I just want to update parents, students, and educators on how my experiment with Standards-Based Grading and less homework is going. Today marks the end of our first grading period here at Wood County Schools, WV. I created a Google form where my students answered one question: what class was your hardest during this 1st 9 weeks? I know my results are based purely on student opinion. It’s tough to measure what class is really the “toughest” to students. But nonetheless, it was a short, easy survey and students had every opportunity to answer honestly as the survey was completely anonymous. All I did was make sure students didn’t answer more than once. I was curious about how they would respond. Would students consider my class one of the easiest because I give far less homework than the rest of my teammates? Does assigning more homework increase rigor in a classroom? Is there a correlation? I think the results speak for themselves. As of 4:00, Wednesday October 23, there were 77 total responses.
- Reading: 5
- Science: 12
- WV Studies: 13
- English: 17
- Math: 30
Now, I don’t think it’s right to apply this data to any other class and base any conclusions off of the specific homework/grading procedures represented in those classes. For example, I wouldn’t suggest that since I assign less HW, my class is more rigorous. Nor would I suggest that since English assigns the most HW, that class is less rigorous. I can only apply my students’ responses to my experiment with SBG and no HW. I do think it’s ok for me to conclude that, according to the data, my students do consider my class challenging. It appears that I don’t have to assign HW to make my class challenging. Challenging students doesn’t have to be related to the amount of HW. Unfortunately, I wonder how many educators would agree with that statement?