But as teachers, especially in the digital age, we can provide support for the poorly organized student. I know some of my colleagues in the teacher’s lounge would argue with me on this point, especially because my poorly organized student is 15. When will she learn responsibility if we keep doing everything for her? they’ll ask.

Here’s my answer: We need to model good organization and coping methods for poor organization. We need to make sure that all students, even the disorganized ones, feel school is a place for them. We need to make sure our message is responsibility, sure, but also support.

Dr. Allen Mendler, in his book More What Do I Do When…Powerful Strategies to Promote Positive Behavior, suggests some ways that teachers can assist the disorganized student.

Offer duplicate materials. If you have a spare textbook, check it out to the disorganized student so she’ll have a textbook at home and in her locker. When she tries to do her assignement at night, she won’t be discouraged because her textbook is in her locker – again.

Post the week’s assignments online and link to handouts. This is a good suggestion, and not just for the disorganized student. Posting notices, assignments, timelines, and handouts online helps students who miss class for a dentist appointment or a track meet. It also helps parents get a handle on exactly what the night’s assignment entails and they can stop by the craft store to pick up glue and felt, instead of racing the clerks to the door at closing time.

Offer praise. When a poorly disorganized student hands in a paper that’s neat and on time, our first reaction might be to think Well, it’s about time she start acting like everyone else. Instead, Mendler recommends that teachers congratulate the student and try to get her to describe what she did to be successful. “The more students attribute success to their own talents and resources,” Mendler writes, “the more likely they are to realize that they already have what it takes to succeed.” Belief is so powerful. It might take a minute of your time to offer this bit of praise, but a student might carry that minute with her for a lifetime.

Reduce an assignment’s length. If you have disorganized student, try putting fewer problems on a page for her, Mendler writes. When she finishes with that page of problems, ask her to turn it in, praise her, and give her another small set. My colleagues in the teachers’ lounge might call this spoon-feeding. Others might call it chunking. As students enter middle or high school, teachers can model how to chunk up homework assignments as a regular part of the class. It’s good teaching for all students, not just the disorganized ones.

Provide class time for organization. Before students leave for their next class, give them a few minutes to make sure they have all their notes in the proper place and have the assignment written down in their planners. Taking a couple of minutes out to make sure everyone is organized shows students that you think organization is important and a skill. Modeling the questions they need to ask  themselves at the end of class helps, too. Ask: Do you know what materials you’ll need to be successful in this assignment? Have you put your notes away in your binder and not inside your book cover? Did you write down the page numbers you’ll need for this assignment? Have you asked all the questions you need answered so you can complete your work?

Of course this isn’t a complete list of supports that you can easily offer the disorganized student. And really, these supports aren’t limited to those who can’t find their notebooks or pencils. Like so many supports for struggling students, it’s just good teaching. ALL students, even your organized, A+ students, can benefit from these suggestions.

My disorganized student is a good kid. She’s a smart kid. But she really loves it when a teacher recognizes that she needs a helping hand and she’s grateful. So am I.

Reference:
Mendler, Allen N. More What Do I Do When…? Powerful Strategies to Promote Positive Behavior. Bloomington, Ind.: Solution Tree Press. 2005. Pages 70 – 71.

What do you do to support the poorly organized student? Do you think that they should be supported or do you think that supporting these students leads to irresponsibility and bad study habits? It’s O.K. to disagree with me – the best conversations come from a healthy debate! Please share your supports or your criticisms in the comments.

Do you have a question for the editor? Would you like to suggest a topic for a post? Are you interested in writing a guest post? Email editor Diane Trim.

