By Melissa Christlieb
Have you
ever been assigned a homework assignment online? Or have you ever assigned your
students online homework? Online homework is being implemented more and more in
education each day. So, what are some pros and cons of online homework?
Let’s start
with some pros. A major pro of online homework is the flexibility that it
allows. Students have complicated schedules and are involved in more things
than just your class. Having homework online allows students to learn when the time suits them and the opportunity to work in a
different environment than a classroom. There are so many resources online now
to help with homework and understanding. Online homework can be beneficial to
students who are shy or do not like to talk in the classroom. Having
discussions posts online gives those students a way to communicate what they
are learning in a way that is comfortable for them. As a student, one aspect of
online homework is that immediate feedback is provided in most cases.
Next, let’s
talk about some cons with online homework. When assigning online homework, you
normally have a bank of questions to pick from. This can cause teachers to
assign too many problems because it is easy to assign them to students. Too
much homework is a huge problem. With having homework online, especially with
math, the websites want the answers in a certain way. This can be discouraging
for the students if they doing to problem correctly, but the online website
wants an answer in a different form. This recently happened in one of my
tutoring sessions. After the third problem that was incorrect because of a
formatting issue, the students felt very defeated and like they were doing
everything wrong. However, if they were to turn in their answer on paper to the
teacher it would be correct.
Overall, there are many pros and cons to online homework. Online homework can make tasks much simpler and more accessible to do anywhere students want to learn. On the other hand, online homework might be discouraging to students if simple formatting mistakes occur and continue to get problems wrong. So, would you use online homework in your classroom?
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