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I can also see someone shouting out Bingo! or I won 50 bucks!. Then again, I taught high school.

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My trick for landing one of these: cozy up to the textbook company rep. Often, they'll have preview copies or used teacher's editions. Of course, they only show up in the building at textbook adoption time, so the window for this trick is limited.

You know, I think there’s a homework study out there for just about any teaching style. I find, as an English teacher, that I just can’t avoid giving homework – especially chapters to read at home.

For me, my homework practice mirrors what they’ll expect in higher education and even in the job world. They’ll encounter very few instances where they won’t be expected to do some work outside of class or office hours. Of course, I don’t want to be excessive about it, but I do check for understanding to hold them accountable for what they’ve read or done.

Thanks a lot for the comment, reader!

I also reconsidered homework, especially if I’m not checking all of it. I’ve read research on homework and there really is not much correlation between even the best homework and better school performance. You might want to ask yourself even before you assign something, how is this going to be pushing my students forward? A lot of the time, I found that those students who performed well on the homework didn’t really need it and those that could use the extra help actually need more support than they received and ended up struggling through the assignment with very little learning or reinforcing of the right methods.

Thanks for the comment. I loved two things that you wrote:

I reserve Sunday evening for grading, lesson preparing, etc. I know it sounds crazy but I will not let school me invade on my Saturday.

and

I also do lots of behind the scenes work during the summer. [...] I know that any work done ahead of time makes my year go by so much smoother. Much of my summer work is late at night anway.

You are a teache after my own heart. My husband always asked me why I worked so hard during the summer. My reason? So I can sleep during the week in the fall!

I really admire the way you take off Saturdays. Way to go. Me, I defended my weekends, too. You have to draw a line somewhere.

What I struggled with the most was my prep time. I always had journalism students in the journalism room during my prep time. It’s hard to shove them away and grade those papers, especially when the kids were on deadline.

Thanks for the great comment!

I reserve Sunday evening for grading, lesson preparing, etc. I know it sounds crazy but I will not let school me invade on my Saturday.

I also do lots of behind the scenes work during the summer. Most other teachers can’t understand why I work so hard during summer but I know that any work done ahead of time makes my year go by so much smoother. Much of my summer work is late at night anway.

As a history teacher I use a lot of short answer (2-3 sentences) questions so that I can see that the student ‘got it’. I use essays only twice a year because of the work load they present by having 197+ students to grade.

I tend to hate the old Q&A because It never tells me anything. I prefer the “What if” type of questions which are more telling such as “What if the British had won the Battle of New Orleans?”. Now they have to give me their own thoughts.

Would I love time to go fishing, traveling, take a cruise, even just take a weekend vacation? My vacations always mean going with my second spouse – my laptop.