Friday, November 11, 2011

Of Babies and Bathwater

Thanks, John, for those kind words.  And yes, I plan on presenting more proofs.

These last two weeks have been busy with end-of-quarter grades, projects, etc.  (A forthcoming post will be "High-school level projects that involve actual mathematics," but I digress.)  This post is reflecting on the not-entirely-successful first iteration of our "no homework grade" policy: nightly homework assignments don't count towards students' grades, but frequent unannounced quizzes use representative homework problems as an incentive to complete assignments and an assessment of whether students know how to do the math.

The data are in and the following seem clear:
  • Students are completing less homework.  How much less is unclear, because in the past, the marks on students' papers didn't always correspond to thoughtful effort expended on mathematical problems, but in my upper-level classes, it's typical for only about half the students to have attempted a significant number of problems, and in previous years, it was more like 80%.  In the past, I doubt that the typical homework assignment was copied/scribbled from answers by 30% of my students.  Lower-level classes are doing better on most days.
  • Students perceive the policy as "you don't have to do homework," which seems like a misreading to me.  More accurate would be "homework isn't graded and factored into your overall grade." 
  • Students are doing less well on in-class tests than they did on last year's tests, although results vary by class.  Classes that are giving a lot of homework quizzes are finding less dropoff, but those same classes have younger students.
In his fabulous book, So Much Reform, So Little Change, Charles Payne dissects the etiology of failed reform efforts, discovering that a pervasive symptom is simply discarding changes that don't work, rather than examining and adjusting them.  In that light, our department is trying to revise our new homework strategy rather than revert to one we found problematic.  Some questions and possible answers:

1.  Why don't students do homework under the new policy, when they can see their grades dropping?  First, they may not see the connection between doing homework thoughtfully and actually getting better at math: it's telling that large numbers of students describe the policy (to parents, counselors, and teachers) as "you don't have to do homework" rather than "homework is important to learning, but you're only graded on what you learn, not what homework you do."  Second, they have a lot of other work--we're suffering from being the "first movers" in responding to Race to Nowhere.  When a student is up at midnight and choosing whether to do math or go to bed, the threat of a possible homework quiz is clearly not enough incentive to do a handful of math problems.

2.  What can we do to improve the situation without throwing everything out?  First of all, we can communicate better about what we think it takes to learn serious mathematics.  Maybe we should take a cue from the advertising folks, and make posters saying "192 minutes is not enough" or comparing time spent doing math to time spent doing other valuable activities?  What if we change the homework quiz policy so that homework quizzes are frequent but expected, for example every Monday and Friday?  What if we specifically identify which homework problem serves as the basis for each quiz question?

3.  What other ways are there to get students to do math outside of class without increasing incentives to cheat or skate by?  Webassign?

This is a tough time for us:  we want to do things differently and better, so we need to figure out how to adjust our course rather than simply u-turning.  Any ideas and suggestions are welcome; we'll take them in the comments.

5 comments:

  1. I've wondered about the merit of a system (or language) wherein homework is "suggested homework" in the sense that the students are expected (at the very least) to be "comfortable" and "confident" with doing problems like (or of the same type as) the ones on the "suggested homework". I don't know how exactly you all are grading homework, but the "suggested homework" ought to be there as an opportunity for students to practice the relevant math skills. Maybe replace "homework" with "practice problem(s) set"?

    I also think that regular quizzing might indeed work better than random (unannounced) quizzing. Otherwise, not doing homework becomes kind of like gambling, no?

    Additionally, I've felt that it must be emphasized that homework isn't simply doing the problems, but it is communicating clearly to someone else what and why the answer to a problem is whatever it is. Written with due care as if it were a letter to a loved one is what I've felt like putting down in a syllabus whenever the time comes that someone lets me teach a class. This is perhaps though somewhat antithetical to what you're trying to implement, but I hope not; after all, how do students learn what to actually write down on an exam question and what constitutes acceptable answers (the more I think about it, the more I am hating the phrase "show your work" - it is cancerous to developing any notion of mindfulness for other and of your "work" as actually mattering in a larger scheme of things)?

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  2. I have found success both at the middle school and college level with accountability systems for homework that are not based on the grade. At middle school, this meant a chart/sticker system followed up by phone calls home to arrange for making it up when the student reaches 2 missing assignments. At the college level, checking in homework individually while students are checking answers/discussing some relevant task has been productive. For college students, I include a small percentage of the grade as an all-or-nothing score contingent on getting n-1 homeworks done in an n-homework semester.

    Both of these systems have been responses to failed attempts to go totally gradeless on homework. In each case, the individual accountability to me has been important. There is no shaming involved, no lectures, etc. But each students knows he/she isn't just a face in the crowd and knows that the student on either side is keeping up with the homework. This has been a really useful middle ground for me.

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  3. When I taught lots of college level Calculus, I had a great time using WeBWorK. This is similar to Webassign, but free and sponsored by the MAA. Students get minimal right/wrong feedback, and you get some evidence of homework attempted.
    The best thing was that each student gets a slightly different version of the same problems, so there's a great opportunity for students to teach each other, without giving away the answer.

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  4. When I taught lots of college level Calculus, I had a great time using WeBWorK. This is similar to Webassign, but free and sponsored by the MAA. Students get minimal right/wrong feedback, and you get some evidence of homework attempted.
    The best thing was that each student gets a slightly different version of the same problems, so there's a great opportunity for students to teach each other, without giving away the answer.

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  5. I've had interesting results from a homework experiment this year. I give the first quiz early in the cycle of a new topic -- when most students are not ready for it. It serves as a useful study experience (try some problems with the book closed). We grade them as a group. Most people get most questions wrong. Then I offer a reassessment opportunity. Students must show evidence of improvement in order to apply for reassessment; in other words, they must do the homework.

    Result: the students who were breezing through the material, for whom homework would have been pointless, don't have to do it (and I don't have to grade it), because they aced the quiz. Students who need it now have proof that they need it and a reason to do it (so they can reassess).

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