high school math homework policy

IM 6–12 Math: Grading and Homework Policies and Practices

By Jennifer Willson,  Director, 6–12 Professional Learning Design

In my role at IM, working with teachers and administrators, I am asked to help with the challenges of implementing an IM curriculum. One of the most common challenges is: how can we best align these materials to our homework and grading practices? This question is a bit different from “How should we assess student learning?” or “How should we use assessment to inform instruction?” 

When we created the curriculum, we chose not to prescribe homework assignments or decide which student work should count as a graded event. This was deliberate—homework policies and grading practices are highly variable, localized, and values-driven shared understandings that evolve over time. For example, the curriculum needed to work for schools where nightly, graded assignments are expected; schools where no work done outside of class is graded; and schools who take a feedback-only approach for any formative work.

IM 6–8 Math was released in 2017, and IM Algebra 1, Geometry, and Algebra 2 in 2019. In that time, I’ve been able to observe some patterns in the ways schools and teachers align the materials to their local practices. So, while we’re still not going to tell you what to do, we’re now in a position to describe some trends and common ways in which schools and districts make use of the materials to meet their local constraints. Over the past four years, I have heard ideas from teachers, administrators, and IM certified facilitators. In December, I invited our IM community to respond to a survey to share grading and homework policies and practices. In this post I am sharing a compilation of results from the 31 teachers who responded to the survey, as well as ideas from conversations with teachers and IMCFs. We hope that you find some ideas here to inform and inspire your classroom.

How do teachers collect student responses?

Most teachers who responded to the survey collect student work for assessments in a digital platform such as LearnZillion, McGraw-Hill, ASSISTments, Edulastic, Desmos, etc. Others have students upload their work (photo, PDF, etc.) to a learning management system such as Canvas or Google classroom. Even fewer ask students to respond digitally to questions in their learning management system.

How do teachers tend to score each type of assessment, and how is feedback given?

The table shows a summary of how teachers who responded to the survey most often provide feedback for the types of assessments included in the curriculum.

How are practice problems used?

Every lesson in the curriculum (with a very small number of exceptions) includes a short set of cumulative practice problems. Each set could be used as an assignment done in class after the lesson or worked on outside of class, but teachers make use of these items in a variety of ways to meet their students’ learning needs.

While some teachers use the practice problems that are attached to each lesson as homework, others do not assign work outside of class. Here are some other purposes for which teachers use the practice problems:

• extra practice
• student reflection
• as examples to discuss in class or use for a mini-lesson
• as a warm-up question to begin class
• as group work during class

How do teachers structure time and communication to “go over” practice problems?

It’s common practice to assemble practice problems into assignments that are worked on outside of class meeting time. Figuring out what works best for students to get feedback on practice problems while continuing to move students forward in their learning and work through the next lesson can be challenging. 

Here are some ways teachers describe how they approach this need:

• We don’t have time to go over homework every day, but I do build in one class period per section to pause and look at some common errors in cool-downs and invite students to do some revisions where necessary, then I also invite students to look at select practice problems. I collect some practice problems along with cool-downs and use that data to inform what, if anything, I address with the whole class or with a small group.
• Students vote for one practice problem that they thought was challenging, and we spend less than five minutes to get them started. We don’t necessarily work through the whole problem.
• I post solutions to practice problems, sometimes with a video of my solution strategy, so that students can check their work.
• I assign practice problems, post answers, invite students to ask questions (they email me or let me know during the warm-up), and then give section quizzes that are closely aligned to the practice problems, which is teaching my students that asking questions is important.
• I invite students to vote on the most challenging problem and then rather than go over the practice problem I weave it into the current day’s lesson so that students recognize “that’s just like that practice problem!” What I find important is moving students to take responsibility to evaluate their own understanding of the practice problems and not depend on me (the teacher) or someone else to check them. Because my district requires evidence of a quiz and grade each week and I preferred to use my cool-downs formatively, I placed the four most highly requested class practice problems from the previous week on the quiz which I substituted for that day’s cool-down. That saved me quiz design time, there were no surprises for the students, and after about four weeks of consistency with this norm, the students quickly learned that they should not pass up their opportunity to study for the quiz by not only completing the 4–5 practice problems nightly during the week, but again, by reflecting on their own depth of understanding and being ready to give me focused feedback about their greatest struggle on a daily basis.
• I see the practice problems as an opportunity to allow students to go at different paces. It’s more work, but I include extension problems and answers to each practice problem with different strategies and misconceptions underneath. When students are in-person for class, they work independently or in pairs moving to the printed answer keys posted around the room for each problem. They initial under different prompts on the answer key (tried more than one strategy, used a DNL, used a table, made a mistake, used accurate units, used a strategy that’s not on here…) It gives the students and I more feedback when I collect the responses later and allows me to be more present with smaller groups while students take responsibility for checking their work. It also gets students up and moving around the room and normalizes multiple approaches as well as making mistakes as part of the problem solving process.

Quizzes—How often, and how are they made?

Most of the teachers give quizzes—a short graded assessment completed individually under more controlled conditions than other assignments. How often is as varied as the number of teachers who responded: one per unit, twice per unit, once a week, two times per week, 2–3 times per quarter.

If teachers don’t write quiz items themselves or with their team, the quiz items come from practice problems, activities, and adapted cool-downs.

When and how do students revise their work?

Policies for revising work are also as varied as the number of teachers who responded. 

Here are some examples:

• Students are given feedback as they complete activities and revise based on their feedback.
• Students revise cool-downs and practice problems.
• Students can revise end-of-unit assessments and cool-downs.
• Students can meet with me at any time to increase a score on previous work.
• Students revise cool-downs if incorrect, and they are encouraged to ask for help if they can’t figure out their own error.
• Students can revise graded assignments during office hours to ensure successful completion of learning goals.
• Students are given a chance to redo assignments after I work with them individually.
• Students can review and revise their Desmos activities until they are graded.
• We make our own retake versions of the assessments.
• Students can do error logs and retakes on summative assessments.
• We complete the student facing tasks together as a whole class on Zoom in ASSISTments. If a student needs to revise the answers they notify me during the session.

Other advice and words of wisdom

I also asked survey participants for any other strategies that both have and haven’t worked in their classrooms. Here are some responses.

What have you tried that has not worked?

• Going over practice problems with the whole class every day. The ones who need it most often don’t benefit from the whole-class instruction, and the ones who don’t need it distract those who do. 
• Grading work on the tasks within the lessons for accuracy
• Leaving assignments open for the length of the semester so that students can always see unfinished work
• Going through problems on the board with the whole class does not correct student errors
• Most students don’t check feedback comments unless you look at them together
• Grading images of student work on the classroom activity tasks uploaded by students in our learning management systems
• Providing individual feedback on google classroom assignments was time consuming and inefficient
• Allowing students to submit late and missing work with no penalty
• Trying to grade everything
• Below grade 9, homework really does not work.
• Going over every practice problem communicates that students do not really think about the practice problems on their own. 

What else have you tried that has worked well?

• My students do best when I consistently assign practice problems. I have tried giving them an assignment once a week but most students lose track. It is better to give 2–3 problems or reflective prompts after every class, which also helps me get ahead of misconceptions.
• I don’t grade homework since I am unsure who completes it with or for the students.
• A minimum score of 50% on assignments, which allows students the opportunity to recover, in terms of their grade in the class
• Time constraints imposed during remote learning impact the amount and type of homework I give as well as what I grade
• Give fewer problems than normal on second chance assignments
• I have used platforms such as Kahoot to engage students in IM material. I also build Google Forms to administer the Check Your Readiness pre-assessment and End-of-Unit assessments, but I may start using ASSISTments for this in the future.
• The value of homework in high school is okay, but personally I skip good for great.
• Students are able to go back and revise their independent practice work upon recognizing their mistakes and learning further about how to solve the problems.
• Sometimes I select only one or two slides to grade instead of the whole set when I use Desmos activities.
• Allow for flexibility in timing. Give students opportunities for revision.
• Frequent short assessments are better than longer tests, and they allow students to focus on specific skills and get feedback more frequently.
• Especially during the pandemic, many of my students are overwhelmed and underachieving. I am focusing on the core content.
• Homework assignments consist of completing Desmos activities students began in class. Additional slides contain IM practice problems.
• I am only grading the summative assessment for accuracy and all else for completion. I want the students to know that they have the room to learn, try new strategies and be wrong while working on formative assessments.

What grading and homework policies have worked for you and your students that aren’t listed? Share your ideas in the comments so that we can all learn from your experience.

What would you like to learn more about? Let us know in the comments, and it will help us design future efforts like this one so that we can all learn more in a future blog post.

We are grateful to the teachers and facilitators who took the time to share their learning with us.

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What’s the Right Amount of Homework?

Decades of research show that homework has some benefits, especially for students in middle and high school—but there are risks to assigning too much.

Many teachers and parents believe that homework helps students build study skills and review concepts learned in class. Others see homework as disruptive and unnecessary, leading to burnout and turning kids off to school. Decades of research show that the issue is more nuanced and complex than most people think: Homework is beneficial, but only to a degree. Students in high school gain the most, while younger kids benefit much less.

The National PTA and the National Education Association support the “ 10-minute homework guideline ”—a nightly 10 minutes of homework per grade level. But many teachers and parents are quick to point out that what matters is the quality of the homework assigned and how well it meets students’ needs, not the amount of time spent on it.

The guideline doesn’t account for students who may need to spend more—or less—time on assignments. In class, teachers can make adjustments to support struggling students, but at home, an assignment that takes one student 30 minutes to complete may take another twice as much time—often for reasons beyond their control. And homework can widen the achievement gap, putting students from low-income households and students with learning disabilities at a disadvantage.

However, the 10-minute guideline is useful in setting a limit: When kids spend too much time on homework, there are real consequences to consider.

Small Benefits for Elementary Students

As young children begin school, the focus should be on cultivating a love of learning, and assigning too much homework can undermine that goal. And young students often don’t have the study skills to benefit fully from homework, so it may be a poor use of time (Cooper, 1989 ; Cooper et al., 2006 ; Marzano & Pickering, 2007 ). A more effective activity may be nightly reading, especially if parents are involved. The benefits of reading are clear: If students aren’t proficient readers by the end of third grade, they’re less likely to succeed academically and graduate from high school (Fiester, 2013 ).

