Re: Value of Homework

["John S. Denker" <jsd@MONMOUTH.COM>]

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>  how many assign homework, collect and grade it?
> How many just assign the problems and expect the students
> to do them on their own (ie not for a grade)?
>
> For those that don't have a specified recitation section
> for your class, like at a community college, do you spend
> class time going over the homework problems?


Here's a clear non-answer for you:  It depends.  (Slightly more
constructive comments appear at the end.)

-- It depends on the school;  different schools attract different
students.  Each school has its own culture and traditions.
-- It depends on the course;  different courses attract different
students.
-- It depends on the teacher;  some teachers have more infectious
enthusiasm than others.


Case #1:  Physics course for majors.  Most of them very highly
motivated. College freshman level. Homework does not count toward the
grade, and the grade is Pass/Fail anyway.  Observation:  The students
fall into three groups:
  Group 1: About 45% of the students look at the homework, decide that
they understand the material, and don't bother to grind out the
solutions or turn anything in.
  Group 2: Another 45% of the students do the homework, turn it in,
and get scores near 100%.
  Group 3: About 10% of the students do the homework, turn it in, and
get scores near zero.

Twice a week there is a recitation section conducted by a Teaching
Assistant who is only 20 years old but has published several Phys Rev
Letters.  The TA asks "are there any questions".  Nobody asks any
questions.  So the TA says "now I will tell you a little story" and
conducts an hour-long seminar on some hot topic in modern physics,
maybe tangentially related to the course material, maybe not.

Three years later, most of the students in Group 1 are working as
TAs.  Then they _have_ to work out all the freshman-physics homework
problems, in detail, so they can grade the papers of the new crop of
freshmen.  They figure it is a fiendishly clever conspiracy to make
them do all the homework they previously skipped.

==========================

Case #2:  Physics course for non-majors.  Juniors and seniors, but
they haven't previously taken any college physics.  Not motivated.
Don't want to be in the course, but need it to satisfy a distribution
requirement.  Won't do any homework unless it counts toward the
grade.  Cheat on the homework, without bothering to be subtle about
it.  Won't read any material that isn't going to be on the exam.  Get
incensed if the exam deviates from last year's exam (as archived in
the frat houses' exam files).

==========================

Almost anything between case #1 and case #2 is possible.

You've got to figure out what you're dealing with.  If you guess
wrong, it's going to be an ugly scene.
 -- If possible, talk to the teacher taught it last year.  You don't
have to do it exactly the same way, but but don't imagine that you can
easily change everything overnight.
--  If possible, talk to a student who took the course last year.