Student work should never be busywork

Intentionally assigning busywork corrodes student motivation and creates unnecessary resentment.  Of course, busywork for one student may be a much-needed review for another student. That is why differentiated learning is so important.

One way to dramatically reduce the amount of busywork is to give students choices about how much and what kind of work they need to do.  The choices should include doing more review and/or practice if the material hasn’t been mastered yet, or moving on to enrichment work if it has.  If every student has the ability to work at a level of challenge that is appropriate to her, busywork will be dramatically reduced.

Student choice requires both an appropriate classroom culture and a structure that provides the necessary scaffolding.  Learning contracts — often the best and simplest way to create that scaffolding — will be discussed in depth in later chapters.

Students work should be as light as possible

To paraphrase Albert Einstein, the work that is required of students should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.  If a student can do five problems and know whether she has mastered a new skill, don’t assign six. When this work is promptly followed by feedback, the students who need to continue practicing can do so.

Students need to know why they are doing the work

Explaining why the work is important and how it connects to the rest of the curriculum (or the real world) helps motivate students and gives that work context.  It reminds students that they are doing the work to learn, rather than simply to receive a grade. Defining the learning goals embedded in the work also tells students what they are striving for.  In other words, a thoughtful introduction can make student work more meaningful.

Student “buy-in” boosts motivation

When a student understands that being prepared for a conversation about her classwork or homework dramatically increases how useful it is, this helps internalize her  motivation. Similarly, if she is aware that her study group expects her to be prepared, the pressure comes not from the teacher but from the student’s desire to belong, which is also an internalized motivation.  If students come to see their work as an important exploration of the material that benefits them directly (rather than a chore to be gamed as quickly as possible), they will be more motivated to complete it.

Reviewing work in study groups encourages conversational learning

For many students, speaking or asking questions in front of the whole class is intimidating.  If, instead, they can ask a question about their work in a small group of peers who they know and trust, they will be much more willing to expose what they don’t know.  Students who do understand the material will also be much more likely to explain it to others in a smaller setting. Using study groups will encourage more students to teach and learn from each other.  Study groups will be explored in the next chapter.

Student work should never be used as a punishment.  We want to encourage students to understand that their work is useful and essential to mastery of the material.  Using student work as a form of punishment sabotages the belief that the student and the teacher are on the same side in the learning process.  Such punishment is often perceived by students as an abuse of power and is therefore resented. There are other ways to create consequences for inappropriate behavior that are less damaging to the collaborative relationship between a teacher and her students.

For work that has a deadline, work that is done on time should be acknowledged and rewarded

If students are going to discuss the work and learn from each other, they obviously need to be prepared.  Students have a responsibility to identify what they don’t understand yet so that they can ask good questions of each other.  They should also know what they do understand well enough to be able answer each other's questions. Work can thus serve the function of preparing students for teaching and learning from each other in the review that takes place in class.  Rewarding timely completion of homework with a stamp or other indicator reinforces the belief that the homework is valuable.

There are two parts to doing work effectively.  The first is working as an individual, using the work to prepare as much as possible for a conversation about the work.  The second is getting everything possible out of that conversation. The stamp serves as the bridge between the two. It states clearly that the student has done all that she can as an individual learner — she has mastered as much as possible at this moment.  It does not recognize whether the student has mastered the material yet, or that the work is all correct or even complete; evaluating completeness and correctness shows up later in the process. For now, it indicates that she has pushed herself as far as she could by herself and has done the metacognitive work of assessing how much she understands.  In other words, it states that she is prepared to join in a conversation about the work.