For second-grade teacher Jacqueline Fiorentino, the minor benefits of homework did not outweigh the potential drawback of turning young children against school at an early age, so she experimented with dropping mandatory homework. “Something surprising happened: They started doing more work at home,” Fiorentino writes . “This inspiring group of 8-year-olds used their newfound free time to explore subjects and topics of interest to them.” She encouraged her students to read at home and offered optional homework to extend classroom lessons and help them review material.

Moderate Benefits for Middle School Students

As students mature and develop the study skills necessary to delve deeply into a topic—and to retain what they learn—they also benefit more from homework. Nightly assignments can help prepare them for scholarly work, and research shows that homework can have moderate benefits for middle school students (Cooper et al., 2006 ). Recent research also shows that online math homework, which can be designed to adapt to students’ levels of understanding, can significantly boost test scores (Roschelle et al., 2016 ).

There are risks to assigning too much, however: A 2015 study found that when middle school students were assigned more than 90 to 100 minutes of daily homework, their math and science test scores began to decline (Fernández-Alonso, Suárez-Álvarez, & Muñiz, 2015 ). Crossing that upper limit can drain student motivation and focus. The researchers recommend that “homework should present a certain level of challenge or difficulty, without being so challenging that it discourages effort.” Teachers should avoid low-effort, repetitive assignments, and assign homework “with the aim of instilling work habits and promoting autonomous, self-directed learning.”

In other words, it’s the quality of homework that matters, not the quantity. Brian Sztabnik, a veteran middle and high school English teacher, suggests that teachers take a step back and ask themselves these five questions :

• How long will it take to complete?
• Have all learners been considered?
• Will an assignment encourage future success?
• Will an assignment place material in a context the classroom cannot?
• Does an assignment offer support when a teacher is not there?

More Benefits for High School Students, but Risks as Well

By the time they reach high school, students should be well on their way to becoming independent learners, so homework does provide a boost to learning at this age, as long as it isn’t overwhelming (Cooper et al., 2006 ; Marzano & Pickering, 2007 ). When students spend too much time on homework—more than two hours each night—it takes up valuable time to rest and spend time with family and friends. A 2013 study found that high school students can experience serious mental and physical health problems, from higher stress levels to sleep deprivation, when assigned too much homework (Galloway, Conner, & Pope, 2013 ).

Homework in high school should always relate to the lesson and be doable without any assistance, and feedback should be clear and explicit.

Teachers should also keep in mind that not all students have equal opportunities to finish their homework at home, so incomplete homework may not be a true reflection of their learning—it may be more a result of issues they face outside of school. They may be hindered by issues such as lack of a quiet space at home, resources such as a computer or broadband connectivity, or parental support (OECD, 2014 ). In such cases, giving low homework scores may be unfair.

Since the quantities of time discussed here are totals, teachers in middle and high school should be aware of how much homework other teachers are assigning. It may seem reasonable to assign 30 minutes of daily homework, but across six subjects, that’s three hours—far above a reasonable amount even for a high school senior. Psychologist Maurice Elias sees this as a common mistake: Individual teachers create homework policies that in aggregate can overwhelm students. He suggests that teachers work together to develop a school-wide homework policy and make it a key topic of back-to-school night and the first parent-teacher conferences of the school year.

Parents Play a Key Role

Homework can be a powerful tool to help parents become more involved in their child’s learning (Walker et al., 2004 ). It can provide insights into a child’s strengths and interests, and can also encourage conversations about a child’s life at school. If a parent has positive attitudes toward homework, their children are more likely to share those same values, promoting academic success.

But it’s also possible for parents to be overbearing, putting too much emphasis on test scores or grades, which can be disruptive for children (Madjar, Shklar, & Moshe, 2015 ). Parents should avoid being overly intrusive or controlling—students report feeling less motivated to learn when they don’t have enough space and autonomy to do their homework (Orkin, May, & Wolf, 2017 ; Patall, Cooper, & Robinson, 2008 ; Silinskas & Kikas, 2017 ). So while homework can encourage parents to be more involved with their kids, it’s important to not make it a source of conflict.

Creating a Homework Policy With Meaning and Purpose

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We have all had time-consuming, monotonous, meaningless homework assigned to us at some point in our life. These assignments often lead to frustration and boredom and students learn virtually nothing from them. Teachers and schools must reevaluate how and why they assign homework to their students. Any assigned homework should have a purpose.

Assigning homework with a purpose means that through completing the assignment, the student will be able to obtain new knowledge, a new skill, or have a new experience that they may not otherwise have. Homework should not consist of a rudimentary task that is being assigned simply for the sake of assigning something. Homework should be meaningful. It should be viewed as an opportunity to allow students to make real-life connections to the content that they are learning in the classroom. It should be given only as an opportunity to help increase their content knowledge in an area.

Differentiate Learning for All Students

Furthermore, teachers can utilize homework as an opportunity to differentiate learning for all students. Homework should rarely be given with a blanket "one size fits all" approach. Homework provides teachers with a significant opportunity to meet each student where they are and truly extend learning. A teacher can give their higher-level students more challenging assignments while also filling gaps for those students who may have fallen behind. Teachers who use homework as an opportunity to differentiate we not only see increased growth in their students, but they will also find they have more time in class to dedicate to whole group instruction .

See Student Participation Increase

Creating authentic and differentiated homework assignments can take more time for teachers to put together. As often is the case, extra effort is rewarded. Teachers who assign meaningful, differentiated, connected homework assignments not only see student participation increase, they also see an increase in student engagement. These rewards are worth the extra investment in time needed to construct these types of assignments.

Schools must recognize the value in this approach. They should provide their teachers with professional development that gives them the tools to be successful in transitioning to assign homework that is differentiated with meaning and purpose. A school's homework policy should reflect this philosophy; ultimately guiding teachers to give their students reasonable, meaningful, purposeful homework assignments.

Sample School Homework Policy

Homework is defined as the time students spend outside the classroom in assigned learning activities. Anywhere Schools believes the purpose of homework should be to practice, reinforce, or apply acquired skills and knowledge. We also believe as research supports that moderate assignments completed and done well are more effective than lengthy or difficult ones done poorly.

Homework serves to develop regular study skills and the ability to complete assignments independently. Anywhere Schools further believes completing homework is the responsibility of the student, and as students mature they are more able to work independently. Therefore, parents play a supportive role in monitoring completion of assignments, encouraging students’ efforts and providing a conducive environment for learning.

Individualized Instruction

Homework is an opportunity for teachers to provide individualized instruction geared specifically to an individual student. Anywhere Schools embraces the idea that each student is different and as such, each student has their own individual needs. We see homework as an opportunity to tailor lessons specifically for an individual student meeting them where they are and bringing them to where we want them to be. 

Homework contributes toward building responsibility, self-discipline, and lifelong learning habits. It is the intention of the Anywhere School staff to assign relevant, challenging, meaningful, and purposeful homework assignments that reinforce classroom learning objectives. Homework should provide students with the opportunity to apply and extend the information they have learned complete unfinished class assignments, and develop independence.

The actual time required to complete assignments will vary with each student’s study habits, academic skills, and selected course load. If your child is spending an inordinate amount of time doing homework, you should contact your child’s teachers.

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What's a good policy for accepting late homework?

There are a lot of ways of handling late homework submissions, of which I've only tried a few. The general policy I've settled on is something like the following.

• Homework must be submitted at the beginning of class on the day it's due.
• Late homework is not accepted.

This is pretty harsh, I think. But with this policy in place, I make unofficial exceptions on a case-by-case basis (it's easier to start with an overly harsh policy and make exceptions in the students' favour than the other way around), for example, if a student happens to be late to class on a day that homework is due.

I want students to be motivated to hand in their work on time. Highly motivated. That's why I make the official policy so strict. But I feel bad about actually adhering to such draconian measures (they should get zero for missing the bus?), which is why I make exceptions. But overall, I'm dissatisfied with the ad hoc nature of this approach. How can I motivate students to submit homework by the deadline without being "overly harsh"?

• student-motivation

• 2 $\begingroup$ Are there aspects of the question particular to maths homework? $\endgroup$ –  Roland Commented Apr 16, 2014 at 14:28
• 7 $\begingroup$ @Roland There don't seem to be, but it's not clear that all questions are required to be math-specific. I certainly think this question is of interest to the community here. $\endgroup$ –  Jim Belk Commented Apr 16, 2014 at 14:49
• 3 $\begingroup$ @Roland the style of homework assignment in a math class is quite different from most humanities classes, and late policies might be correspondingly different. But I agree that this question might be equally applicable to, e.g., CS or physics homework policies. Nonetheless, this is an issue I face every time I teach a class with weekly or biweekly problem sets, and I think the math-ed communitiy will have a lot of specific insight to offer. $\endgroup$ –  Adam Bjorndahl Commented Apr 16, 2014 at 14:54
• $\begingroup$ @JimBelk: I'm not saying it's required, and I think that this question is fitting well as it is now. I wouldn't vote for closing it. I was just wondering if there are aspects which are specific to maths. $\endgroup$ –  Roland Commented Apr 16, 2014 at 15:16
• 1 $\begingroup$ I'm wary of "case by case exceptions", it is too easy to be unfair. Worse, this tends to favour the ones that are cutting corners and teaches them they can get away with it, not those who deserve help. $\endgroup$ –  vonbrand Commented Jan 27, 2016 at 10:58

8 Answers 8

My policy is that late work is not accepted, but I also give students multiple ways to turn in work, most of which revolve around electronic submissions.

The vast majority of work that I assign students is done electronically -- computer programs, Geogebra constructions, LaTeX-ed up proofs, etc. and so all they have to do is attach the file to an email and send it. Having electronic submissions cuts down on physical stuff happening, like missing the bus, that would prevent timely submission.

