Homework in the Math Classroom

As I was thinking about what to blog this week, my mind kept coming back to a topic we talk about a lot in our pedagogy classes: homework in the math classroom. In middle and high school, the majority of my homework assignments were simply 2-40 even or something similar to that. Although they weren’t extremely long, it still felt like I was just doing extra problems for no reason. Eventually, there was more of a variety, but I still didn’t really know why I had to do that much homework since it was just a completion grade anyway. I tutor a student in Algebra I, and the review assignment for their first test was literally 80 questions long! Yes, it was review and they had a few days to complete it, but that is outrageous! The assignments have gotten shorter as the year has gone by, but he still has 30-40 problem assignments to do for every class period.

Now why am I talking about homework in a blogpost that should be dedicated to technology? Well, this week we learned about different online homework programs that have become popular, especially since last year when all schooling went online. We looked at DeltaMath and Edulastic, both of which have free versions along with paid versions. They had hundreds of subjects and standards to choose from and you can assign a specific number of questions from whichever standard/subject you want. I really liked the instant data on the teacher side of Edulastic because you could see all kinds of information such as which questions were being missed more frequently and how much time is being spent on the questions. I feel like this is a program that could enhance my job as a teacher because I can instantly see what concepts need more explanation in real time and where the class is at with the material. This insight would allow me to tweak the lessons and set my students up for success.

In my college courses, I have used Webassign for the majority of my math homework, which I actually really like. The questions are very similar to the textbook questions, and you can normally practice similar problems or watch how to do a problem if you need some help. The assignments also are normally 10-15 questions, so they aren’t too long. I could see myself using an online homework system like Webassign for classroom. There are some definite cons to online homework though. We all make silly little mistakes when working a math problem, and sometimes you can get partial credit for questions when you turn in handwritten homework. But with online homework, it’s normally all or nothing, which can be really annoying.

Regardless of whether you have handwritten or online homework, I think that we need to normalize having fewer problems on math homework and emphasize that homework is meant to help you understand concepts better, rather than just act as busy work with no reward. I think that using something such as Edulastic or DeltaMath at least part of the time in the classroom would benefit the students as well as the teacher. I don’t think I would use a program like this for all of my homework assignments because I would rather use questions that align with the textbook, but I think it would be a nice review resource or a tool to check understanding. The important thing no matter what is explaining the purpose of homework and making sure your students know why they are doing homework.