy deals with the amount and purpose of homework. This is the grading part. Read it carefully, and then offer your comments. I'm curious how many interpret it the way an average student has interpreted it this year.

Grading:
The classroom teacher has a professional obligation to acknowledge, respond, and evaluate the work. Although grading homework is not always necessary, errors and misunderstandings must always be indicated, addressed, and corrected. Positive feedback to students is vital to the education process and must never be ignored. Teachers shall return all homework assignments to students as expeditiously as possible.
Homework that is graded for accuracy should be utilized to help increase the students subject specific grade. However, grading homework for completion or as student responsibility shall not be included in subject specific grade. Instead, student completion of homework for responsibility should be identified and discussed with the individual student and parent on a regular basis.

This just means if a teacher gives homework that isn't graded, it still should be evaluated. If a teacher gives homework that is graded, they aren't to penalize students for not doing it. Of course what isn't stated but is still the case is that they're not going to be getting credit for doing it when they didn't do it.

Here many of the teachers have decided that there is no such thing as homework that isn't done. The assignment carries over and if it remains undone at the end of the grading period the grade for the course is an Incomplete until such time as it is completed.

 

[Turn the Page]

This takes me back to my senior year math class. The first day the teacher tells everyone she will assign homework 3 or 4 nights a week and there is a small chance she will spot check it the next day for two points. If I recall correctly we went over the correct answers so we would know if we got them right or not. Anyway, that whole first semester I don't think I did more than five homework assignments but I also understood the material and got A's and B's on all the tests and ended up with a B in the class.

After the first semester was over a bunch of kids who had done all the homework still bombed all the tests and complained that they didn't get the grade they wanted so the teacher started checking homework every day. I still didn't do more than a few and still got A's and B's on all the tests but got a D one quarter because the final grade was weighted so heavily in favor of homework rather than actually learning the material.

Keep in mind this is senior year of high school not elementary school so I don't think the argument that some kids don't test well should have much weight at this point. They have to learn to handle it eventually if they plan to go to college or go on job interviews.

The purpose of attending school is to learn. Not just the material but responsibility and things of that nature. The purpose of homework traditionally has been to reinforce the lesson of the day. However, I can't see how forcing a kid to spend three or four hours a night doing busy work teaches them anything but to hate school. If the kids understand the material and don't need reinforcement in the form of an hour of math repetitious math homework every night why make them do it?

I don't know what the answer is but I don't think kids should be punished for not doing 40 math problems a night when they understand the material and I don't think kids who aren't actually learning much of anything should receive a higher grade just because they turned in a bunch of busy work that they didn't learn anything from as per my example above. There should be some middle ground where you are rewarded for how much your are learning not how much busy work you turn in.

 

[etoiles]

Grading:
The classroom teacher has a professional obligation to acknowledge, respond, and evaluate the work. Although grading homework is not always necessary, errors and misunderstandings must always be indicated, addressed, and corrected. Positive feedback to students is vital to the education process and must never be ignored. Teachers shall return all homework assignments to students as expeditiously as possible.

Homework that is graded for accuracy should be utilized to help increase the students’ subject specific grade. However, grading homework for completion or as student responsibility shall not be included in subject specific grade. Instead, student completion of homework for responsibility should be identified and discussed with the individual student and parent on a regular basis.

Here is how I see it:

Grading: Teachers should look over and give comments on all work. Homework doesn't have to be graded but it should still be looked at for accuracy and have comments. Homework should be returned to students with the feedback in a timely manner.

Homework should be only graded to help students' grades, not hurt them. So if students do not do or complete homework it should not affect their grades negatively. Teachers can discuss the lack of homework completion with students or parents, however. (haha, can you imagine how that conversation will go if homework will have no negative effect on their grade?!?!)

 

[NotUrsula]

To use the average student interpretation, as I think it would go:

1. All graded homework counts for bonus points ONLY.
2. You can't be docked for not doing homework.

Result: Only the kids who blow a test and need extra credit will bother doing any homework.

 

[Mickey'snewestfan]

To use the average student interpretation, as I think it would go:

1. All graded homework counts for bonus points ONLY.
2. You can't be docked for not doing homework.

Result: Only the kids who blow a test and need extra credit will bother doing any homework.