Last semester I experimented with having students use Dropbox folders to hold all their work and then sharing the folder with me. As they worked, they kept their works-in-progress in the Dropbox folder. Once they were done, they just added the word FINAL to the file name so I would know what to grade. This way they never "turned in" homework -- all the versions of the work were in the Dropbox folder at all times, and they didn't have to "remember" to turn something in. I've been doing the same thing with SageMath Cloud this semester with my discrete structures students.

If you use paper submissions, then tell students that if they are prevented from being physically present to submit their work on paper, they can (and should) scan it with their phones and send it to you. Not every student has a smart phone, but most do.

TL;DR -- "Late homework gets a 0" is a perfectly fine policy to have as long as you give students multiple avenues of submitting work.

• 2 $\begingroup$ I spent this morning working on code for automating submission of homework in SageMathCloud, making all the students' projects visible (as subfolders) of the instructor's project, and automating peer-grading so one can assign deeper problems. Course workflow will be the next big feature of SMC. Stay tuned. Also, of course SMC has snapshots every 2 minutes, so you can tell exactly when students did what. $\endgroup$ –  William Stein Commented Apr 21, 2014 at 18:15
• $\begingroup$ SageMath Cloud is amazing and getting...amazinger. $\endgroup$ –  Robert Talbert Commented Apr 23, 2014 at 0:11

My policy is that homework has to be turned in by the due time, for each day late 20 points (of 100) are discounted, after the third day no more submissions are allowed and the solution is posted.

As OP says, there is a bit of leeway for exceptional cases, i.e., if somebody was sick or otherwise unavailable they might be allowed to turn it in late with no penalty, or get a replacement homework.

In my experience, a (somewhat) harsh policy, with fixed dates for homework turn in and exams, dates that are only changed in case of extreme circumstances, is best, it isn't really hard and lightens work by not having it pile up at the end of the term.

The comments that follow pertain mainly to classes at or below the level of the beginning calculus sequence, elementary linear algebra, and a first course in differential equations.

To minimize the effect of situations where someone couldn't make it to class for some reason or had legitimate questions about one or more of the problems, over the years I gradually began to take up the homework in class when it was due, but still accept homework delivered to my mailbox or slid under my office door. I established a absolute due time , which typically was that it should be there before I get to my office and check mail the next morning. I warned them that I sometimes got to work very early (5:00 a.m. or earlier), and sometimes not until after 7:00 a.m., so to not take any chances, they should essentially regard the absolute deadline as the night before.

However, as much as possible (these being departmental or course supervisor constraints), I tried to avoid actually taking up and grading homework as much as possible. Instead, I found it much simpler to have frequent short (5 to 15 minutes) quizzes, averaging at least one quiz per week for the semester, and sometimes averaging nearly two quizzes, these averages being for classes that meet 2 or 3 times a week. Sometimes the quizzes were what others call "homework quizzes" (students get to use their homework on the quiz), but I would instead just make it an open notes quiz. I did this because I did not want to go around to every desk and police whether they were really using their homework (and not class notes), especially when a lot of students did their homework in the same spiral bound notebook they took class notes in. And yes, I realize that some students used photocopies of other students' notes and homework, but I didn't police that either. The only thing I did try to police in these situations was to make sure that they didn't pass notes to each other. You have to watch carefully for this, because once a note is passed and received, you have no way of telling (without careful scrutiny of all the papers on a student's desk) whether a certain student may have gotten worked quiz solutions from a nearby student.

• 1 $\begingroup$ After long consideration of (somewhat related) "cheating in homework" I came to the conclusion that I should be interested in what the know/can do , not in what they turn in . What you describe is perfectly in line with that. $\endgroup$ –  vonbrand Commented Apr 16, 2014 at 15:36
• $\begingroup$ I am very sympathetic to using quizzes to supplant homework assignments. Some of the same issues persist, however. How do you handle it when students miss a quiz? $\endgroup$ –  Adam Bjorndahl Commented Apr 16, 2014 at 16:48
• 1 $\begingroup$ Almost always I made each quiz $10$ points and at the end of the semester the total of their top $10$ quiz grades became an additional major test grade (almost always their best test grade). The number of quizzes they got to drop varied, depending on how many I gave (almost always at least $4$ or $5$ were dropped, so I also didn't worry much if sometimes a "quiz experiment" didn't work and grades on it were low), and the nice thing about this method is that you never have students groaning about having to take yet another quiz! $\endgroup$ –  Dave L Renfro Commented Apr 16, 2014 at 17:38
• 1 $\begingroup$ Speaking as the student... I had a calc prof who never collected homework, though he assigned a lot. It was a good idea to do it. He had office hours, which were always crowded, but I at least was motivated enough to go, and having other students there to chew on assignments over helped a lot. The quiz system @DaveLRenfro describes is also one I like because it helps me figure out if I missed the plot somewhere, and it cuts down the anxiety over exams, as well as telling me what I should study. But YMMV. $\endgroup$ –  Jesse Commented Apr 17, 2014 at 0:33
• $\begingroup$ @Jesse: Other reasons besides those you stated are that quizzes are easier to grade (the uniformity makes grading easier), tests are easier to write and type (several questions arise by simply copying and pasting quiz questions, making appropriate alterations), and tests are easier to tell students how to prepare for (30% to 60% of the test typically consists of things just like former quiz questions). Also, see these Math Forum posts of mine: 16 December 2009 and 2 March 2010 $\endgroup$ –  Dave L Renfro Commented Apr 17, 2014 at 14:25

Since I'm not exactly timely in grading homework, my policy is: You have until I grade the stack to hand it in. If you do so, I just put it into the middle of the stack and no big deal. But if I'm done grading the stack (or took the stack home before you slid yours under my door), you're out of luck. This means that there's sort of a probabilistic decay in the chances that a late homework will be accepted. Students realize the risk of waiting too long, but appreciate the ability to sometimes hand things in just a tad late.

Disclaimer: If I'm publishing solutions to be studied from for an exam, then the deadline is firm on being in before solutions are posted.

To a degree I think it depends on the age of the students. I would not have the same policy for high school and college.

For high school I had a longstanding policy of on time for full credit, 1 day late half credit and none after that. The only exceptions were excused absences, and for students that missed significant time I would usually work out a plan for catching up that contained modified homework assignments and due dates for groups of assignments.

I wouldn't say that this helped with student motivation. I chose this because I couldn't manage the homework load when it was being turned in at odd times. I needed to reduce variability in order to effectively check the assignments quickly. Also, students can become overwhelmed if they're trying to complete too many assignments. I wanted to limit the number of items that could be on a students plate at any time. When a student missed assignments I tried to talk to them about "what are we going to do differently?" and move them away from mistakes that they may have made previously. I don't have any proof that this helped, but I think it did.

For more advanced classes this was more problematic, students were less likely to be able to catch up on their own. I still kept the same policy, but it felt like I was less successful at getting students to change their behavior and had to make exceptions more often to offer credit for late assignments if a student was willing to make the effort to catch up.

Last, homework does not count for much in my classes. My homework assignments were not busywork, but they tended to be short reviews of work we did together. When I have tried more significant home assignments I have used different criteria for lateness. I have given a few application problems as take home quizzes, and most often those have had a generous but firm deadline for full credit and no late assignments accepted.

I'm with VonBrand, mostly. My way of dealing with it is to say that if you turn in your homework on time you can resubmit before the end of the semester to raise your grade for half credit. So if I give out a ten problem set, and a student turns in five problems that are 100% correct that's still 50%, F. Three weeks later the student can come in with the remaining five problems. Assuming they're 100% correct, minus 50% late penalty = 75% or C, but still better than an F. Of course if the student turns in nothing at the due date then the student gets zero.

Imparts a sense of understanding the importance of meeting deadlines while allowing for some flexibility. I know that some students save up for the week of Spring Break to catch up.

I'm also flexible on before-the-fact excuses. Come to me two days before the homework is due and say Fluffy had an accident and needs to go to the vet, fine, I'll grant an appropriate extension. Come to me on the day the assignment is due or after the assignment is due, sorry, no extension.

• $\begingroup$ Agree with the "ask before" extension policy. $\endgroup$ –  vonbrand Commented Jan 27, 2016 at 2:57
• $\begingroup$ Using the example you gave in the first paragraph, would a student that completed all 10 problems, but with only 50% accuracy have the same opportunity to resubmit for 75% credit? $\endgroup$ –  BBS Commented Jan 27, 2016 at 23:21
• $\begingroup$ Yep. Or turn in 100% wrong answers and resubmit for 50% credit. Still better than 0. Not saying this is the right approach for every academic situation, but it works in the types of classes I teach (computer programming) where some students get everything on the first try and some take longer. I try not to penalize students for being in the latter category as long as they're making an honest effort. $\endgroup$ –  Raydot Commented Jan 27, 2016 at 23:38

Students should be graded on the quality of their work (their ability to meet the desired learning targets) rather than how punctual the assignment is. Late Penalties lead to inaccuracy, which leads to deflated grades, which distorts the students’ achievement; their true ability to meet the intended learning outcomes. Some students predictably struggle with deadlines. Quality work should trump timeliness. By the way: The flood of assignments at the end of the year that you think you are going to get; it won’t happen, at least that wasn’t my experience. In fact, in every school I’ve worked in where teachers eliminated their late penalties they did not experience the flood.

• 3 $\begingroup$ This supposes that you only want the grade to reflect understanding of material, or ability to produce quality work. Sometimes we might really want the grade to reflect time management ability. $\endgroup$ –  Steven Gubkin Commented Jan 27, 2016 at 2:22
• 7 $\begingroup$ It might be true that quality of the work itself is the goal of teaching, but teaching is next to impossible if the students are unable to accept any definite schedule. $\endgroup$ –  Joonas Ilmavirta Commented Jan 27, 2016 at 7:33
• 2 $\begingroup$ Another point: Homework is not only used to grade students but also to get insight into the progress the students make. $\endgroup$ –  Dirk Commented Jan 27, 2016 at 12:23

Regarding the question in the title on how to deal with late submissions : First some background. I collect hand written homework and no electronic submissions. Usually the the submission is before class (in the lecture room) or via some mailbox. I do not accept late submissions after class and empty the mailbox at the time I announced (give or take some minutes). So my policy with late submissions is

Late submissions without warning are not accepted.