Photo credits:
Mess: danabooo
randi locker: miguelb
Beat-up history book: crazytales562 / Chris Chan

Research indicates that many of our students are using deceitful methods to complete their school work. A recent poll by commonsensemedia.org found that more than one third of teens admit to cheating with their cell phones and about half admit to using the internet to cheat (http://www.commonsensemedia.org/hi-tech-cheating). Perhaps even more disturbing, about 25% of the students polled do not think that using a cell to get answers for a test is cheating! The results of the 2008 Josephson Institute survey support these statistics. 64% admit to cheating on a test during the previous year and 36% admit to using the internet to plagiarize, yet 93% are satisfied with their personal ethics or character (http://charactercounts.org/programs/reportcard/2008/index.html). 
 
Students are not the only ones with competing priorities. Teachers are asked to prevent and respond to cheating amidst pressures to maintain or raise standardized test scores. As a result, some teachers confess to ignoring cheating—preventing and responding to cheating can not only be a stressful process (think about the wrath of angry, protective parents!) but it may seem antithetical to the main goal of leaving “no child behind.” The trouble is, ignoring the problem does not make it go away and, in fact, might worsen it. 

Here is the good news. Preventing and responding to cheating do not have to be difficult. Years of research and exploration of best practices tell us why and how students cheat as well as the effective classroom and schoolwide strategies for preventing academic dishonesty and creating cultures of integrity. 

Students cheat for a variety of reasons. Although some are not easily addressed by teachers and schools (e.g., pressures from parents to make “good grades”), others can be. For example, students cheat when they: lack of understanding of the assignment or material; have too much work and not enough time to complete it; perceive that teachers don’t care; think that “everyone does it;” receive assignments and tests that are the same as previous years; perceive grading methods to be unfair; and, receive an unreasonable amount of work, particularly “busy work” that has little or no value or purpose.  In their often-desperate attempts to get high grades while minimizing effort, students perceive cheating as a smart solution, especially when the risk of getting caught and the potential penalties are minimal.

So what can classroom teachers do to prevent cheating?  Students need to be engaged in ongoing, open dialog about the importance of honest and ethical behavior and to have these behaviors modeled for them.  Teachers can create meaningful assignments that challenge students to think and synthesize rather than simply regurgitate others’ words and ideas.  Students must be taught why attribution is important and the techniques for citing others (and not just in English class!). 

Also, academic conduct class expectations and specific rules for each assignment need to be articulated.  Are students permitted to work together, to ask parents or tutors for help, or to consult notes or tests from students who took the course in previous terms?  Are they permitted to use online translators for foreign language assignments, or to watch a movie based on a novel being studied? Finally, parents should also be informed and be educated on how they can help with homework without inadvertently helping them to cheat.

Teachers should not stand alone, however. The school must tackle the problem of cheating and to promote a culture of academic integrity.   First, a schoolwide academic integrity policy or honor code can be an effective vehicle (not a quick fix or cure-all) for affirming core values, establishing the responsibilities of all community members, clearly articulating expectations and definitions of unacceptable behaviors, and fostering a shared ethic of integrity. The values underlying a code or policy must be reinforced through ongoing dialog and modeling by teachers, administrators, coaches, and parents. 

Second, student involvement is a key school-wide strategy because peer influence is a powerful force in creating a school climate where cheating is “uncool.”  Student leaders can be most effective as peer educators. They can organize and lead academic integrity discussion forums (such as assemblies, brown bag lunches, mock hearings, debates, and focus groups), coordinate guest speakers, and conduct outreach campaigns to proliferate school definitions of cheating as well as acceptable use of technology (cell phones, PDAs, Internet, etc).  Students can also be involved as members of an honor council, a body that would hear and decide on allegations of cheating. Incorporating students into the school-wide academic integrity initiative not only generates student “buy-in” but also develops ethically responsible citizens.

Third, technology should be harnessed for preventing and addressing cheating. Plagiarism detection software tools can save teachers time and frustration, as well as reduce the temptation to plagiarize. Podcasts, online tutorials, videos, blogs, and social networking tools can be used to spread the academic integrity message.

