Welcome to the All Atar Planning Podcast. My name is Kelsey, and this is the place where I talk all things teacher lesson plans. Today, I am talking about, debatably, the most controversial topic in education. And that is the value of homework.
Eliminating Homework
So homework is like a weird thing. Okay. Um, I am reading more and more articles about districts, just completely eliminating homework. Like the entire K to 12, nobody’s doing homework. I kind of get it, but I also kind of don’t. I honestly don’t know what my opinion on homework is. It’s kind of weird to me because. Okay, let’s go through it. On the no homework end…
Reasons Teachers Don’t Assign Homework
The reason people don’t assign homework is because. There’s a lot of reasons, but one of them is that it’s nearly impossible to determine if the kid has done the work themselves. Right? So we assign homework because we want kids to practice with the things that they have learned. We want them to do it in a new environment, we want them practicing the work without the help of a teacher to guide them. And we want to see if they can do it solo. Right?
Um, I know for me when I was in algebra two, which is where my math education fell apart. I would be able to watch the teacher do it in class, and I understood when she did it and she walked me through it, in, you know, a scaffolding. And when I got home and had to do homework was when everything fell apart. And it was terrible and I hated it. Right there in that moment is when I broke off my relationship with math. I said math. I am a single girl. We’re broken up. I don’t like you anymore. So, um, people don’t give homework because it’s hard to determine if the kid is doing it themselves.
Assessing Resourcefulness
When I started calculus in college, I found some website that would do the math for me. And you can bet that I used it. And every single year, more and more of these programs come out. My kids now are telling me that there’s an app. They just take a picture of a math question. And the app solves it for them. Wow. That’s incredible because there’s a lot of people out there who don’t like math and honestly, What good is high level math in everyday life? I mean, I just don’t get it, Like as a chemist, I could use calculus, but as a chemistry teacher?
So with all of these new programs coming out where kids can just get answers to these questions. But also, They have each other, they have older siblings or family members or friends. Uh, their parents, they could just Google stuff. How do you know that the homework that’s being turned into you is that kids authentic individual just from their brain testing, their knowledge work?
You can’t know that, you just can’t. So the idea that homework is being used to assess kids learning? Not gonna work. You can use it to, uh, assess their resourcefulness. When given the opportunity, did you use all of the resources available to you to find the correct answer? That I think is a very worthwhile cause.
Take Home Tests and Homework
In fact, I give two take home tests a year. I think I do one over. Um, February break because it’s not associated with a holiday. And then I do one when they study for their midterm, those take home tests. I tell them, “please use every resource available to you. Use Google, use your notes, come to extra, help and work with me, work with your classmates.” I give out a lot of different versions of the take home test, or they just can’t copy from their friends.
But I use it more or less as a study tool. Like I’m giving you this take home test. To one increase your test average. Two give you an opportunity to look at test questions, review them, get familiar with the knowledge and the format. And then three to kind of force you to study for an upcoming test. I think it’s a great tool. But in that case, I am expecting every kid to get high 90s or at best a hundred because they’re using all of their resources to come up with answers. So I am not assessing their knowledge in that sense, I’m assessing their resourcefulness.
Is Your Homework Grade Really Assessing Anything?
But what it comes down to is that there is no way to ensure that a kid’s homework is just the knowledge in their brain. So. The question rises. Is it fair to give kids a grade? Based on their resourcefulness or their access to resources.
When I was in high school. I didn’t have an older brother or sister to ask for homework help. My parents did not know algebra two, that they could help me. They didn’t know, um, the very intricate details of my AP chemistry class, where they could have helped me. Uh, they could offer moral support and say, “Hey, here’s a computer. Go look it up on the internet and find yourself some answers,” but I didn’t have anybody to talk to at home. When you have, um, the last kid in a family. Who has five older brothers or sisters, and they’ve had every single teacher in the building and they’ve kept every single homework assignment that they’ve ever had. You have a kid who has access right?
Are Homework Grades Fair?
Um, Here’s a secret. When my brother and sister… I’m the oldest of three. I have a brother and a sister. And when they were in elementary school, there was a project that they had to build like a Viking ship or a pirate ship or something. I’m 99% certain that my dad built the Viking ship. Gave it to my sister. She brought it to school. Got a good grade, gave the pirate ship to the neighbor. The neighbor used it the following year. Then the neighbor gave it back to us for my brother to use. And then we gave it back to the neighbor. We used the same project four times.
How do you know, that, that the work that you get back from a kid. Is not the work of a parent of an – of an older sibling, or from Google or from one of these fancy apps or it’s a recycled project from the neighbors. You can’t know, you just can’t. So is homework really fair?
What is the Value of Homework?
I don’t think it is. I really, I just don’t think it is. But at the same time, I think that it’s very important that we are. I’m using this opportunity to get kids to look at work and to struggle with work without a teacher around. I think that that is super valuable. So, how do we make it work? I don’t know the answer if I’m being completely honest with you, but I can tell you that the homework that I give has evolved.