Most students have phones and can call, text or write emails from anywhere. If I get an email saying "I stuck in a traffic jam due to some accident and my submission will be late." I am going to accept the submission (unless there is evidence that the student lies, e.g. seeing him on campus at the same time). One important thing is:

This is not an official rule.

If it were, people could easily abuse it. So I handle all exceptional late submissions individually. By not making this a rule, the students need be proactive.

But there is another guideline that I find helpful here:

Once does not count but twice is a general phenomenon.

This is not meant per individual but in the following sense. If some reason for a late submission pops up once, I treat it individually. But if the same reason pops up twice (with a different student), I think about a general procedure how to handle these cases and make a rule with an announcement. This has the advantage that I do not have to make too many rules since many exception just occur once. (Finally: There are exceptions to this rule - sometimes even twice or thrice does not count…)

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Rules to help students with key life skills, such as time management, work organization, setting priorities, meeting deadlines and above all, taking responsibility for their studies, homework policy for parents & high school students, before the first session, students and parents must read and sign our homework policies for optimal benefit from our courses. implement rules fostering vital life skills: time management, work organization, setting priorities, meeting deadlines, and above all, taking responsibility for studies., hence, all high school students must adhere to the following homework policy:.

• Students must complete the assigned homework on time and to the best of their abilities. They must show steps and follow the instructor’s guidelines.
• Homework completion entails attempting and showing steps for each and every questio n in the assigned worksheet or exercise by the instructor, unless specified otherwise by the instructor. Even if the concept is not so clear, the student must try to attempt using the examples provided in class.
• If a student is absent from a session due to any reason, any assigned homework will still be due by the deadline. The deadline will only be extended with reasonable documentary evidence, such as a doctor’s note, boarding pass, etc. Students must self-learn skipped content or parents may contact MathProject for extra one-on-one sessions, available at additional costs.
• The instructors inform the students about the weekly homework due within the first hour of the MathProject session. It is the student’s responsibility to work with the instructor during the session to develop clarity of homework concepts.
• During the session, inform the instructor or MathProject administration if struggling with a concept and unprepared for assigned homework.
• Academic integrity is an essential component to student learning. Students must submit original work for all evaluations and actively avoid plagiarism, cheating, copying, etc.
• For incomplete homework, inform MathProject before the due date at 1-844-628-4243 to avoid fines.
• Students must ensure that they receive Crowdmark links to submit the assigned work from the instructor before leaving the session.
• The students must submit their classwork on the same day as the session by the deadline.
• High school students receive a three-day grace period for homework, considering school workload and commitments, despite encouraging timely submissions. Complete homework via Crowdmark is due by midnight on the Tuesday following the MathProject session.
• In case of Crowdmark issues, email the homework to the instructor by the deadline, CCing MathProject administration and parents.

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Center for American Progress

Homework and Higher Standards

• Report    PDF (736 KB)

How Homework Stacks Up to the Common Core

CAP analysis found that homework is generally aligned to Common Core State Standards, but additional policy changes would make it more valuable.

Education, Education, K-12, Modernizing and Elevating the Teaching Profession

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In this article

Introduction and summary

For as long as homework has been a part of school life in the United States, so too has the debate over its value. In 1900, a prominent magazine published an article on the evils of homework titled, “A National Crime at the Feet of Parents.” 1 The author, Edward Bok, believed that homework or too much school learning outside the classroom deprived children of critical time to play or participate in other activities at home. The very next year, California, influenced by those concerns, enacted a statewide prohibition on homework for students under the age of 15. 2 In 1917, the state lifted the ban, which has often been the case as districts have continually swung back and forth on the issue. 3

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More than 100 years later, homework remains a contentious issue, and the debate over its value rages on, with scholars coming down on both sides of the argument. Homework skeptic Alfie Kohn has questioned the benefit of homework, arguing that its positive effects are mythical, and in fact, it can disrupt the family dynamic. 4 He questions why teachers continue to assign homework given its mixed research base. Taking the opposite view, researchers Robert Marzano and Debra Pickering have voiced their support for purposeful homework that reinforces learning outside of school hours but still leaves time for other activities. 5

In 1989, prominent homework scholar Harris Cooper published a meta-analysis of more than 100 studies on homework in a survey that found a correlation between homework and performance on standardized tests, but only for certain grade levels. According to Cooper’s research, for students in late-elementary grades through high-school, there was a link between homework and improved standardized test performance. However, there was no evidence of the same correlation for younger students. 6 Even without a connection to academic achievement, Cooper still recommended assigning homework to younger students because it helps “develop good study habits, foster positive attitudes toward school, and communicate to students the idea that learning takes work at home as well as school.” 7

Far from academia, parents—not surprisingly—are some of homework’s most ardent supporters and, also, its most vocal critics. For better or worse, many parents help or are involved in their child’s homework in some way. As a result, homework can shape family dynamics and weeknight schedules. If a child receives too much homework, or only busywork, it can cause stress within families and resentment among parents. 8 Some parents report spending hours each night helping their children. For instance, a 2013 article in The Atlantic detailed a writer’s attempt to complete his 13-year-old daughter’s homework for a week. The headline simply read: “My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me.” 9 The father reported falling asleep trying to thoughtfully complete homework, which took around three hours per night. 10 On the other hand, some parents appreciate the glimpse into their child’s daily instruction and value homework’s ability to build positive learning habits.

It is no surprise that the debate over homework often spills onto the pages of newspapers and magazines, with calls to abolish homework regularly appearing in the headlines. In 2017, the superintendent of Marion County Public Schools in Florida joined districts in Massachusetts and Vermont in announcing a homework ban. To justify his decision, he used research from the University of Tennessee that showed that homework does not improve student achievement. 11 Most recently, in December 2018, The Wall Street Journal published a piece that argued that districts were “Down With Homework”—banning it, placing time caps or limiting it to certain days, or no longer grading it—in order to give students more time to sleep, read, and spend time with family. 12

Given the controversy long surrounding the issue of homework, in late spring 2018, the Center for American Progress conducted an online survey investigating the quality of students’ homework. The survey sought to better understand the nature of homework as well as whether the homework assigned was aligned to rigorous academic standards. Based on the best knowledge of the authors, the CAP survey and this report represent the first-ever national study of homework rigor and alignment to the Common Core State Standards—rigorous academic standards developed in a state-led process in 2010, which are currently in place in 41 states and Washington, D.C. The CAP study adds to existing research on homework by focusing on the quality of assignments rather than the overall value of homework of any type. There are previous studies that considered parental involvement and the potential stress on parents related to homework, but the authors believe that this report represents the first national study of parent attitudes toward homework. 13

For the CAP study, the authors used the Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) online survey tool to collect from parents their child’s actual homework assignments. Specifically, as part of the survey, the authors asked parents to submit a sample of their child’s most recent math or language arts homework assignment and have the child complete questions to gauge if the assignment was challenging, as well as how long it took to complete the assignment. In all, 372 parents responded to the survey, with CAP analyzing 187 homework assignments.

Admittedly, the methodological approach has limitations. For one, it’s a convenience sample, which means people were not selected randomly; and broadly speaking, the population on the MTurk site is younger and whiter than the U.S. population as a whole. However, research has shown that MTurk yields high-quality, nationally representative results, with data that are at least as reliable as those obtained via traditional methods. 14

In addition, the homework sample is not from a single classroom or school over the course of a year; rather, it is a snapshot of homework across many classrooms during the span of a few weeks in May 2018. The assumption is that looking at assignments from many classrooms over a short period of time helps to construct a composite picture of mathematics and language arts homework.

Moreover, the design of the CAP study has clear advantages. Many of the previous existing studies evaluated homework in a single district, whereas the CAP study draws from a national sample, and despite its limitations, the authors believe that the findings are robust and contribute significantly to the existing research on homework.

Three key findings from the CAP survey:

• Homework is largely aligned to the Common Core standards. The authors found that the homework submitted is mostly aligned to Common Core standards content. The alignment index that the authors used evaluated both topic and skill. As previously noted, the analysis is a snapshot of homework and, therefore, does not allow the authors to determine if homework over the course of a year covered all the topics represented in the standards.
• Homework is often focused on low-level skills in the Common Core standards, particularly in the earlier grades. While the authors’ analysis shows that there was significant alignment between Common Core and the topics represented in the homework studied, most of the assignments were fairly rote and often did not require students to demonstrate the full depth of knowledge required of the content standards. There was clear emphasis on procedural knowledge, and an even stronger emphasis on memorization and recall in language arts. Common Core content standards, on the other hand, require students to demonstrate deeper knowledge skills, such as the ability to analyze, conceptualize, or generate. 15
• Homework frequently fails to challenge students. Nearly half of the parents who responded to the CAP survey reported that homework is too easy for their child. In particular, parents of primary-grade children were most likely to agree or strongly agree that the homework assignment they submitted was too easy for their child.

Based on these key findings, CAP recommends that states, districts, and schools improve the quality of homework and increase opportunities for students to practice rigorous grade-level content at home. Specifically, the authors—drawing from this survey and other existing research on homework—recommend the following actions to improve the role of homework in education:

• Schools and districts should develop homework policies that emphasize strategic, rigorous homework. In many cases, the homework debate is limited and short-sighted. Currently, many arguments focus on whether or not students should have homework at all, and there are entire school districts that have simply banned homework. Instead of debating the merits of banning homework, reformers and practitioners should focus on improving the rigor and effectiveness of all instructional materials, including

Districts, schools, and teachers should ensure that the total amount of homework students receive does not exceed the 10-minute rule—that is to say, no more than 10 minutes of homework multiplied by the student’s grade level. 16 According to research, any more than that can be counterproductive. 17 Also, too much homework may be an unnecessary burden on families and parents. Homework should be engaging and aligned to Common Core standards, which allow students to develop deeper-level learning skills—such as analysis or conceptualization—that help them increase retention of content.