Above all, schools should aim to implement these 4 integrity components:

1. a clear articulation of rules and expectations (in a policy or code); 
2. a manageable system that facilitates consistent reporting and fair enforcement;
3. teacher training in preventing and responding to cheating;
4. resources to help students with writing and research skills, paraphrasing and citation;

There are no quick and easy solutions to the problem of high school cheating. Best practices include a combination of proactive initiatives to create a school integrity climate and preventative strategies to address and avert the causes of cheating. 

 Tricia Bertram Gallant, Ph.D. is the Academic Integrity Coordinator at the University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego), and is the outgoing Chair for the International Center for Academic Integrity’s (ICAI) Advisory Council. She is the author of Academic Integrity in the Twenty-First Century: A Teaching and Learning Imperative (Wiley’s Jossey-Bass, 2008), co-author (with Stephen Davis & Patrick Drinan) of Cheating in School: What we know and what we can do (Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), and editor of the forthcoming book Creating the Ethical Academy: A Systems Approach to Understanding Misconduct and Empowering Change (Routledge).

Karen O. Clifford, Ph.D. is currently conducting research on high school programs for promoting academic integrity and preventing and addressing cheating.  Clifford has consulted with high schools and colleges in developing or revitalizing honor systems and has made numerous presentations about promoting academic integrity, including workshops and webinars for high school teachers, administrators and students.  She is co-editor of the monograph, “Academic Integrity Matters.”

We still had trouble when it came to Alicia turning in assignments. She wasn’t a fan of the day-to-day reading and writing expectations I had for my sophomore English students. She had no interest in reading nonfiction and less interest in creating plot diagrams.

Alicia’s home life was not easy. The youngest child of three kids, Alicia was left at home to raise herself and her infant nephew. Mom worked two jobs and Dad had moved out years ago. I suspect that an older sibling and possibly Mom had substance abuse problems. Making ends meet and feeding the family and the grandchild were bigger worries for Mom than Alicia’s grammar and usage corrections. Whether or not Alica did her homework or even came to school didn’t really matter much in that household.

So, what do you do when a student like Alicia isn’t turning in homework? Sure, you can give the kid a zero on the assignment. You can call home, too. But neither of these strategies would work with Alicia. I didn’t want her to fail and reinforce the idea that school was not a place for her. I wanted very much for her to succeed and to realize what a talented kid she was.

Here’s what I did:

1. No busy work. I want Alicia to understand that every assignment I give makes her a better reader or writer. All homework is important and not just time-fillers.
2. No time sinks. If I can have students meet the objectives in 10 questions rather than 20, I’ll assign 10. Alicia is more likely to complete the shorter assignment.
3. Begin in class. Even if you have only five minutes to give students to work on the assignment, do it. Build up that momentum and get questions out of the way. Alicia is more likely to complete an assignment that doesn’t confuse her.
4. Stop by. Walk around the class and observe students working. If a student seems stuck, visit them and clear up confusion. Stop by Alicia’s desk and make sure she’s on track. Touching base with her shows that you care about her progress, even if no one else does.
5. Follow up. When I saw Alicia in the hall, I’d make a point of asking her if she made any progress and whether or not she packed the homework in her bag. Again, I cared about Alicia and her homework.
6. Extend an invitation. I always kept office hours. I’d be available before school on Mondays and Wednesdays and after school on Tuesdays or Thursdays. If Alicia didn’t finish her homework, I wouldn’t assume that she was lazy or stupid. I would assume that her home life got in the way or that she was confused. Extending an invitation to visit me and work side-by-side to finish the assignment was a great way to make a personal connection, grade the work in front of her, and enter a score in the grade book.
7. Make a lunch date. Sometimes Alicia couldn’t stay after school or come early. Let’s have lunch, Alicia. If she stood me up too many times, I’d bring my tray out to her table. As much as she sort of liked me, she really didn’t want me eating lunch next to her. You can bet she didn’t stand me up for a homework lunch date too many times.
8. Call home. Of all the things that won’t do any good, calling Mom is one of the best, especially if she knows that you’ve been working hard to see Alicia succeed. If you’re the one teacher who has made a huge effort to nurture Alicia’s love of poetry and build her self-esteem, Mom’s pretty likely to listen to you. She might not do much, but at least you can mention to Alicia that you talked to Mom. Again, it shows Alicia how important you think homework is.
9. Talk to the coach. I learned early in my teaching career that talking to the coach is nearly as powerful as talking to a parent. Making sure other caring adults know about a student’s homework situation can benefit the student. Sure, the kid might have to run an extra lap or two, but the student knows you care enough to come out to the soccer field after school and follow up with the coach. It’s pretty powerful. Alicia wasn’t in sports, but she did like chorus. The chorus teacher was terrific about talking to Alicia about her homework and even sending her to me to complete a missing quiz.
10. Take an interest in the student. Sometimes kids won’t complete work in a class because they think that the teacher doesn’t really care. Find out what the student is good at, especially outside of class. Talk to her about how she babysits for her nephew and encourage her to bring in photos of him. Ask her about her favorite place to write poetry. Bring in contest entry forms for her to complete and send off her poetry. Begin the discussion about college. Students who know that you care about them as people are more likely to work in your class because they admire you and like how they feel about themselves when they’re around you.

