UPDATE: Survey results here!
We talk a lot about lesson plans on our blogs, but there is the huge issue of homework that we don’t discuss frequently. Partly because the discussions easily lose concreteness and get philosophical (why do we assign homework? how do we make sure the homework as meaning?).
However I’m struggling with how I’m doing homework in the classroom everyday. I can get dragged into a too-long discussion about homework problems in class, and I still don’t know how to grade homework in a way that I am not killing myself by collecting it everyday.
The few teachers I’ve talked to about this have shown me that this problem — of finding a good homework system — is pretty universal. A recent post at Kiss My Asymptotes reminded me of this too.
It’s like no one I know has a good solution on how to “do homework well” in the math classroom. That’s crazy to me. I mean, how can that be? And I just know some people must have good ideas/methods. Which is why I’m just casting a wide net looking for what everyday teachers do in their everyday classrooms. If I can collect a bunch of different ideas from different teachers, I can put that out there to show the different ways we do homework. Maybe we can pick and choose bits from other teachers that inspire us!
Because of this, I thought:
We should all band together and make a list of how we deal with homework in the classroom.
So I’d love you forever if you could spend a few minutes filling out this short survey, and I’ll post everyone’s responses soon.
Without further ado: THE SHORT SURVEY!
Continuous Everywhere but Differentiable Nowhere 
I teach college. Want me to participate in the survey?
Sue, definitely! Thanks for asking! Just write that down somewhere on the survey.
You’re the best!
You’re missing the “I don’t assign homework” option.
@Mr. K – yes, you’re right. I’d love if you don’t assign homework to fill out the survey and say that, and just say how your class works without assigning homework. I could see not assigning homework if I had a double period, but I don’t see them getting the concepts without that additional practice at home. If you see that it works. PLEASE definitely fill out the survey with how your classroom works so that is possible. I’m totally happy to know that too! And I’m sure that everyone else would love to know also.
1. Assign authoring (stories, making problems, finding visual illustrations of definitions, data collection)
2. Create a peer review system where remixing, reviewing and evaluating other people’s creations are part of your grade. For example, you need to create one object and write three reviews.
3. …
4. Profit
By “…” I mean make it all work together cohesively, which isn’t simple.
I am working Expertiza peer review system: http://wikis.lib.ncsu.edu/index.php/Expertiza