Online Homework Makes Students Feel More “Noticed”

This is the second year that I have been giving homework online. I have discovered that it has unexpected benefits.

I give homework once a week on our class site. The homework is short, highlighting one specific point each time (for instance, the phrase “in order to” which is frequently used in texts and causes confusion”). I find that it is helpful for my students to highlight isolated points.

I began giving homework online because I wanted to be able to use color, pictures and video clips.

In addition, and just as important, I needed a better way to keep track of the homework. As I teach so many different levels at the same time, I found it very difficult to check everyone’s homework when their homework assignment was a  page in their course books (we have about 10 different course books in use for the different levels). There were times when I did not check homework or did not check everyone’s homework. And collecting the students books to check after school was no solution – they were too heavy to carry home!

Not only can I now report that I use pictures and video clips, every homework assignment is now checked and commented on in some way. Often the comments are short (“Excellent work!” “Keep up the good work”) but occasionally I comment on some personal content the pupil added.

But the amazing thing is, it isn’t the comments themselves that make the students feel noticed (though that certainly helps), it’s the fact that there is now a close watch on whether or not they do the homework! Obviously, I hadn’t been able to show them in the past (in a clear enough) manner that I care whether they do the homework or not. When a student got away with not doing homework because I missed him/her because of all that was going on in class, he/she did not feel noticed enough IN GENERAL, not just related to homework.

It is been less than a month into this new school year so I still remind and talk to the students who haven’t done homework before typing the information into the school online grade system. But even when I stop reminding and type the information in directly, the issue comes up in class in many ways.

Another unexpected benefit was the issue of copying. Although theoretically a student could email others the homework assignment I have not seen any indication of such behavior. Copying answers into the course book or worksheet is usually done on the same day of the lesson (think 5 minutes before class) not planned in advance. There were some students with whom such behavior was “an issue”. At home, they do the homework on their own.

There is, of course, the issue of the role Google Translator plays in their homework assignments (and whether or not my tasks are designed well enough to be effective despite of it), but that’s a topic for a different post.

last year it wasn’t easy to get the students used to the idea of online homework. Now that I have a computer connected to the Internet in class it is so much easier to get them onboard! Hurrah!

4 thoughts on “Online Homework Makes Students Feel More “Noticed””

  1. I agree. There is so much you can do with your kids online and I don’t think it requires more work than traditional teaching. Don’t be concerned about the kids abusing the use of online translators etc. They are out there to be used! I use them all the time! They will learn through the process.

  2. Judy!
    I have so much to say about online translators that I will save it for another post!
    But online homework is here to stay – so glad you like it too!

  3. Looking forward to that! Online translators are basically a more complex/sophisticated form of traditional dictionaries and accordingly their pros and cons. I recently google’s online translator to translate a 20 page document. While, yes, it required editing, it saved me more than half the time and raised the level of vocabulary way beyond the words I would have chosen instinctively. COOL 🙂

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