• Districts and schools should periodically audit homework to make sure it is challenging and aligned to standards. Rather than implementing homework bans, district policymakers and school principals should regularly review examples of homework assignments to ensure that it is aligned to grade-level standards and requires students to demonstrate conceptual learning. In instances where the district or school finds that homework assignments are not aligned or take too much or too little time to complete, they should help teachers improve homework assignments by recommending instructional materials that may make it easier for them to identify appropriate, grade-level homework assignments.
• Schools and districts should provide access to technology and other supports that can make it easier for students to complete rigorous schoolwork at home. Technology can also provide additional support or scaffolding at home, allowing more students to complete homework without help from adults or older siblings. For instance, programs such as the Khan Academy can give students rigorous homework that’s aligned to Common Core standards. 18 Unfortunately, many households across the nation still do not have adequate access to devices or internet at home. Schools and districts should consider options to ensure that all students can benefit from technology and broadband. Greater access to technology can help more students benefit from continual innovation and new tools. While most of these technologies are not yet research-based, and the use of devices may not be appropriate for younger children, incorporating new tools into homework may be a low-cost method to improve the quality of student learning.
• Curriculum reform and instructional redesign should focus on homework. There are many states and districts that are reforming curriculum or adopting different approaches to instruction, including personalized learning. Curriculum reform and personalized learning are tied to greater academic outcomes and an increase in motivation. Homework should also be a focus of these and other efforts; states and districts should consider how textbooks or other instructional materials can provide resources or examples to help teachers assign meaningful homework that will complement regular instruction.

The findings and recommendations of this study are discussed in detail below.

Homework must be rigorous and aligned to content standards

All homework is not created equal. The CAP study sought to evaluate homework quality—specifically, if homework is aligned to rigorous content standards. The authors believe that access to grade-level content at home will increase the positive impact of adopting more rigorous content standards, and they sought to examine if homework is aligned to the topics and skill level in the content standards.

The 10-minute rule

According to Harris Cooper, homework is a valuable tool, but there is such a thing as too much. In 2006, Cooper and his colleagues argued that spending a lot of time on homework can be counterproductive. He believes that research supports the 10-minute rule—that students should be able to complete their homework in no more than 10 minutes multiplied by their grade. For example, this would amount to 20 minutes for a second-grade student, 50 minutes for a fifth-grade student, and so on. 19

The Common Core, developed by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, established a set of benchmarks for “what students should know and be able to do” in math and language arts by the end of the academic year in kindergarten through high school. 20 The math standards focus on fewer concepts but in more depth and ask students to develop different approaches to solve similar problems. In language arts, the standards moved students away from narrative-based assignments, instead concentrating on using evidence to build arguments and reading more nonfiction.

The Common Core is not silent in the cognitive demand needed to demonstrate mastery for each standard. 21 For example, a second grade math standard is “[s]olve word problems involving dollar bills, quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies, using $ and ¢ symbols appropriately.” For this standard, a second-grader has not mastered the standard if they are only able to identifying the name and value of every.

Remember, apply, integrate: Levels of cognitive demand or depth of knowledge

There are numerous frameworks to describe levels of cognitive skills. One of the most prominent of these models, Bloom’s taxonomy, identifies six categories of cognition. The original levels and terms were knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation; however, these terms have changed slightly over time. 22 Learning does not necessarily follow a linear process, and certainly, all levels of cognitive demand are important. Yet these categories require individuals to demonstrate a different level of working knowledge of a topic. With the advent of standards-based reform, the role of cognitive skill—particularly in the area of assessment—has become a much more explicit component of curriculum materials.

Over the past two decades, cognitive science has shown that individuals of any age retain information longer when they demonstrate deeper learning and make their own meaning with the content—using skills such as the abilities to conjecture, generalize, prove, and more—as opposed to only committing ideas to memory or performing rote procedures, using skills such as the ability to memorize or recall.

In essence, Common Core created rigorous expectations to guide the instruction of students in all states that chose to adopt its standards. These standards aimed to increase college preparedness and make students more competitive in the workforce. Policymakers, advocates, and practitioners hoped that Common Core would create greater consistency in academic rigor across states. In addition, with the classroom and homework aligned to these standards, many anticipated that students would graduate from high school prepared for college or career. As of 2017, 41 states and the District of Columbia have adopted and are working to implement the standards, although many of these states have modified them slightly. 23

In this study, the authors evaluated homework to determine if it was aligned to Common Core standards in two ways: First, does it reflect grade-level content standards; second, does it require students to use skills similar to those required to demonstrate proficiency in a content area. This multitiered approach is critical to evaluating alignment between standards and instruction—in this case homework. Instruction must teach content and help students develop necessary levels of cognitive skill. Curricula for each grade should include instructional materials that are sequenced and rigorous, thus enabling students to develop an understanding of all content standards.

In spring 2018, the Center for American Progress used Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) to administer a survey. MTurk is a crowdsourcing marketplace managed by Amazon; it allows organizations to virtually administer surveys for a diverse sample. 24 The CAP survey asked parents to submit a sample of their child’s most recent math or language arts homework assignment and complete a few questions to gauge if the assignment was challenging, as well as how long it took for the student to complete the assignment. A total of 372 parents responded to the survey, and CAP analyzed 187 homework assignments.

Of the 372 parents who participated in the survey, 202, or about 54 percent of respondents, submitted samples of their child’s homework assignment. The researchers dropped a total of 15 homework submissions from analysis either because the subject matter was not math or language arts—but rather, science, music, or social studies—or because the authors could not examine the specific content, for example, in cases where parents only provided a copy of the cover of a textbook. Of the remaining homework samples submitted, 72 percent (134 samples) focused on mathematics content, while the remaining 28 percent (53 samples) represented language arts content.

Of the 372 responding parents, 234—or 63 percent—were female, and 126—or 37 percent—were male. Forty-eight percent of parents responding to the survey were under the age of 34, while almost 90 percent of respondents were under the age of 45. There was an unequal distribution of parents representing elementary and secondary grade levels. Seventy-one percent of the total sample were parents with students in primary (K-2) and elementary (3-5) grades. (See Methodology section below)

Based on the analysis, the authors’ drew the following conclusions:

Homework is largely aligned to Common Core standards, especially the topics in the standards

The authors found that the submitted homework, for the most part, was aligned to Common Core standards content or within the so-called “good” range based on content expert evaluations. As described in the Methodology, the authors used an alignment index that does not require a homework assignment to exactly mirror the content standards—both topic and skill level—for evaluators to note that it is within a good range. For context, the study’s alignment index has a range of 0.00 to 1.00, where 0.00 indicates no content in common whatsoever between the two descriptions—perfect misalignment—and 1.00 indicates complete agreement between the two descriptions—perfect alignment. Generally speaking, what one might call “good” alignment for instruction tends to range on the alignment index between 0.4 and 0.6, with a measure of 0.5 serving as a median indicator of good alignment.

The analysis is a snapshot of homework and, therefore, does not allow the authors to determine if homework over the course of a year covered all required standards. In other words, it is difficult to say how many of the standards for a given grade are covered across a full school year, simply because of the limited sample of assignments.

The alignment index evaluates both topic and skill, but there was particular alignment in topic areas. For instance, there was a strong emphasis in the topic areas of number sense and operations for primary math homework. When combined with the third-most emphasized topic, measurement, these three areas accounted for more than 90 percent of primary mathematics homework content. The actual math content standards for the primary grades also placed heavy emphasis on the topic areas of number sense, operations, and measurement—though they accounted for only about 80 percent of primary math content.

In general, across all age groups, math homework was more closely aligned to content standards—both topic and skill level—than language arts. The alignment results for middle school math were particularly strong, at 0.56, based on 27 homework samples. The stronger alignment among math homework samples may be in part due to the fact that there were more math assignments in the sample than language arts assignments. Larger samples offer more opportunities to show alignment. As a result, smaller samples may underestimate alignment.

The table below presents the alignment indices, which were calculated using the homework samples collected for each grade band.

Homework is often focused on low-level skills in the standards, particularly in younger grades

While the authors’ analysis shows that there was significant alignment in the topic of standards and homework assignments, most of the homework did not require students to demonstrate the full depth of knowledge required of content standards. The analysis uncovered an emphasis on procedural knowledge, with an even stronger emphasis on memorization and recall in language arts. Content standards, on the other hand, require students to demonstrate deeper-knowledge skills, such as the ability to analyze, conceptualize, or generate.

Of five performance expectation categories across math and language arts that the authors used to measure alignment between standards and homework, there was a disproportionate emphasis on skills that require a lower level of knowledge or understanding. In grades K-2, for instance, the content standards emphasize the performance expectations of “procedures,” or computation, and “demonstrate,” or understanding, but the homework samples submitted primarily emphasized the procedures level of performance expectation. Similarly, homework for grades three through five focused almost entirely on the performance expectation of procedures, rather than standards that emphasized both procedures and demonstrate. 25

As seen with the middle school grades, high school math standards—despite a continued emphasis on procedures—show increased emphasis on the more challenging performance expectations of “demonstrate understanding” and “conjecture, generalize, prove.” Interestingly, this shift toward more challenging performance expectations is most visible for the topic areas of geometric concepts and functions, in both the standards and the homework samples submitted by parents of high school students.

Parents report that homework frequently does not challenge students

Nearly half of parents that participated in the survey reported that homework does not challenge their child. In particular, parents of primary-grade children were most likely to agree or strongly agree that the homework assignment they submitted was too easy for their child—58 percent for language arts and 55 percent for math.

Parents’ opinions about homework difficulty varied between mathematics and language arts assignments. Forty-eight percent of parents who submitted a mathematics assignment and 44 percent of parents who submitted a language arts assignment reported that it was too easy for their child. There was some variance across grade spans as well. As noted above, parents of primary-grade children were most likely to find the homework assignments too easy for their child. Meanwhile, parents that submitted high school math homework were also more likely to agree or strongly agree that the assignments were too easy, with 50 percent agreeing or strongly agreeing and only 33 percent disagreeing or strongly disagreeing with the statement. While there were clear trends in parent opinions, it is important to acknowledge that the sample size for each subset was small.

