Homework Reliability

We are just going to straight up say it…Stop grading homework!!! You can give it, and you can collect it, and you can look at it all you want. But if you are factoring homework into a student’s grade, that grade is unreliable and it’s giving a false impression of the student’s ability.

Let’s look at some of the intended purposes of homework-it may be assigned for a multitude of reasons: reinforcement of a skill (independent practice), enrichment, offering more time for lengthy written assignments, providing background and research, or simply to offer supplemental points for students who could use a little help boosting their grade in case they don’t perform well on the tasks covered in class. If completed with fidelity by students with integrity, then homework will probably be somewhat effective. But should you assign a grade for it?

To put simply, teachers shouldn’t pass/fail students based on work completed outside of their supervision. Regardless of the amount of points you place on homework completion, it will still have an impact on the final grade. Students will typically seek out these points through any means necessary. With the technology and instant access, kids have to use features such as Photomath, ChatGPT, YouTube, AI, or dozens of other online resources, this obliterates any chance for the teacher to extract reliable data from homework. Do we even need to mention how quickly students can share information about a specific homework assignment with an entire class over social media or group messaging? If you think for one minute that any student (even your best student) is immune from the easy road to assignment completion from time to time, then you’re living in a fantasy world and you need not read any further.

We’re not saying that all kids are trying to manipulate the system by cheating on homework. But if you have a more trustworthy and reliable assessment, why wouldn’t you use it?

If the assessments that track student learning are taken in class, in a sterile and closely supervised environment, then you have achieved (with much greater reliability) what formative assessments are designed to achieve. You’ll know what students can (or can’t) do without fear of using information that is tainted by outside resources. Students will know the pathway to success is to actually LEARN, rather than simply comply.

The BEST independent practice occurs in the classroom under the supervision of the teacher. Data extracted from this type of assessment is reliable and can provide quality feedback for both students and teachers. Our Skills Assessments act as dependable formative assessments. They are given in class with teacher supervision. Skills assessments replace the need for homework for formative purposes and they offer students multiple attempts at similar problems in small chunks with quick feedback. There’s simply no need to require homework in a Skills Based Classroom.

Homework traditionalists may argue that it teaches self discipline, responsibility, hard work, and so on. We’re aware of this common argument but routinely have to remind teachers that these self-discipline attributes can be taught in many other ways. Holding students accountable for their own learning is a huge step towards teaching responsibility. Sharing specific and clear data on what students have learned while making them responsible for their own improvement, gives the students control of their learning and creates a more well-rounded learner.

Unless, of course, you're still hung up on using homework to teach life lessons about responsibility. But aren’t the students who fail to complete homework often the ones who have too many responsibilities already? These “irresponsible” students are labeled as lazy, but they usually just lack a support unit at home. Sometimes they help care for siblings, or they have jobs after school, or they participate in countless extracurricular activities, or maybe they have to be the adult in their own house when they aren’t at school. Penalizing and rewarding students for simply being obedient just simply misses the point.