Were these magic cures for Alicia’s homework issues in my class? Nope. It was a struggle for both of us to make sure that she turned in her work. It wasn’t a power struggle, though.  I did spend extra time on Alicia and other students like her, but I think that I benefitted, too. Alicia didn’t give me a hard time in class. I didn’t spend time disciplining her and writing referrals. Instead, I spent my time teaching, which is the whole point.

How do you handle students who don’t turn in their homework? Do you call home? Do you give zeros? Do you extend deadlines? Do you hound them in the hallways? Please share what works for you.

Photo credits:
homework: bjortklingd on Flickr.com Creative Commons
5/365: anna gutermuth on Flickr.com Creative Commons
Finals: outcast104 on Flickr.com Creative Commons
Unsure: dylancantwell / Dylan Cantwell on Flickr.com Creative Commons 

Cheating isn’t new with the 21st century; according to Justin Crozier, it’s been around since the invention of the standardized test in China (Han dynasty, 206BC-23AD). The tests were for people who wanted to enter into government service and they were amazingly hard. Test takers had to memorize Confucius’ Four Books and Five Classics. The amount of the material was so vast and the incentive for success was so large, that cheating flourished. Scholars could purchase miniature books that they could conceal in their palms, shirt lapels often had crib notes in tiny stitching, fans contained cheat sheets, and scholars-for-hire could be rented to take the test under someone else’s name.

Today, according to the authors of Cheating in School, cheating is pretty common in our schools. They cite a study from the Josephson Institute of Ethics, which surveys American high school students about their cheating habits every two years. In 2004, here’s what they found:

• Sixty percent of teens cheated on tests at least once and 38 percent cheated twice or more
• Over one-third of high school students had plagiarized and 18 percent had done so repeatedly
• Eighty-three percent of your students are copying one another’s homework. Well over half (64%) are doing it more than once

These same kids, the study found, value honesty and ethics. Ninety-three percent believe that integrity and good character were important qualities. However, two-thirds of these students also said that successful people did what they had to do to succeed, even if some people might consider the methods to be cheating.

So, while she was finishing up a test, my kid left her seat, took a piece of paper out of her binder, and went back to her chair. The teacher stopped talking to the class and stared at her. In front of the class, he asked her what she was doing. My daughter was so flustered, she didn’t respond. He asked her again, still in front of the class. She stammered something. The teacher approached her and gave her, and the class, a lecture about cheating and how he should give her a zero.

