STUDENT BELIEFS ABOUT HOMEWORK (PD 2)
In order to investigate whether homework should be eliminated, I needed to consider my own value of homework and my students’ perceptions of homework. The homework up until this point in time was graded based on accuracy, following the grading practices of my classroom mentor. Late work was deducted 5% each day, and make up work received ½ credit. Student feedback (Artifact 1A) and Vatterott (2011) made me cognizant of how a few of my students felt about the homework practice in my class. I realized that if I really want my classroom culture to work towards the needs of my students, student feedback would be one of the most valuable sources of data to inform my teaching. In order to gain insight to all students’ beliefs about homework I created Artifact 2A, Chemistry Homework Survey #1, to learn more about my students’ thoughts about homework in general, homework in my classroom, and homework in the classrooms of other teachers. I was most interested in the reasons why students do not do homework and the amount of time students dedicate to chemistry homework. For each survey question, I wanted to give students some direction while also providing them with the opportunity to write in their own answers as indicated by the blank lines under each question. Another purpose of this artifact was to dispel any assumptions I had about why students may not have been doing homework. My hope was to better understand the similarities and differences between the experiences my students have had in their schooling with my own experiences, understandings, and biases.
My numerical analysis of student responses to the Chemistry Homework Survey #1 (Artifact 2B) was not completely telling of my students’ opinions because the majority of them chose to pick from the list of given responses and many students chose more than one response. I did not explicitly document the connections between multiple responses from individual students so this impacted my analysis of the data. It was interesting to note that out of the 29 responses to the statement, “Homework is…,” there were 20 responses for “a waste of time” and “something I have to do.” Student responses became important when I assigned homework as I continued my inquiry. This majority response, shown in Figure 2, suggested that many students do not perceive homework to be an essential piece to their learning which many adults consider to be true (Loveless, 2014, p.22). The response from 11 students that homework is “something I have to do” makes me believe these students see homework as an obligation. This led me to reflect on the assumptions I made about why students may not do homework. Even if a teacher is very intentional when (s)he assigns homework, it may be difficult for a student to recognize the teacher’s intention without explicit explanations. This lends to the question of “how clear are our [teachers’] objectives” (Sallee & Rigler, 2008, p. 48)?
Moreover, after documenting the responses for the frequency that other teachers assign homework, I am not surprised that my students have a sort of indifference towards homework. With no common homework practice across disciplines or even within a discipline, it is difficult for students to have a strong grasp on the role of homework in school and for student learning. Perhaps this reflects a failing on the part of teachers for not making the connection between homework and content more explicit. Artifact 2A gave me a lot of insight on my students’ beliefs about homework. Based on student responses I think many of my students would state that homework should be eliminated, but my analysis requires much more exploration before reaching a conclusion. The data collected were very informative and it allowed me to dispel some of the assumptions I had made about why my students did not do homework.
Moreover, after documenting the responses for the frequency that other teachers assign homework, I am not surprised that my students have a sort of indifference towards homework. With no common homework practice across disciplines or even within a discipline, it is difficult for students to have a strong grasp on the role of homework in school and for student learning. Perhaps this reflects a failing on the part of teachers for not making the connection between homework and content more explicit. Artifact 2A gave me a lot of insight on my students’ beliefs about homework. Based on student responses I think many of my students would state that homework should be eliminated, but my analysis requires much more exploration before reaching a conclusion. The data collected were very informative and it allowed me to dispel some of the assumptions I had made about why my students did not do homework.