In my experience, and I coach teachers around student behavior for a living, very few students are motivated by something as long term as a grade. Kids do their homework or don't do their homework for a large number of reasons -- to please the teachers who smile and thank them when they turn it in, to please their parents who look at assignments online, to see a good grade on the paper, to avoid embarrassment of not knowing the answer . . . But not because 8 weeks from now they'll have a B- instead of a B+.

Turn The Page's story above is a good example. She was a senior in HS, so at the top end of the age range, and apparently a good student based on her test scores, and yet knowing that the rules had changed didn't change her behavior one speck. If HS seniors don't have the maturity to work for a long term goal, why would we structure our classrooms and our grading policies around the assumption that it would work for younger kids.

 

[leebee]

Grading:
The classroom teacher has a professional obligation to acknowledge, respond, and evaluate the work. Although grading homework is not always necessary, errors and misunderstandings must always be indicated, addressed, and corrected. Positive feedback to students is vital to the education process and must never be ignored. Teachers shall return all homework assignments to students as expeditiously as possible.


Homework that is graded for accuracy should be utilized to help increase the students’ subject specific grade. However, grading homework for completion or as student responsibility shall not be included in subject specific grade. Instead, student completion of homework for responsibility should be identified and discussed with the individual student and parent on a regular basis.

Great, more edu-babble. Why do we set a standard in education, that, if kids cannot meet, we lower the bar? Why aren't we teaching students to strive to raise themselves up, rather than lower expectations? School is nothing but a game to many students and a LOT of parents. In the real world, multiple chances to do things correctly don't exist; most of work and life is a one-shot deal, without "do-overs," but the US education system is full of "do-overs." Why should students be motivated to learn ANYTHING when we give them multiple chances to score a passing grade? If you don't learn it this year, you'll have multiple chances to give it a shot next year, and the following year; you'll figure it out eventually, MAYBE. How can we possibly expect to compete with the many other countries that have educational standards that students are expected to meet, or they flunk, when we treat education as a feel-good game?

Regarding the bolded part, I'd venture to guess it's in there to motivate the teachers to actually grade homework. If parents, students, administration, and school policy don't consider homework important enough to bother doing, why should teachers?

 

[Turn the Page]

In my experience, and I coach teachers around student behavior for a living, very few students are motivated by something as long term as a grade. Kids do their homework or don't do their homework for a large number of reasons -- to please the teachers who smile and thank them when they turn it in, to please their parents who look at assignments online, to see a good grade on the paper, to avoid embarrassment of not knowing the answer . . . But not because 8 weeks from now they'll have a B- instead of a B+.

Turn The Page's story above is a good example. She was a senior in HS, so at the top end of the age range, and apparently a good student based on her test scores, and yet knowing that the rules had changed didn't change her behavior one speck. If HS seniors don't have the maturity to work for a long term goal, why would we structure our classrooms and our grading policies around the assumption that it would work for younger kids.

Speaking for myself, it's not that I didn't have the maturity to work toward a long term goal it's that I didn't think it was worth it. Especially in this case. Doing homework did absolutely nothing for me beyond earning brownie points. Doing the homework didn't teach me anything or help me understand the material as evidence by my test scores. It was nothing but grade inflation and I didn't see the purpose behind spending a solid hour four or five nights a week to get it spot checked for two points the next day.

At the time I was dual enrolled at the high school and the local community college. I had college homework to do which trumped meaningless busy work that only counted because the other kids in class couldn't keep up and bombed the tests.

I'm sure not all high schools are set up this way so the following is a reflection of the school I went to only. In order to graduate from the high school I went to you had to learn exactly one thing....how to jump through hoops. There were kids graduating who couldn't read and write full sentences but they jumped through the hoops and graduated. I took college prep classes which included AP Composition and AP Biology (taking the AP Biology exam when they were testing the fire alarm system was not fun), and four years of French so I had a pretty demanding schedule. I ended up graduating with a 3.0 not because I wasn't learning much, my test scores were almost always great, but because I wasn't at all motivated to waste hours and hours of time a night doing busy work that wouldn't teach me anything.

 

[FlightlessDuck]

I must say the statement was written very poorly and not clear.

 

[MrsPete]

Here is a portion of a new "pilot" homework policy. The rest of the policy deals with the amount and purpose of homework. This is the grading part. Read it carefully, and then offer your comments. I'm curious how many interpret it the way an average student has interpreted it this year.