Students cheat for a variety of reasons. Sometimes, like their ancient Chinese counterparts, the kids just find the subject matter too overwhelming. They also cheat because:

• They’re afraid of failure
• They didn’t have enough time to study
• They found the material too difficult
• They found the material unimportant and not worthy of study
• They think the teacher doesn’t care
• They feel pressure from friends to share their answers
• They don’t manage their time well
• They think that everyone does it, so they should, too
• They don’t respect/like the teacher
• They don’t like the subject
• They think that cheating doesn’t hurt anyone
• They think it’s easy to cheat, so they should do it

After the teacher confronted my daughter in front of the whole class, my daughter showed him the piece of paper. It was the overflow answer sheet from her test. In other words, she’d been using an additional sheet of paper to record answers that didn’t fit on the test sheet. She mistakenly put it under her books when she moved to the back of the room. Embarrassed and flustered, she left her test unfinished, fled the room, and sobbed in the bathroom.

It’s now April. Even the newest teachers among us have witnessed cheating, but how have you handled it? My theme was: low key. My goal: interrupt class as little as possible and try to keep the kid’s dignity intact. I’ll tell you how I used to do it.

Catching a kid with a cheat sheet. It’s a good habit as a teacher to circulate among your students when they’re completing assignments or taking a test. It’s good practice to do it all the time so that no one thinks your wandering is an unusual occurrence. When you wander, it’s easy to have a quiet word with a student who is off-task, answer a question for a shy student, or observe the kid who is copying answers from the bottom of her sneaker.

I allow the cheating student to finish the test and return to her seat. At the end of class, in private, I pull her aside and ask for her sneaker or her crib sheet. I explain that I understand that she wants to do well in the class, but this isn’t the way to do it. We make a telephone call to her parents and she explains what happened. I offer to give her another test that same day after school and make arrangements with the parents for a ride home. I explain that a second cheating episode will result in a note in my grade book and a report to the office where they can handle the disciplinary action. This technique also works for kids who are texting in their sweatshirt pockets or under the desk. Walking around and being vigilant will alert you to students who aren’t moving a pen, but are texting covertly instead.

Catching a kid with wandering eyes. This one’s relatively easy. Quietly bend down and ask the student with the good paper, the cheatee, to move to a seat away from the cheater. Usually this kid won’t protest; after all the cheatee has studied. The wandering eyes phenomenon is difficult to prove, so I pull the cheater aside and say, “I noticed some behavior that wasn’t usual for you. Did you feel unprepared for today’s test?” I listen to the student. After all, this is a kid who is trying to succeed, even though she’s going about it in the wrong way. I direct the conversation to options the student has before a test to get extra help. I return to my desk and document what happened.

I’m not a perfect teacher. I’ll admit that in my early days in the classroom, I didn’t know what to do with cheaters. I’d yell. That just built resentment. I’d send them to the office to finish their work. I’d hold them after class or I’d tell the football coach. It took me a while to land upon this calm, quiet method of dealing with cheating.

I guess that’s why I expected more of my daughter’s teacher. I left word for him to call me and we spoke on a Saturday morning. I asked him what happened. He said that he was maybe a little upset and over-the-top. I asked him if he verified that my kid had been cheating before he called her out in front of his class. I asked him if she had actually been cheating. Then I asked him how he’d make it right on Monday. I was nice on the phone, because I’ve been on the other end of the line myself. However, I confess that I wanted to make him squirm.

The teacher gave my daughter time to complete her test on Monday. He never apologized for his behavior, either to me or to my daughter. I didn’t force the issue on the phone, but I am disappointed. He passed up an opportunity to win me over and to earn back my daughter’s respect. Instead, he saved his pride and reinforced her resentment. Studies show that a personal connection between teacher and student, a bond of trust and respect, helps students learn. He didn’t just pass up a teachable moment, he passed up an academic one, too.

References:
Crozier, J. (2002) “A Unique Experiment.” China in Focus Magazine. (online) Accessed March 30, 2010 from http://sacu.org/examinations.html.

Davis, S.F., Drinan, P.F. and Bertram Gallant, T. (2009) Cheating in School: what We Know and What We Can Do. San Francisco: Wiley-Blackwell.