How My Homework Assignments Have Changed Over Time
So my very first year I would have kids do homework and I would check it for accuracy. I would collect homework assignments and literally grade them. That was ridiculous because my first year I had like 160 students. So I very quickly gave up on that. Um, and then it transitioned into giving kids homework and then doing spot checks. I was just grading their behavior. Did you do your homework?
What’s the value in that? I don’t see any value in that. I don’t think that behavior should be part of a kid’s overall grade. I think that grades are a way for us to numerically quantify a kid’s learning and understanding of concepts. Doing a homework based on effort thing, just doesn’t add up into that.
Homework is Not a Fair Assessment Tool
So I will give a kid, a test, an assessment or whatever. And I’ll say if you 100% understand this, you could teach it to a kindergartner, then you will get a 100 out of 100. Grades are how we numerically, quantify kids’ understanding and learning of a concept. So if we have a kid, I mean, our report cards, if a kid has a 100 on their report card, you can assume that they could answer just about any question within that course, because they know all of it. Uh, if they have a 90 on their report card, then you can assume that 90% of the time they would answer correctly. And 10% of the time they would answer incorrectly. That’s the point it’s, it’s a judgment; a quantifiable numerical judgment of how well a kid understands stuff.
Doing Homework isn’t the Same as Understanding Content
If you do your homework, but you don’t know anything. Is that going to inflate the grade; is it going to give a false representation of what the kid understands; is it going to be misleading? If you have a brainiac kid who goes home and has to babysit or has a job, or, um, Mom and dad worked nights and the kid is virtually home alone, even though they’re really not. And that kid doesn’t do homework.
Does that mean that they have a lesser understanding of the content? I don’t think it does. So this homework thing becomes like a weird spot, right? And again, I think that it’s important that we use every opportunity to assess kids’ learning. I think that pushing a kid into a different environment and having them do it on their own without a teacher around to help them is a great tool. But.
Homework Should Not be Used for Behavior Management
You can’t ensure that a kid is doing it on their own. And now at this point, you can’t wrap behavior up into their overall grades because the grade is supposed to assess understanding and learning, not behavior. So it kind of becomes this negative thing where homework isn’t all that helpful to assessment. And then you don’t even know what you’re getting back. You don’t know if it’s just from the kid, if it’s from the kid and their parents, if it’s a hand me down from the neighbor. You don’t know if this kid, um, you know, life gets in the way and they just can’t do it. So now their grade is suffering, even though they may be a brainiac genius. I mean. I don’t think any of that seems fair.
What is the Positive Value of Homework?
But at the same time, I think it’s important that we assess kids and we give them opportunities to struggle and we give them opportunities to practice. All of my years of teaching, I have taught 10th grade chemistry. So that is what we’re going with here. Um, that’s where I have the most experience. So that’s what I’m talking about. I am not mentioning my strategies for, um, college level college credit, nothing quote advanced. Just my basic high school level kids. So.
My homework is optional.
I know I’m losing a few of you just hold on.
I will teach a lesson, we do some practice in class. We go over it. I will give the kids something additional or I tell them to finish up the classwork for homework. And I will have some of them do it. Some of them do not. I never punish kids for not doing homework. I just reward kids who do homework. Okay. So what this looks like is when I give a homework assignment, I just have a checklist. Um, Bob did it, Sally did it. Beth did it. Joe did it. Susie did not. So those four will get a check. Susie does not get a little check mark. And then when it comes to the end of the quarter, and we have a kid who has an 83, who would really like to have an 85. I will go to those records and look at the proof.
Homework as a Measurement of Work Ethic
Did this kid put in enough external effort. On their own for me to be able to give them a small bump. And it’s not always homework. I don’t just judge it in terms of homework. I will also judge it in terms of the number of, uh, extra help after school sessions that they come to or lunch review sessions that they will come to. There’s a few other things, I try to do it in a way that’s fair; things that all of my students have access to. So I don’t love doing after school stuff because some of my kids work or they babysit. Um, they have sports. I don’t really like to hold that against them, but here’s the deal.
Every kid in my room has the ability to turn and their assignments on time. They have the ability in class to raise their hand and ask questions. They can show me, in my classroom, that they are a hardworking kid. This is the kid who comes in and will put the phone in a backpack or in a pocket and won’t touch it. Because when they are in my classroom, they’re getting down to business and they are ready to learn. So these are things that I keep in mind when kids are looking for a little boost. Okay?
Giving Students the Grade They EARN
But I don’t think that this is terribly wrong because if a kid quote, doesn’t meet the criteria at the very least, they are going to get the grade that they earned on their own. And I’d like to mention, in addition to this, I also allow my students unlimited retakes on their tests. The grade that they get is really the grade that they earned. It is not based on their behavior, it is not based on their ability to do homework assignments outside of school, it is not based on, their behavior in my classroom. It is based on literally what they have learned. Homework is optional.