The comments of surveyed parents echoed this finding. One parent noted that “most homework that they are assigned seems like nothing more than busy work.” Another parent said: “The homework is not strong enough to build conceptual knowledge. It assumes that the child already has that knowledge.” Meanwhile, another parent commented: “Homework is way oversimplified and they don’t seem to spend much time on it. It’s a bit sad that English and math don’t seem to require what they used to. I remember much longer and harder worksheets to complete when I was a child.” 26

Weak homework samples

Within the sample of homework assignments, there were some that fell short of rigorous. For instance, one assignment listed 24 pairs of numbers—three and nine, 24 and 21, and so on—and asked the student to circle the smaller number in order to build numbers sense. While homework can be critical when establishing foundational knowledge, repetitive activities such as this often fail to engage students and, instead, overemphasize rote learning. Asking a student to list or name a number of a lesser value, for instance, would make this assignment more interactive.

A second example from kindergarten asked a student to create an uppercase and lowercase letter “f” by filling in dots with paint. The parent who submitted it highlighted the limited utility of the assignment, emphasizing that it does not hold students to high expectations. What’s more, the homework only gave the student two opportunities to practice writing the letter, both in a nonauthentic way. Indeed, the assignment focused more on filling in circles than it did constructing letters. While this task might help build a kindergartener’s hand-eye coordination, it does little to support language arts.

Exemplary homework samples

While many of the assignments submitted focused on procedures and, for math, computation, it is worth acknowledging some of the more exemplary types of homework included in the samples. These offer examples of how homework can challenge students, engage rigorous cognitive processes, and demonstrate that content standards at all levels—not just middle and high school—can support challenging homework that pushes students to think critically.

For example, one math homework assignment asked a student to identify which individuals possessed each of four groups of shapes based on the following description:

Ally, Bob, Carl, and Dana each have a set of shapes.

• Bob has no triangles.
• The number of rectangles that Dana has is the same as the number of triangles that Carl has.

This example is interesting on two counts. First, the assignment goes beyond procedure, requiring the student to analyze the various sets of shapes in order to determine which set belongs to which individual. It is also interesting insofar as it demonstrates a common real-world situation: There is usually more than one way to solve a problem, and sometimes, there is more than one correct answer.

Similarly, another example asked a student to determine actions that would help students beautify the school. The header of the assignment read, “Make a Decision: Keep Our School Beautiful!” The assignment had various boxes, each with a question above, such as, “Should we recycle?” or “Should we make art?” The assignment asked the student to “(1) think about each choice, (2) consider how each choice would affect them and others in the school community, (3) write their ideas in boxes below.” In doing so, it required primary students to analyze and generate ideas—both of which are skills that promote deeper learning.

Recommendations

Homework offers a valuable window into the curricula, assessment practices, and instructional preferences of teachers. It provides insight into classroom learning as well as the types of knowledge and skills the teacher believes will reinforce that instruction at home.

This analysis shows that the content and value of homework varies. While most homework within the sample was aligned to content standards, there is still a significant need to increase the rigor of homework and create opportunities for students to use higher-order skills.

Overall, schools and districts should pay more attention to homework as a reform lever. A growing body of research shows that homework is connected to learning outcomes, and as a result, schools and districts should ensure that policies help teachers provide meaningful assignments. 27 Based on this survey and the existing research on homework quality, the authors identified recommendations that can help increase the quality of homework:

Schools and districts should develop homework policies that emphasize strategic, rigorous homework

In many cases, the current debate over homework is short-sighted. Many arguments focus on whether or not students should have homework. There are entire school districts that have simply banned homework altogether. However, the debate should move beyond the merit of homework. Research shows that homework is linked to better performance on standardized assessments, especially in higher grades. 28 Many homework scholars also believe that a reasonable homework load can help develop important work habits. 29 Therefore, instead of eliminating homework outright, schools, districts, and advocates should focus on improving its rigor and effectiveness. As discussed throughout, homework should be an extension of instruction during the school day. Accordingly, policymakers and schools must make changes to homework that are in concert with curriculum reform.

Like all instruction, homework should be aligned to states’ rigorous content standards and should engage students in order to promote deeper learning and retention. To do this, homework should ask students to use higher-order skills, such as the ability to analyze or evaluate.

However, schools and districts, rather than simply assigning longer, more complicated assignments to make homework seem more challenging, should make strategic shifts. Homework assignments should be thought-provoking. But there is a such thing as too much homework. Districts and schools should ensure that teachers follow the research-supported 10-minute rule. 30 Also, teachers, schools, and districts should consider resources to set all students up for success when faced with more rigorous home assignments; homework should never be a burden or source of stress for families and parents.

Districts and schools should audit homework to make sure it is challenging and aligned to standards

Rather than implementing homework bans, district policymakers and schools should regularly review homework samples to ensure that they are aligned to grade-level standards, are engaging, require students to demonstrate higher-order skills, and adhere to the 10-minute rule. The audit should review multiple homework assignments from each classroom and consider how much time children are receiving from all subject areas, when appropriate. The district or school should ask for ongoing feedback from students, parents, and guardians in order to collect a comprehensive representation of the learning experience at home.

In instances where the district or school principal finds that homework assignments are not aligned to grade-level standards or take too much or too little time to complete, they should help the school or teachers improve them by recommending instructional materials that may make it easier for teachers to identify appropriate, grade-level homework assignments. In addition, if parents or students identify challenges to complete assignments at home, the district or school should identify solutions to ensure that all students have access to the resources and support they need to complete homework.

Schools and districts should provide access to technology and other supports that make it easier for students to complete homework

Technology can go a long way to improve homework and provide additional support or scaffolding at home. For instance, programs such as the Khan Academy—which provides short lessons through YouTube videos and practice exercises—can give students rigorous homework that is aligned to the Common Core standards. Unfortunately, many households across the nation still do not have adequate access to devices or internet at home. A 2017 ACT survey found that 14 percent of students only have access to one technology device at home. 31 Moreover, federal data from 2013 found that about 40 percent of households with school-age children do not have access to broadband. 32 It is likely that the percentage has decreased with time, but internet access remains a significant problem.

Schools and districts should adopt programs to ensure that all students can benefit from technology and broadband. For instance, Salton City, California, installed a Wi-Fi router in a school bus. Every night, the bus parks near a neighborhood with low internet connectivity, serving as a hot spot for students. 33

Moreover, greater access to technology can help more students benefit from new innovative resources. While most of these technologies are not yet research-based, and the use of devices may not be appropriate for younger children, incorporating new tools into homework may be a low-cost option to improve the quality of student learning. For instance, ASSISTments is a free web-based tool that provides immediate feedback as students complete homework or classwork. It has been proven to raise student outcomes. 34 Other online resources can complement classroom learning as well. There are various organizations that offer students free lessons in the form of YouTube videos, while also providing supplementary practice exercises and materials for educators. LearnZillion, for example, provides its users with high-quality lessons that are aligned to the Common Core standards. 35

Curriculum reform and instruction design should focus on homework

There are many states and districts that are engaging in curriculum reform. Many of these recent reform efforts show promise. In an analysis of the curricula and instructional materials used by the nation’s 30 largest school districts, the Center for American Progress found that approximately one-third of materials adopted or recommended by these districts were highly rated and met expectations for alignment. 36

Homework should be a focus of curriculum reform, and states and districts should consider how textbooks or other instructional materials can provide resources or examples to help teachers assign meaningful homework that will complement regular classroom instruction.

Personalized learning—which tailors instruction and learning environments to meet each student’s individual interests and needs—is also gaining traction as a way to increase declining engagement in schools and increase student motivation. 37 These ideas are also relevant to homework quality. A 2010 study found that when students were offered a choice of homework assignment, they were more motivated to do the work, reported greater competence in the assignments, and performed better on unit tests, compared with peers that did not have choice in homework. 38 The study also suggested that offering students a choice improved the rate of completion of assignments. 39 Districts and schools should help implement more student-centered approaches to all instruction—in the classroom and at home.

When it comes to change management, experts often advise to look for low-hanging fruit—the simplest and easiest fixes. 40 In education, homework reform is low-hanging fruit. Research shows that quality homework and increasing student achievement are positively correlated; and yet, the authors’ analysis shows that some schools may not be taking advantage of a valuable opportunity to support student achievement. Instead of mirroring the cognitive demand in rigorous content standards, homework assigned to students is often weak or rote. But it does not have to be this way. More rigorous, insightful homework is out there. Policymakers and schools need to move beyond the debate of whether or not to assign work outside of school hours and do their own due diligence—or, put another way, their own homework—before assigning homework to students in this nation’s schools.

Methodology

As mentioned above, the authors used the Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) online survey tool to collect from parents their child’s actual homework assignments. Specifically, as part of the survey, the authors asked parents to submit a sample of their child’s most recent math or language arts homework assignment and have the child complete questions to gauge if the assignment was challenging, as well as how long it took to complete the assignment. In all, 372 parents responded to the survey, with CAP analyzing 187 homework assignments. The submissions of samples were analyzed by a group of analysts under the supervision of John L. Smithson, researcher emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Measuring alignment

The homework samples were reviewed by two teams of content analysts—one for mathematics and one for language arts—who were asked to describe the academic content represented by the submitted homework, as well as the performance expectation. Each team consisted of three analysts who possessed the relevant content expertise and experience in methodology used to gather the descriptive data.

The teams used a taxonomy-based methodology that was developed by education researchers Andrew Porter and John Smithson during Porter’s tenure as director of the Wisconsin Center for Education Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. 41 Researchers both nationally and internationally have subsequently used this approach to content description for decades in order to examine issues of alignment as well as to support program evaluation and inform school improvement efforts.

The U.S. Department of Education also recognizes the validity of this approach. Specifically, the Education Department completes a peer review of states’ annual assessment program’s alignment to state academic content standards. 42 The Porter/Smithson approach is one of a handful of alignment methodologies that has been determined to meet these federal requirements. 43

The Porter/Smithson approach is unique because it defines instructional content as a two-dimensional construct consisting of topic and cognitive demand, or skill. This approach to describing cognitive skill is similar to Bloom’s, which the authors have described above. It has five categories: recall, process, analyze, integrate, and conceptual understanding. The Porter/Smithson approach is the most stringent of alignment indicators, as it looks at both topic and cognitive demand; it is also possibly the most challenging to interpret because the final alignment score considers two dimensions.