Grading:
The classroom teacher has a professional obligation to acknowledge, respond, and evaluate the work. Although grading homework is not always necessary, errors and misunderstandings must always be indicated, addressed, and corrected. Positive feedback to students is vital to the education process and must never be ignored. Teachers shall return all homework assignments to students as expeditiously as possible.


Homework that is graded for accuracy should be utilized to help increase the students’ subject specific grade. However, grading homework for completion or as student responsibility shall not be included in subject specific grade. Instead, student completion of homework for responsibility should be identified and discussed with the individual student and parent on a regular basis.

First and foremost: If educated adults have to read the policy more than once and still aren't clear on its meanings, something is wrong. If one of my students had written these lines, I'd tell him he shouldn't use words he "doesn't own"; clearly, the writer was throwing words together in an attempt to sound intelligent. He failed. In addition to lack of clarity, I'd say the writer needs to work on organization.

What I take from this -- and I'm not sure I'm right:

- The teacher will assign homework.

- Feedback from homework is good for students because it gives them an understanding of their strengths /shortcomings.

- Students (and their parents) are expected to take their homework seriously and reflect upon these strengths /shortcomings.

- The teacher will return homework in a timely manner.

- Some homework will be graded, other homework will not.

- Some homework will be graded for accuracy /this will be recorded in the gradebook. These homework grades can boost the student's grade (unclear on whether a bad grade can also hurt the student's grade).

- Some homework will simply be checked off as "you did it /you didn't do it". This will not be recorded in the gradebook (which begs the question, why bother to check at all?).

- The possibility of negative feedback isn't addressed. Do they assume that students will never do poorly on homework?

 

[MrsPete]

I don't know what the answer is but I don't think kids should be punished for not doing 40 math problems a night when they understand the material and I don't think kids who aren't actually learning much of anything should receive a higher grade just because they turned in a bunch of busy work that they didn't learn anything from as per my example above. There should be some middle ground where you are rewarded for how much your are learning not how much busy work you turn in.

From a teacher:

Here's the thing, For every student who genuinely CAN skip the homework (or do just five and understand), the class contains twenty who CAN'T do this -- seriously, perhaps one student, no more than two in an average class can really succeed without doing the homework. If students are allowed to choose how many they need to do, 18-19 of those twenty will choose to do fewer than are necessary . . . and the upshot is that the vast majority won't get what they need from the class. The average teen isn't particularly good at policing his own homework needs.

And the student who genuinely didn't need to do the homework? I'd suggest that he should move up to a higher level class. When I was in school that wasn't all that possible, but between online offerings, dual-enrollment in community college classes, and AP classes, our high school students have many opportunities to move on to classes that they will find challenging.

Also, it's important to note that the student who genuinely CAN skip the homework and do just fine will eventually run into a class where that isn't true -- he will eventually find himself in a class where he has little background (mayhap foreign langugage) or a class that just doesn't come easily to him. For the brightest of the bright, this might not happen 'til college. If he hasn't learned good study habits -- including doing homework -- he's going to run up against a brick wall in that suddenly-difficult class.

 

[Turn the Page]

From a teacher:

Here's the thing, For every student who genuinely CAN skip the homework (or do just five and understand), the class contains twenty who CAN'T do this -- seriously, perhaps one student, no more than two in an average class can really succeed without doing the homework. If students are allowed to choose how many they need to do, 18-19 of those twenty will choose to do fewer than are necessary . . . and the upshot is that the vast majority won't get what they need from the class. The average teen isn't particularly good at policing his own homework needs.

And the student who genuinely didn't need to do the homework? I'd suggest that he should move up to a higher level class. When I was in school that wasn't all that possible, but between online offerings, dual-enrollment in community college classes, and AP classes, our high school students have many opportunities to move on to classes that they will find challenging.

Also, it's important to note that the student who genuinely CAN skip the homework and do just fine will eventually run into a class where that isn't true -- he will eventually find himself in a class where he has little background (mayhap foreign langugage) or a class that just doesn't come easily to him. For the brightest of the bright, this might not happen 'til college. If he hasn't learned good study habits -- including doing homework -- he's going to run up against a brick wall in that suddenly-difficult class.

This is all true. However, I don't think the students who genuinely don't need to spend an hour a night doing homework to succeed in class should be forced to. I mean heck, if the goal is to teach study habits and whatnot give them a paper to write in English class instead of a bunch of work sheets or tell them to design a math project, some sort of statistics analysis for a statistics class perhaps, rather than just busy work. Busy work just crushes the spirit.