Um, you can listen to more about my retake policy. It’s back from August. I know it’s from August. It’s the third week of August. Um, you can go listen to that, to learn more about my retake policy and what I specifically do. But, um, the overall grade that I give my students I know, is based on their learning. And homework, in my opinion does not necessarily tell me what my students have learned. It just tells me, uh, about their work ethic. And work ethic I don’t believe should be part of their chemistry grade.
Optional Homework
How does optional homework work? I’m glad you asked. I will give the students an assignment. Tell them they can do it for more practice. Most of my kids do it because my homework assignments are not ridiculous. They’re not crazy. They are like five to 10 questions and honestly, most of them will reappear either verbatim or very close on their unit test. So the kids kind of have an incentive to work these problems to begin with. They’re small assignments. They’re not anything that’s gonna destroy a kid’s evening. But they will come in the next day and I will give them the answers. And then they’re allowed to ask questions and that’s it.
I don’t spend 20 minutes going over homework that was optional. The kids have the ability to check their work. It’s a self assessment thing. And they ask questions based on what they need. That’s pretty much it. I put a lot of responsibility on my kids to learn. A lot of them rise to the occasion. Some of them don’t and they need a little push and a little encouragement, but most of them are willing to do it.
I Give My Students Different Responsibilities
So for me, even though I have this retake policy and, um, I do an interactive notebook and my kids aren’t really taking notes. They do have a lot of responsibilities in my room. And one of those responsibilities is choosing to do optional homework. Which many of them, as I said, rise to that occasion. So I give them responsibility in different ways than most people do, but I think it still works and it’s still sends the correct message that they are the ones in charge of their scores. Because they have unlimited retakes, because their homework is an option, which will prepare them for their tests. Um, you know, it’s just, it all works up to them taking ownership of their grades, which…
And let me tell you, there is nothing more refreshing than having a kid come to you, with high eighties, low nineties and say, “I can do better than this. I want to retake a test. I can do better than this. Oh, I should have been doing my homework this whole time.” There. I live for it. I live for it because my students have every opportunity to prove to me that. They know my stuff, they know my content.
Growth Mindset
I don’t care when they learn it, they’re going to learn it at some point. And those who do the homework have the best opportunity to do well on the test and be able to skip a retake. This is really how I explained it to the kids. On the first day of school, I talk to them about the unlimited retakes. I talk to them about, um, optional homework and really what that comes down to is that if you get an F on your report card, it’s because you didn’t take advantage of all the opportunities that I gave you. So I almost never feel bad about giving a kid a low grade on their report card because I know. That I gave them every opportunity that I could. And that’s just what it comes down to.
Student Responsibility for Grades
There is no ability for them to be able to say, well, you know, “when I go home, I have to babysit so I don’t get to do my homework. So that’s why my, my average is 15 points less than it should be.” That doesn’t happen in Ms. Reavy’s classroom. I don’t want it to happen to any kid because, kids have a lot of responsibilities that they shouldn’t have, which makes me very sad and upset. So in my room, I try to shift those responsibilities to them, just working towards and caring about their education and learning. And I think that honestly, optional homework does that.
And I think it fits the bill of not assessing kids based on their behavior. It kind of, sort of pushes them to learn on their own. Um, and then I, it makes it easy for me cause I don’t have to grade anything. I mean, is that not the greatest thing you’ve ever heard, not having to grade something? If I ever had to grade another homework assignment.. Man, I’m not here for that. Um, I do have kids occasionally turn in homework assignments because they want me specifically to look at it. And I do that for them. No problemo. Well, but a lot of the time, um, Those get back to them on my time. Not really there and time. I need to get better about that.
All Star Planning
But that is what I have for you, in terms of the value of homework. I don’t have an answer for you. I think it’s something that you need to think about, uh, sleep on it. Talk to your principal, department chair, talk to your team, think, read. There’s so much literature out there about the value of homework. I have read a lot of it. This is why I have developed the opinion of optional homework. And that’s also kind of where the unlimited test retakes came from. Um, again, the retake policy is back from August. I believe it is episode 13, if not it’s 12. That’s that. So I hope you are having a wonderful day.
If you haven’t already, please sign up for the All Star Planning masterclass. That is where I show you how the five pieces of the All Star Planning process come together so that you can have a very strong curriculum that helps your lesson planning process go much smoother. So you have all of the time in the world to read and think about your homework policy.
Make Your Own Opinion on the Value of Homework
I definitely suggest that you read up on it aside from this podcast. Um, just Google it. There’s plenty of great articles out there. And please talk to your principal, your department chair, your team. And assess your homework situation because just because you’ve been doing it for years, doesn’t mean that it’s the best way to do it or the right way to do it, and your kids will certainly thank you for it.
One way or the other they’ll thank you for it. Kids just want clarity. They want to know why they do stuff so you can tell them “we do homework for this reason. I grade homework for this reason, you don’t have to do homework for this reason.” Kids will respect you just for a reason.
Let me know what you are doing with homework this year. I’m very curious what other people are doing. Um, made sure to subscribe to the podcast. So you don’t miss anything. New episodes come out every Tuesday and I will talk to you next week. Bye for now.