The alignment index has a range of 0.00 to 1.00, where 0.00 indicates no content in common whatsoever between the two descriptions—perfect misalignment—and 1.00 indicates complete agreement between the two descriptions—perfect alignment. A measure of 1.00 is exceedingly unlikely, requiring perfect agreement across every cell that makes up the content description. In practice, this is only seen when comparing a document to itself. For instance, very high alignment measures—more than 0.70—have been noted when comparing different test forms used for a particular grade-level state assessment; but those are instances where high alignment is desired. In terms of instructional alignment—in other words, how well instruction is aligned to the standards—a measure of 1.00 is not the goal. For this reason, the authors did not expect any analysis of homework alignment, no matter how well designed, to have a measure of or close to 1.00.

Generally speaking, what one might call “good” alignment for instruction tends to range between 0.4 and 0.6 on the alignment index, with a measure of 0.5 serving as a median indicator of good alignment. The description of the content standards represents the goal of instructional practice—the destination, not the journey. As such, it does not indicate the best path for achieving those goals. The 0.5 indicator measure represents a middle road where teachers are balancing the expectations of the content standards with the immediate learning needs of their students.

Limitations

The authors acknowledge that the analysis has shortcomings. The sample was relatively small and does not directly mirror the national population of parents of elementary and secondary school students. As such, the sample does not necessarily reflect the views or homework experiences of the larger U.S. population.

Limited sample size

The current study analyzes a snapshot of homework across many classrooms, rather than homework from a single classroom or school. The assumption is that looking at individual homework assignments across many classrooms will help to construct a composite picture of mathematics and language arts homework that will be somewhat reflective of the picture one would get from following many classrooms for many days. If the sample is large enough with a wide enough geographical spread, that assumption serves researchers well enough.

For the current study, however, the number of homework samples available for each grade band were, in some cases, quite small—as low as five assignments each for middle and high school language arts. The largest sample sizes were for primary and elementary math, with 47 and 41 homework assignments collected, respectively. However, even 47 is a fairly small sample size for drawing inferences about a full year of homework.

Selection bias

The respondents that participated in this study were a reasonably diverse group in terms of age, gender, and ethnicity, but there are notable differences between the makeup of the parents represented in the study and the makeup of parents of school-age children more generally. Respondents were predominantly female, with women making up almost two-thirds—63 percent—of the sample. They also tended to be parents of younger school-age children, with 71 percent of the respondents reporting on children from the bottom half of the K-12 system—grades K-5. Finally, in terms of race and ethnicity, the sample overrepresented Asian American families and underrepresented African American families. These groups comprised 14 percent and 8 percent of respondents, respectively, compared with national averages of 6 percent and 12 percent.

Because the sample does not well reflect the population of parents of elementary and secondary students, the authors considered possible selection biases that may help to explain the differences in sample and overall population and that may have affected certain members of the population more than others.

For instance, the authors administered the survey using MTurk, which may have skewed the sample. In general, the population on the site is younger and whiter than the U.S. population as a whole. However, research has shown that MTurk yields high-quality, nationally representative results, with data that are at least as reliable as those obtained via traditional methods. 44 The researchers also targeted California and Texas in order to increase the diversity of the sample.

In addition, accessibility could have led to selection bias. Despite broad internet access in 2018, there remain families in low-income locales where internet access is not readily available for parents. It is also possible that older parents are less likely to be as active on the internet as younger parents, further contributing to selection bias.

About the authors

Ulrich Boser is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. He is also the founder and CEO of The Learning Agency.

Meg Benner is a senior consultant at the Center.

John Smithson is the researcher emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Sarah Shapiro, a former research assistant at the Center for American Progress, for her support developing the survey. They also appreciate the valuable feedback of Catherine Brown, senior fellow for Education Policy at the Center for American Progress; Tom Loveless, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution; Lisette Partelow, director of K-12 Special Initiatives at the Center; and Scott Sargrad, vice president of K-12 Education Policy at the Center.

Conflicts of interest

The author, Ulrich Boser, has a financial relationship with the creators of the online homework tool ASSISTments.

• Tom Loveless, “How Well Are American Students Learning?” (Washington: Brown Center on Education Policy , 2014), available at https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/2014-Brown-Center-Report_FINAL-4.pdf .
• Seema Mehta, “Some schools are cutting back on hoomework,” Los Angeles Times , March 22, 2009, available at http://articles.latimes.com/2009/mar/22/local/me-homework22 .
• Alfie Kohn, “Rethinking Homework,” Principal , January/February 2007, available at https://www.alfiekohn.org/article/rethinking-homework/ .
• Robert J. Marzano and Debra J. Pickering, “The Case For and Against Homework,” Educational Leadership 64 (6) (2007): 74–79, available at http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/mar07/vol64/num06/The-Case-For-and-Against-Homework.aspx .
• Michael Winerip, “Homework Bound,” The New York Times , January 3, 1999, available at https://www.nytimes.com/1999/01/03/education/homework-bound.html .
• Marzano and Pickering, “The Case For and Against Homework.”
• Brian P. Gill and Seven L. Schlossman, “Villain or Savior? The American Discourse on Homework, 1850-2003,” Theory Into Practice 43 (3) (2004): 174–181, available at http://www.history.cmu.edu/docs/schlossman/Villiain-or-Savior.pdf .
• Karl Taro Greenfeld, “My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me,” The Atlantic , October 2013, available at https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/10/my-daughters-homework-is-killing-me/309514/ .
• Fox News, “Florida students in Marion County will no longer be assigned homework, superintendent says,” July 13, 2017, available at https://www.foxnews.com/us/florida-students-in-marion-county-will-no-longer-be-assigned-homework-superintendent-says ; Kate Edwards, “East Tennessee schools consider ‘no homework policy’,” WJHL, September 13, 2016, available at https://www.wjhl.com/news/east-tennessee-schools-consider-no-homework-policy/871720275 .
• Tawnell D. Hobbs, “Down With Homework, Say U.S. School Districts,” The Wall Street Journal, December 12, 2018, available at https://www.wsj.com/articles/no-homework-its-the-new-thing-in-u-s-schools-11544610600 .
• Marzano and Pickering, “The Case For and Against Homework”; Gill and Schlossman, “Villain or savior?”.
• Matthew J. C. Crump, John V. McDonnell, and Todd M. Gureckis, “Evaluating Amazon’s Mechanical Turk as a Tool for Experimental Behavioral Research,” PLOS ONE 8 (3) (2013): 1–18, available at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0057410&type=printable .
• Common Core requires students to demonstrate conceptual understanding of topics and use the information to analyze and make their own meaning. The abilities to analyze, conceptualize, and generate denote higher-order cognitive skills. The authors describe hierarchies of cognitive skills later in the report. Many of the standards use these verbs to describe what is expected. Common Core State Standards Initiative, “About the Standards,” available at http://www.corestandards.org/about-the-standards/ (last accessed January 2019).
• Robert J. Marzano and Debra J. Pickering, “The Case For and Against Homework.”
• Khan Academy, “Common Core,” available at https://www.khanacademy.org/commoncore (last accessed February 2019).
• Common Core State Standards Initiative, “What are educational standards?”, available at http://www.corestandards.org/faq/what-are-educational-standards/ (last accessed January 2019).
• William G. Huitt, “Bloom et al.’s Taxonomy of the Cognitive Domain” (Valdosta, GA: Valdosta State University, 2011), available at http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/topics/cognition/bloom.pdf .
• Solomon Friedberg and others, “The State of State Standards Post-Common Core” (Washington: Thomas B. Fordham Institute, 2018), available at http://edex.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/publication/pdfs/(08.22)%20The%20State%20of%20State%20Standards%20Post-Common%20Core.pdf .
• Amazon Mechanical Turk, “Home,” available at https://www.mturk.com/ (last accessed January 2019).
• Common Core State Standards Initiative, “Read the Standards,” available at http://www.corestandards.org/read-the-standards/ (last accessed February 2019).
• Center for American Progress survey administered on Amazon Mechanical Turk, May 2018, full survey results on file with the authors.
• Lauraine Genota, “‘Homework Gap’ Hits Minority, Impoverished Students Hardest, Survey Finds,” Education Week , September 19, 2018, available at https://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/DigitalEducation/2018/09/homework_gap_education_equity_ACT_survey.html .
• John B. Horrigan, “The numbers behind the broadband ‘homework gap’,” Pew Research Center, April 20, 2015, available at http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/04/20/the-numbers-behind-the-broadband-homework-gap/ .
• Nichole Dobo, “What to do for kids with no internet at home? How about parking a wifi-enabled school bus near their trailer park?”, The Hechinger Report , December 23, 2014, available at https://hechingerreport.org/kids-no-internet-home-parking-wifi-enabled-school-bus-near-trailer-park/ .
• Alison Duffy, “Study Shows WPI-developed Math Homework Tool Closes the Learning Gap,” Worcester Polytechnic Institute, October 24, 2016, available at https://www.wpi.edu/news/study-shows-wpi-developed-math-homework-tool-closes-learning-gap .
• Sean Cavanagh, “LearnZillion Going After District Curriculum Business, Aims to Compete With Big Publishers,” EdWeek Market Brief, June 6, 2018, available at https://marketbrief.edweek.org/marketplace-k-12/learnzillion-going-district-curriculum-business-aims-compete-big-publishers/ .
• Lisette Partelow and Sarah Shapiro, “Curriculum Reform in the Nation’s Largest School Districts” (Washington: Center for American Progress, 2018), available at https://americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/DistrictCurricula-report3.pdf .
• TNTP, “The Opportunity Myth” (New York: 2018), available at https://tntp.org/assets/documents/TNTP_The-Opportunity-Myth_Web.pdf ; Gallup, “Gallup Student Poll: Measure What Matters Most for Student Success,” available at https://www.gallup.com/education/233537/gallup-student-poll.aspx?utm_source=link_newsv9&utm_campaign=item_211028&utm_medium=copy&_ga=2.248421390.86741706.1543204564-175832835.1543204564 (last accessed January 2019).
• Erika A. Patall, Harris Cooper, and Susan R. Wynn, “The Effectiveness and Relative Importance of Choice in the Classroom,” Journal of Educational Psychology , 102 (4) (2010): 896–915, available at https://www.immagic.com/eLibrary/ARCHIVES/GENERAL/JOURNALS/E101100P.pdf .
• Jeremy Eden and Terri Long, “Forget the strategic transformation, going after the low-hanging fruit reaps more rewards,” The Globe and Mail, June 24, 2014, available at https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/careers/management/bagging-simple-cheap-ideas/article19311957/ .
• U.S. Department of Education, “A State’s Guide to the U.S. Department of Education’s Assessment Peer Review Process” (Washington: 2018), available at https://www2.ed.gov/admins/lead/account/saa/assessmentpeerreview.pdf .
• Ellen Forte, “Evaluating Alignment in Large-Scale Standards-Based Assessment Systems” (Washington: Council of Chief State School Officers, 2017) available at https://ccsso.org/sites/default/files/2018-07/TILSA%20Evaluating%20Alignment%20in%20Large-Scale%20Standards-Based%20Assessment%20Systems.pdf .
• Kevin J. Mullinix and others, “The Generalizability of Survey Experiments,” Journal of Experimental Political Science 2 (2) (2015): 109–138, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-experimental-political-science/article/generalizability-of-survey-experiments/72D4E3DB90569AD7F2D469E9DF3A94CB .

