Homework is a tricky topic in the teacher world. Some people collect homework daily in order to ensure their students stay on track. Some people grade every problem on the homework in order to motivate students to work hard on the assignments. I don’t do either of these things.

Disclaimer: I work with advanced juniors and seniors in an elite private school setting; getting my students to turn in the homework is never a problem. The problem is grading it. Their homework becomes my homework.

So how do I do homework. First off, the assignments for each evening are distributed two weeks in advance (see my post on TWSes). They have a two week schedule they can refer to each evening when they get home from school. This means I almost never talk about the homework in class unless the assignment is unusual in some way. The students know to check the schedule and complete the problems on their own.

I teach AP math, so my assignments are almost always problems from the textbook. This may seem old fashioned, but I think it works for my subject area. I use James Stewart’s Calculus: Early Transcendentals, 7th Edition. It has a variety of problems: tables, graphs, algebraic, conceptual, applied, etc., so I don’t have to look very far for a good assignment.

I do not, however, assign “every odd” or “every 5th problem.” I find that I risk assigning too many of the same kind of problems that way, or I risk assigning problems that the students never need to know for the scope of my course. I go through and pick between five to ten problems that tackle the subject matter we cover in class. I try to pick at least one graphical problem, one table, one applied problem, one conceptual problem, and several algebraic problems. Yes, I only pick five to ten problems. Anything more is overkill. If I choose my problems wisely, the students will get a good taste of what to expect on tests and quizzes (and on the AP).

I try to assign mostly odd problems, so the the student can check the answers in the back of the book to know how they are faring on the assignment. However, I do make sure to assign a few evens, which I will use for grading purposes later. I don’t think it is always the best practice to assign odds. Students will sometimes try to cheat by turning in a homework assignment with just the answers. I, of course, will call them on this and deduct points because they didn’t show their work. But, still, assigning odds makes the students dependent on the answers, which is not such a good thing. That’s why I throw some even problems in there.

I think it is up to you to decide whether to assign odds, evens, or both.

Now for grading the homework. I want the task to be as effortless as possible. So I do two things: grade 80% for completeness and 20% for correctness, and collect the homework in installments, usually once every two weeks or so.

Okay, first grading 80% on completeness. I make each night of homework worth 10 points and I award 8 of those points based on a quick scan on the homework that tells me that the student attempted every problem and showed his or her work. I do not grade all the problems for correctness. Just a quick scan. Then I pick a couple even problems (problems without answers in the back of the book) to grade for correctness. I assign roughly two points per graded problem. I only do this with two or three problems on the whole homework packet. I specifically select problems the students should know how to do, neither too easy nor too hard.

This makes grading the homework a snap, and you still get to see how the students are faring by checking a few problems for correctness.

Secondly, I do not collect homework every day. I assign homework every night following a lesson. But I only collect the homework on the day of a quiz or test. I make the students staple all the homeworks from the preceding nights together to turn in as a single packet. It is this packet that I grade.

Since I work with older students, this works just fine. In fact, it works better than fine. The students can budget their time on the homework however they want. If a student has a particularly busy night, she doesn’t have to do her homework that very night, she can do it the next evening or over the weekend. Students seem to appreciate this flexibility. With younger kids, I’m not so sure this method would pan out very well. I suspect younger kids have trouble keeping track of anything more than a day’s worth of work.

Okay, so now I’ve freed up precious class time to just teach. I don’t spend time every day collecting homework. And I certainly don’t have to grade homework every night. I wait until a quiz or test day, collect the homework in a packet, and grade it all at my leisure.

Why collect it on the day of a test or quiz? Well, I usually hold review days the day before quizzes and tests, and that turns out to be an excellent time to answer homework questions. I also hold office hours once a week, and students often attend to get homework questions answered then as well. I do not take homework questions during normal class time. I wait for a review day. This gives the student some time to struggle with the more challenging problems AND it gives them time to let concepts marinate before they tackle the most substantial problems. I do help them during office hours and on review days, however.

Then I collect the homework on the day of a quiz or test. This means the student gets to keep her all her homeworks to study the night before the quiz or test. Of course some students wait until the last night to do all the homework (not my style, personally), but these students claim that it helps them prepare for the quiz or test. It is usually the stronger students who do this.

Waiting to collect the homework also allows the weaker students more time to digest the concepts, and it allows them them an opportunity to attend my office hours at least once before having to turn in the homework. It also allows students to meet with their private tutors at least once before they have to turn in an assignment.

In essence, their homework does not become my homework. I don’t spend class time on it (except for review days), I don’t collect it every day, and I grade most of it based on completeness. I really don’t think about their homework until office hours or until they turn it in at the end of, say, a fortnight. Students usually get good homework scores, and this makes them happy. I leave it to the exams to test for mastery of the subject.