After attending a few different language conferences this year, I’m scratching my head thinking about grading percentages, homework, and late work. Since meeting other teachers who are on proficiency and mastery-based grading systems, I love the idea of assessing students for what they are actually capable of or how much they grow by the end of the year. And again, on the bus ride home from Shalom last week, Tiz and I had a great conversation about how to approach late work that still has me scratching my head.
Homework, for better or worse, is one of my least favorite aspects of this job. Back in my day (full disclosure: I’ve always wanted to use this phrase) I was the annoying senior who had 7 classes every day, took all honors and AP classes, played three varsity sports, and did all my homework into the wee hours of the night in order to be able to turn it in on time Every. Single. Day… I’m exhausted just thinking about my high school days. And while I didn’t have the constant distraction that is social media, I had something equally painful — AOL Instant Messaging. Yep, teens have been finding ways to avoid doing work since the dawn of time. I always figured if I could juggle all of that, why can’t other students do the same on the more humane block or modified block schedules? (I realize how unfair it is for me to even ask this question.)
In a perfect world, I wouldn’t assign homework. Is homework fair, equitable, and just? I am always wondering about how many of my students have to work to support their parents, take care of their younger siblings, take care of ailing parents or grandparents, spend several hours commuting (walk, to bus, to BART, to bus, to home), or anything else that teens are having to deal with on a day-to-day basis.
Yet, for most of this year, I have assigned homework three times a week. And my syllabus states that late work incurs late penalties.
But how do I ensure that students are actually doing the homework themselves? Even in instances of recording themselves speaking French, how can I be sure they haven’t Google Translated an entire script, memorized, and then hit record? How do I know they aren’t sharing answers? How do I know someone else who speaks French isn’t doing it for them or helping them? How do I know they aren’t doing it because they’re pulled into too many directions? How do I know they aren’t doing it because they simply aren’t good at time management? How do I know they aren’t doing it because they frankly just don’t care?
In terms of collecting late work: is it fair to accept work nearly a month late and give the same grade as a student who did the work on their own and submitted it when it was due? Is it fair to me to continue grading homework all around the clock because students are turning work in when they get to it? Is it fair for a student’s grade to tank because, while they’re performing relatively well in class, they just aren’t keeping up with the homework?
Is it fair for us to require students to be at school from 8-3 (or even 7-5 if students have 0 period and do after-school sports and extracurriculars), and also complete several more hours of homework per night? Are we as educators doing our jobs if we can’t fit everything we need into our class periods?
I don’t have an answer to any of these questions and the more I think about them, the more concerned I become!
So here are my (MANY) questions for you, fellow educators whom I deeply respect:
- Do you assign homework?
- How much homework do you assign per week?
- How long do you expect students to work on your assignments per night?
- What kind of assignments do you have students do at home?
- Is homework a category in your grade book?
- Do you assign late penalties?
- What do you do if a student submits a major assignment a day, week, or even month late?
- Is it easy to spot if your students are cheating on these assignments or not?
- Have you noticed the students feverishly working in the halls before your classes comparing answers or trying to finish work?
- Are students complaining about homework when they enter your classrooms each day?
- If you assign work in Schoology, how many of your students are submitting their assignments past midnight on any given day?
- What percentage of your students are actually doing all of their homework?
- If you’re not assigning homework, what does your grade book percentage breakdown look like?
I’ve dabbled in optional homework this month prior to Spring Break. I’m merely asking students to listen to French music and pick their favorites, which we sometimes discuss in class. To be honest: I even polled my students. They all told me they’re studying vocab or grammar on their own outside of class in addition to the homework I assign. I really haven’t even noticed a difference in their performance on classwork and assessments since removing the homework aspect from my classes this month. Instead, I am trusting that students are studying what they need when they need to. To be transparent, I’m counting performance on classwork and projects in the homework category instead of homework to ensure that my students still receive steady grading input and feedback each week.
But… I can’t help but think there must be a better way to go about this. Thank you, in advance, for helping me think through this issue.