The positions of American Progress, and our policy experts, are independent, and the findings and conclusions presented are those of American Progress alone. A full list of supporters is available here . American Progress would like to acknowledge the many generous supporters who make our work possible.

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High Heels in High School

Tips, tricks, thoughts and ideas from a high school math teacher.

Saturday, August 18, 2012

Homework policies, 10 comments:.

I am so wishy-washywith mine. Your plan here is really nice. What kind of load do you give them for HW?

I really like how thorough your policy is. One thing I thought of when it comes to late homework, what if they came into tutorials and worked a similar assignment (simply change numbers in problems) to be able to get a maximum of even a 70/75? Our district policy says the student has 2 days to be able to turn in an assignment for a max of a 70. Granted when they get a 42 back on an assignment that would have been a 60, they aren't too happy about that. Helps them learn quickly. http://liveteachcreate.com

thank you for sharing! I was having trouble with students copying work after the fact. I am instituting a new policy for late work. If they want credit, they have to do the homework with me after school. I think I am going to borrow some of your ideas as well.

I count HW on completion too, and I LOVE your "meaningful question" piece! I think that may just be the missing link for my policy. Thank you!!! Can't wait to try that part.

Hi, I enjoyed this post. It matches in some way what I read in Leslie Laud's book [http://amzn.to/ORHkwl] which I read this summer. She suggests students address each Q they couldn't do by saying what steps they took to understand - e.g. notes, textbook, online search, contact friends. Then say what they did understand and where they got stuck. I've prepared a pro-forma to hand out when it occurs - do your kids actually fill them in well? And as a UK teacher, can I ask what is the purpose of the scores, 100, 80 etc. Is that something the official that students expect? I never tell the students a score except for 6 weekly tests, as I kind of thought it had been shown they don't motivate all (e.g. http://bit.ly/OOp091). Are these scores something to do with the mysterious 'exit slip' - now what is *that* Thanks again, a nice article

Mathematics Man, Thank you for coming by and for letting me know about Leslie Laud's book...I'm going to look into it! As for my kids they do usually do a pretty good job asking questions on their homework. At the beginning of the school year it is a little tough for them, but throughout the year they do learn better what my expectations are and what kind of questions to write. The purpose of the 100, 80 an 60 are just percentages that I decided to use for their homework. My first year teaching I was using 100, 67 and 33 (to correlate with all complete, 2/3 complete and 1/3 complete) but students were receiving really low homework averages and I didn't want them to be discouraged since I want their homework to be a learning experience. The students don't actually know what a check plus, check or check minus correlate to, that was just something I mentioned in the post for readers to understand my policy a little more. I found this description (http://wvde.state.wv.us/teach21/ExitAdmitSlips.html) of an "exit slip" for you. Apparently here in America we just really love giving things cute names! ha

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

I can't stand the concept of homework as a grade to be perfectly honest. Last year, my department removed it from the grades completely and it was amazing. I would assign problems that I recommended from the kids. No grades or homework checking, thought I would go over the assignment with them if they needed it. At first some students weren't doing it as expected, but once they saw their test scores, they realized how important extra work is. This conversation was priceless! We also included the possibility of improving on passed tests if they failed. The other piece of this is having a tremendous amount of assessment for the kids that wasn't graded. I probably gave a quiz every other day that they graded for each other so they were always giving feedback. I have since moved schools due to moving across the country and I am back to homework in the grade book and so far I hate it even more now that I know the glories of not dealing with the paper work and actually holding kids accountable along with not letting them feel like homework is busywork which most do in the traditional system.

Would they receive a check plus if the wrote appropriate questions for the ones they didn't know?

. A year and half later I took an engineering physics class with Mr. Leonardo in fluids, sound, and thermodynamics. paying for math homework

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How does a “no homework” policy actually “work” for high school our principal has recently been suggesting it (and getting a lot of push back).

The math department is up in arms, and the English department feels this would be really restrictive for assigning reading, and it seems like everyone things it is setting kids up for future failure in college/career scenarios.

The counter argument is that grading “homework only grades compliance, not learning, especially giving zeroes for lack of work.”

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High School Math (Grades 10, 11; and 12) Free Questions and Problems With Answers

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All You Need To Know About Homework Policy In High School

When you get into high school, it is important to know about the school’s policy on homework as well as your teachers’ policies, too. High schools tend to have a variety of different policies relating to when teachers can assign homework as well as policies regarding plagiarism and cheating. Once you enroll in a school and attend classes, those policies all apply to you, so you should get to know them and abide by them.

Time-Related Policies

If your school does not have a blanket policy about homework, then each teacher or department will have policies. They usually have to do with deadlines for turning in homework along with the days of the week that teachers can assign homework. Since students can be quickly overwhelmed with homework, some schools give their departments days that they can assign work. For example, the math department might get to assign homework on Mondays, while science teachers can assign it only on Tuesdays.

Deadlines and Due Dates

When departments have homework policies about deadlines, they usually involve punishments for late work. Your teachers or departments might not accept any late work or they might only accept late work for students who had an excused absence. Other departments might knock points off of assignments if they are turned in late. Since late work is related more to behavior rather than ability, some schools have decided not to penalized students for late work submissions. Since schools all have different policies on late work, you should immediately learn what the policies are so you do not violate them.

Grading Systems

Another common homework policy is based on the way that teachers grade it. With the popularity of using assessments as the basis for grades, schools are turning to giving homework minimal weight in the gradebook. Some teachers might not grade it at all because they expect students to complete their homework with the expectation that the value of homework is in preparing students for the test. There are some teachers who do not give any homework at all because so few students complete it.

Turning In Homework

Lastly, another common policy involves how homework is submitted. Schools that have one-to-one technology can assign online homework that can be turned in on learning management system. Other teachers will have a specific location for turning in homework. Know where you should turn in your work so you get the credit you deserve for it.

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Benefit from your homework.

Homework may seem like it has its disadvantages, but utilized correctly, homework can benefit the learner immensely. Shape your homework so that you can fit in all your college obligations effectively. You will soon see the benefits of homework once you learn the skill of producing quick and original work. Looking for help with your homework?

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Many parents say Moscow School District's mastery-based learning system hurts students

by Stephen Pimpo Jr./KLEW

MOSCOW, ID (KLEW) — The Moscow School District adopted the mastery-based learning system earlier in 2019 but now some parents say it's hurting their children's education rather than helping.

Moscow School District officials say the mastery-based learning system is designed to help students learn and master concepts at their own pace. Instead, parents say the system is leaving students unmotivated to study and potentially unprepared for college.

"I learned all of a sudden he's not doing his math homework because it doesn't count,” Jessica Samuels said, describing her son’s study habits.

"There is no system in place to encourage people to put in the extra effort so they don't have to take that test a second time,” says middle school student Max.

"We don't want it. Our kids don't want it,” said father John Saltarella.

Those are just some of the concerns parents and students voiced to Moscow school officials during a special listening meeting regarding the school district's recent adoption of the mastery learning system.

Among the points of contention is how the system allows students to retake tests so they can better understand the material. It also has changed the grading system by getting rid of letter grades, although educators assure parents that isn’t the case at the high school level.

"Moscow High School is not abandoning letter grades or GPAs,” says Moscow High School Principal Erik Perryman. “We've understood from the get-go how important those are to college admissions and a ton of scholarships."

Some parents did have positive things to say about the mastery-based learning system.

"I can say, ‘Ok, what did he not get,’” says parent David Morse, adding that he still thinks officials should take the issues other parents raised seriously. “‘Go talk to the teacher, if you don't get it, come back to me, we'll work through this together.’"

Along with the many upset parents, several students spoke out against the mastery-based learning system.

"This will not prepare us for college,” Moscow High School student Asher Carr-Chellman says. “Students around me are losing motivation to take tests, study before tests because they can retake it as many times as they would like."

School officials spoke during the meeting to address possible misconceptions and worries surrounding the learning system.

"(The idea that students can) take a test as many times as they want to,” Moscow Middle School Principal Bill Holman said, offering an explanation. “It was never the intention of mastery-based education to allow as many opportunities, yielding some apathy (to studying).”

School officials then listened to questions from parents and students for close to an hour and also collected comment cards from many more. However, some parents are skeptical that school district decision makers will actually listen to them.

"Basically, what came across was, no matter what we said tonight, they were still going to move forward and implement their plan,” Saltarella says.

Moscow School District Superintendent Greg Bailey told KLEW he is optimistic on the meeting’s outcome. He says the next step will be going over the many issues raised to see what aspects of the system need changing and what they should stop doing all together.

"It was a good opportunity to hear the concerns that are out there so that we understand which direction we need to go,” Bailey says.