I think it’s good to have kids correct their own homework as much as possible. When they correct their own homework, they get immediate feedback on their mistakes (or lack thereof). They also have an opportunity to immediately ask how a problem they got wrong is done correctly.
Immediate feedback is key in student learning. Think about your own learning– if you’ve learned a math concept wrong, would you want to keep practicing it wrong for days before someone tells you otherwise? Or would you prefer for someone to immediately fix it ASAP so you can practice correctly from then on? Of course you’d rather have it fixed right away.
This method of paper correcting is more effective in catching misunderstandings than having the teacher collect a pile of homework, take it home over the weekend, and then hand it back on Monday. Sure, some kids immediately check to see how they did– they’re usually the ones that got everything right. Others just stuff it in their desks without even taking a second glance; oftentimes, those are the kids who need the most help.
Won’t kids slack off?
You’d think kids would slack off on their homework if they knew the teacher wouldn’t be correcting it. Not true. On the contrary, in fourth grade, I find that my students are much more invested in their work when they check it themselves. They experience little victories every time they see that they got an answer right, and there is a collective, “Yesss!” echoing around the room. They proudly draw stars as they get the problems correct, and some draw sad faces over the ones they got wrong. They proudly write “9/10” or “100%” and add encouraging remarks at the top like “good job!” or “You ROCK!” (yes– to themselves). It appears they often feel extra motivated to do just as well, if not better, for the next day.
That’s most kids. If there are kids who thought they might get away with less than their best effort, I quickly find them out. For math homework, for example, all students have to turn in their homework first thing in the morning. I go through and check each of them off. As I’m flipping through the papers, I memorize the correct answers for a few random problems and use those to check everyone’s papers. It’s a quick and easy way to see who’s getting the concepts and who isn’t. I also check that students showed work (when applicable) and hold them accountable to that if they haven’t shown any work. If anything is below my expectation, I call the student back and have a short talk about it, then have them redo it during recess. One or two conversations with a handful of students over the year is all it takes.
Will kids REALLY take the initiative to “ask how the incorrect problem is done correctly”?
If you provide a safe and comfortable environment, then YES, many kids will. Of course there will always be the shy ones (who won’t even ask you when they need to use the restroom), but most kids will ask. I always told my students:
MISTAKES ARE FINE. MISTAKES can even be GREAT if you let them help you learn better! Seriously, I do NOT care if you get a problem wrong, as long as you try to learn from it. If you miss a problem, I want you to study it and try it again and see where you went wrong. If you can figure it out yourself, you just learned it even more deeply, and that is GREAT! If that happens, I want you to raise your hand and SHARE with all of us what you found and how you fixed it.
If you try and still can’t figure out what went wrong, then ask me and I will be MORE THAN HAPPY to show you. PLEASE ASK ME!! I am a teacher– I LOVE TO TEACH!! LET ME TEAACCCH YOUUU!!
At this point, kids are laughing because I am theatrically and desperately begging them to let me teach. But they’re getting the idea– I really really do want to know if there’s something they have a question about, and I really will happily answer and show them.
The first time anyone is brave enough to raise their hand and ask me to go over a question, I am overly happy to do so and make it a point that the whole class sees what a great thing I think it is that someone doesn’t get it, and that they are asking me for help. It really paves the way for other kids to feel more comfortable admitting that they don’t understand. I’m not even sure “admitting” is the right verb here, since it implies disclosing something embarrassing. It’s not even that– it becomes just asking for help.
I’m still surprised and extremely pleased anytime a child raises their hand and shares, “On number 12, I got it wrong, but I saw that it was because I didn’t line up my numbers neatly and got confused. So I redid it and got it right!” That seriously makes my heart swell in pride– my student examined their mistake, found the error, fixed it, and learned from it?! YES!!– and I am pretty much bursting with delight. I show them as much, and this makes everyone so much more eager to spot their own mistakes and share them out. Weird culture? Maybe. But so much better than one where mistakes are buried and hidden and private and useless! Mistakes can be so helpful if you let them be! Sigh. I could probably write a post on this topic alone.
