student responses to optional homework
Throughout my inquiry I have been particularly interested in the existing literature on the relationship between homework and academic achievement for providing evidence to determine whether homework should be eliminated. I thought it would be interesting to take my inquiry in this direction to further explore the area for myself. The best way that came to mind was to analyze student quiz scores when homework is assigned and when it is not assigned. After discussing this idea with my Penn mentor I decided that I did not want to give no homework at all and potentially risk hurting students who want practice outside of class. The accommodation then was to provide optional homework. Optional homework would be available for students who want more practice, but it would not be graded for any student. Although optional homework would not be graded I asked that students who completed the optional homework turn in the homework to me. I wanted to be able to provide any student who chose to do the homework with written feedback in case they are off-track, and I wanted to keep records of which students chose to do the optional homework. Since I only had 5 weeks of student teaching left once I began implementing optional homework I decided to do week-long studies for optional homework vs. graded homework. These mini-experiments would culminate with a quiz (not cumulative)on each week’s content.
Before I introduced the idea of “optional” homework I wanted to show my students the data I had collected (Artifact 6A) so I chose many of their responses to the following survey questions: “The amount of homework in this class is…” “When I don’t do my homework it is because…” and “I would do more homework if…” The responses from my two classes were very different. My 2nd period did not question the data I showed, but they had what seemed like an endless number of questions about the notion of “optional” homework. I thought I was being very clear with my slides (Artifact 7A) about the expectations but they wanted further clarification on the grading policy for “optional” homework. I reassured my 2nd period over and over again that “optional” homework would have no affect on their marking period grade because it was not getting graded. One student was adamant that I was playing a trick and once the optional homework week was over I would tell the class that students who chose to do the homework would get points but students who did not do the homework would get penalized.
In 7th period (which should be noted to be a class with whom I have worked for a much shorter time than 2nd period), my students questioned the validity of my data for their class because they did not believe that anyone would think the amount of homework in class is “just the right amount,” a response chosen by 8 out of 12 surveyed students. As I tried to share what I noticed about their responses, students were openly voicing their opinions, many of which were written on the “Chemistry Homework Survey #1 (Pd 7)” (Artifact 6A). Some sample responses included “practice what you did in school,” “I study without HW,” and “no homework more classwork.” When I paused for questions, students wanted to know whether “optional” homework equated to more classwork to “balance” things out. The way my students asked this question indicated to me that they would prefer more classwork as long as they had no homework. They were also concerned whether ungraded homework would lead to assessments being more weighted than before. If this was the case, many of them stated that they wanted homework to be graded only as a “cushion” for their grade. To end the conversation, many students commented that they wished I had implemented optional homework earlier and they wished other teachers would give optional homework too. Student responses favoring optional homework seemed to suggest that students may also favor eliminating homework because many of them favored optional homework because that meant they had no homework.
Before I introduced the idea of “optional” homework I wanted to show my students the data I had collected (Artifact 6A) so I chose many of their responses to the following survey questions: “The amount of homework in this class is…” “When I don’t do my homework it is because…” and “I would do more homework if…” The responses from my two classes were very different. My 2nd period did not question the data I showed, but they had what seemed like an endless number of questions about the notion of “optional” homework. I thought I was being very clear with my slides (Artifact 7A) about the expectations but they wanted further clarification on the grading policy for “optional” homework. I reassured my 2nd period over and over again that “optional” homework would have no affect on their marking period grade because it was not getting graded. One student was adamant that I was playing a trick and once the optional homework week was over I would tell the class that students who chose to do the homework would get points but students who did not do the homework would get penalized.
In 7th period (which should be noted to be a class with whom I have worked for a much shorter time than 2nd period), my students questioned the validity of my data for their class because they did not believe that anyone would think the amount of homework in class is “just the right amount,” a response chosen by 8 out of 12 surveyed students. As I tried to share what I noticed about their responses, students were openly voicing their opinions, many of which were written on the “Chemistry Homework Survey #1 (Pd 7)” (Artifact 6A). Some sample responses included “practice what you did in school,” “I study without HW,” and “no homework more classwork.” When I paused for questions, students wanted to know whether “optional” homework equated to more classwork to “balance” things out. The way my students asked this question indicated to me that they would prefer more classwork as long as they had no homework. They were also concerned whether ungraded homework would lead to assessments being more weighted than before. If this was the case, many of them stated that they wanted homework to be graded only as a “cushion” for their grade. To end the conversation, many students commented that they wished I had implemented optional homework earlier and they wished other teachers would give optional homework too. Student responses favoring optional homework seemed to suggest that students may also favor eliminating homework because many of them favored optional homework because that meant they had no homework.