Research on Habits and Homework vs. Practice (Part 1)

As the leader of my division of math, science, and computer science teachers, one of my long term goals is to have all of my classrooms be "Thinking Classrooms." A lot of this comes from my observations of classes that are truly high functioning and enjoyable for the teacher and students, and the work that Peter Liljedahl and his team have put together in their book and work on Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics. That book translates very well into areas beyond mathematics, and ultimately I think can branch into areas of adult leadership and teams of employees as well.

As I define a "Thinking Classroom," it is one where students are actively processing information with their classmates, taking on new information and making their own connections to attach known information to novel situations. Students are collaborating with each other, effectively correcting and encouraging each other, and the teacher is facilitating these conversations. There are low stakes and judgement on the acquisition of content in these moments, and a higher emphasis from the teacher on involvement in the process of learning than on perfecting the material quickly. There is purposeful and meaningful noise and movement in the room. There is audible and visible excitement, frustration, breakthrough moments, and students genuinely wanting to explain their discoveries to others. The teacher is as much a learner in these classrooms as the students are.

Thinking classrooms embody the four academic mindsets that my building focuses on for improving student engagement and perseverance. These mindsets are: 

1. This work has value for me,
2. My ability improves with my effort,
3. I belong in this community, and
4. I can succeed at this.

Where all of this falls apart is when educators begin to place value on the students compliance towards their practice. Nightly graded homework is a historically ingrained routine practice that students need to have nightly homework over was learned today in class, and tomorrow the teacher will "grade" that homework. Generally that grade is a compliance grade, with no value placed on the quality of work that is done by the student, and it is therefore not used effectively as a formative assessment to promote student learning and guide the teacher on their next steps.

In the research that Liljedahl and his team performed with thousands of students in hundreds of international classrooms, they compared results for when homework was graded and when it was not. Based on information on page 124 of the Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics book, students fell into four categories related to doing their homework as shown below.

1. Completed on their own: 22% of students when the homework was graded, 31% when it was not
2. Received help to complete: 30% when the homework was graded, 29% when it was not
3. Cheated on their homework: 23% when graded, 2% when not
4. Didn't do the homework: 25% when graded, 38% when not.

In either case, it would be amazing to have a higher number of students doing their homework, but the feeling of the need to cheat was drastically reduced, and the percent of students doing their homework did increase from 52% when graded to 60% when not. When considering that 38% of the homework was not done by students when not graded, there are multiple reasons there as well. Oftentimes students don't see value in doing the homework because they have already learned the material. Sometimes they are busy that night and cannot get it done. Sometimes their family does not have the resources to support the student in being able to do the homework. Sometimes they just do not want to do the homework. Sometimes, they are so lost or defeated by the content that they cannot make themselves do it. 

Whatever the reason, historically students grades have been majorly impacted by the expectation that they fully complete the practice work that is over the material they just learned on their own without support so that they can learn the next day's lesson. And to do so after an entire day of school, and in many cases then a sport or club practice or meeting, and/or several hours at work when a student's energy and willpower has completely eroded. The hope is that their ability improves with their effort to allow them to succeed at the course, but if that is not true, then they don't feel the work has value or that either of the other mindsets work. And if they then cannot participate in the new day's activity well as a reliance on the previous nights homework, they are left out of the community.

The suggestion, from Liljedahl's team, is to stop grading homework, and even calling it homework. Calling the problems for students to do "check your understanding questions" and not having them graded caused an increase in student engagement with working on their own and doing work for the right reasons. In most situations, 75-85% of students were now doing the work the teacher wanted them to do, up from 52% when there was mandated to be done and there was a grade. Students who were asking for help were wanting to learn the material, not just get the problem done. The key is making sure that students see these questions as an opportunity for them to learn, not as something that is being assigned and mandated by someone else. 

The research described in Charles Duhigg's The Power of Habit reinforces this practice. Research by Mark Muraven from the University of Albany looked at people having enough willpower to complete a task. The book describes the study well, and what Muraven found was that "When people are asked to do something that takes self-control (sitting to do their homework after a full day of school and after school activities) if they think they are doing it for personal reasons - if they feel like it's a choice or something they enjoy because it helps someone else - it's much less taxing. If they feel like they have no autonomy, if they're just following orders, their willpower muscles get tired much faster ... when students feel like cogs, rather than people, it took a lot more willpower."

Both the specific work on mathematics classrooms by Liljedahl and the research by Muraven speak to a need to make the practice something that the students own, and see that it is to their benefit to do the work as opposed to doing it because they were told to with a consequence for not doing it. The act of practicing is critically important, but how that practice is discussed and used are key elements to getting more work done and building better habits for students.