Won’t it take too much time?
Class time is a precious commodity, and I understand it’s hard to give up time to spend on correcting last night’s math assignment together as a class. I have ways of speeding up this process, though, so it usually only took about 5-7 minutes for my class, including the time to hand out and collect papers. I will share some of these tips in a future post.
How will the teacher know which students need more help?
I have my students write the number correct out of the total (see top photo) on each assignment. After collecting the papers, pull out the ones where you see a child needs more help! Easy peasy.
Do you do this for all homework?
No. Actually, it’s usually just for math. I also use it for spelling when I can carve out the time, whether it’s reviewing the assignment on the board or quickly sharing the correct spelling of each word immediately after a spelling test.
So you really believe in giving kids homework, huh?
Hm well… I don’t know about that. That’s part of a bigger debate, and I’m not exactly sure where I stand on it. I think some types of homework have their place sometimes, but I definitely draw the line when it becomes a battle to do homework every day. When I hear that parents and kids are doing battle for hours each evening to get homework done, it saddens me. It also tells me that the student needs more support and probably isn’t understanding the material well. Usually if a student understands the material well, they are not that reluctant to do homework. But when it’s a daily round of tears and screaming and crying and bargaining and missed soccer practices… then that student definitely needs more support.
I tell my students and their parents that they should expect to spend about 45 minutes on homework each evening. If an assignment is taking longer, parents can write a note to let me know that the child put in a good effort for 45 minutes, and then they can stop. If this happens consistently, that’s another indicator to me that the student may need more support.
I do believe that when homework is given, it should be used only for review of concepts a student is very comfortable with. I can’t say I always did this in my own classroom, but in an ideal world, that’s what it would be used for. I don’t think it should be used to teach new material to a child. I AM a firm believer in students reading for at least 20 minutes a day at home to build reading fluency and a general love of reading.
Whether we believe in homework or not, it’s a reality for most students in most schools. Teachers don’t really have a say in whether or not to give homework, so if we’re going to do it, let’s make sure we’re making the most of the time and effort spent on it! We will glean as much good from it as possible, and I think having students correct their own papers more is a good place to start.
4 responses to “Stop Grading Papers (and Let the Kids Do it!)”
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Sigh. Can you please come and be my kid’s teacher forever and ever? He’s just 2 1/2 for now, but I pray he comes across teachers who rock as much as you do! ^^
DAWWWWW THANKSSSS 😀 <3
Like Camille, above, teach my kids too! I am really worried about the homework monster as we’re looking at kindergarten this coming year. That is interesting that teachers don’t chose to send it home… would you write/comment more about that?
The image of you begging the kids to let you teach them had me cracking up… too funny! And yes, I loved it when we corrected papers in class because it was so helpful. I was able to figure out right away where I was having issues, and talk to the teacher then instead of waiting for two or three days, when we’d moved on to another concept, and then I was trying to learn a new thing and fix my mastery of the first. And this was in High School, mind you! (Math is NOT my thing. I have to understand the why of the equation to “get” it, and none of my teachers taught that way. I spent hours doing math homework. Ugh.)
Thanks, Dakota! 🙂 That means a lot to me!
The schools/district determine general homework policies, like how many minutes a day children in various grade levels should be spending on homework, required daily reading, etc. It’s up to the teacher what to assign. It probably varies by district and state, too.
I totally know what you meant as you described your frustrations with math! That is EXACTLY what I was talking about!!! I was actually going to use a math example, since it’s such a common issue. I’ve been in classrooms where teachers collected homework, but then moved on to the next lesson without looking at it first. When math time came, kids who had a poor understanding of some foundational concept would be forced to move on without fixing their incorrect understanding… and then just keep building on this shaky foundation full of holes. Yikes.
I always tried to skim through the homework first thing in the morning and pull aside individual or groups of students when I spotted some major misunderstandings. This way, we could work on it and fix it before the new math lesson comes. Ideally, we’d have the time to slow down and really master it before moving on, but… that’s not realistic. For kids who are really trying, being able to correct your own homework and ask questions along the way can be a game changer!