What do you think? How do you handle cheating in the classroom? Am I not taking cheating seriously enough? Am I being way too judgmental of my daughter’s teacher? Should I take additional steps? Should I have let it go after that Saturday phone call? Am I being way too dramatic and should let it go already? Let’s discuss.

According to the Norton Online Living Report 2009, parents believe their children spend 21 hours online. The reality is that students in twelve countries reported spending 39 hours online. Don’t tell me these kids don’t have time to finish their assignments or clean their rooms.

Multitasking. Researchers for the Kaiser Family Foundation’s report, Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year-Olds, found that our students aren’t just watching YouTube or downloading from iTunes. When they’re on the ’Net, they’re likely to be IM-ing, texting, watching TV, or listening to their music players.

The Kaiser Family Foundation’s researchers found that rates of teen media use (TV, cell phones, computers, video games, audio, print, and movies) are up an hour and 17 minutes over teen media usage five years ago. A teen’s cell phone, smart phone, or gaming device is never out of arm’s reach.

“[…] cell phones and iPods have become true multi-media devices,” the study’s authors wrote. “In fact, young people now spend more time listening to music, playing games, and watching TV on their cell phones (a total of :49 daily) than they spend talking on them (:33).”

The authors of the Norton Online Living Report found that, “[…] six in 10 adults worldwide say kids spend ‘too much’ time online, and what’s more 45% of kids agree.”

Students as digital trailblazers. In another study from the Speak Up National Research Project, researchers disagree with parents and kids: students aren’t spending too much time online; students are the early adopters and adapters of new technology. Our students are not wasting time, they’re innovating. The authors write that our students are the “digital advance team,” the people who will lead educators and other adults into the technology age.

“The findings illustrate how K-12 students are leading the way in re-thinking education delivery and career exploration,” the study’s authors wrote. “These insights can be used to inform our nation’s education leaders in communities all across the United States, as they plan on how to use the stimulus funds for education effectively.”

The researchers believe that our students are ready and able to show adults how to use technology in innovative and educational ways; it’s our responsibility to take notes and make the kids’ 21st century technology ideas happen.

Online use and academic success. The problem is that when kids are online, they’re not likely to be doing school work. The Generation M2 report’s researchers found that students from all races and from all family education backgrounds spent an average of just 16 minutes online working on classroom assignments. Most of the time (25%), they hang out on social network sites, play online games (19%), watch YouTube or other videos (16%), and IM one another (13%).

The good news from these studies is that all of this online time and short hand text message language isn’t rotting students’ brains as much as we might think. The Generation M2 report’s researchers did find that 8- to 18-year-olds are spending five fewer minutes reading hard copies of books, magazines, and newspapers for pleasure than they did in six years ago. However, they’ve made up about two minutes of that deficit with online magazine or newspaper reading.

They also found that the same number of students who read for pleasure six years ago is about the same number who do so today. It’s also an activity that prohibits a lot of multitasking. Students might glance at the TV or play music in the background, but for the most part, when they read print, they are focused on their reading.

The Generation M2 report’s researchers also found that the time students spend online doesn’t affect their reading time. Heavy screen media users (16 or more hours a day) and light screen media users (less than two hours a day) read about the same amount of time: about 41 minutes a day. Even kids who watch TV all night long read about as much as those who don’t tune in much at all.

Students who have a TV in their bedrooms or live in homes where the TV is always on read less than other students, by about 10 minutes. Ten minutes might not seem much, but it’s a significant number that correlates to classroom achievement.

“Contrary to what is found for other media,” the Generation M2 report’s researchers wrote, “young people who are heavy readers (those who spend an hour or more per day with print media) are substantially more likely to say they earn high grades than those who are light readers (those who report no print reading on a typical day): 72% of heavy readers report high grades, compared to 60% of those in the light-reading group.”

Media use and well being. Not only do the heavy media users earn lower grades, but they’re not as happy as the kids who are offline. Of the light media users (fewer than three hours per day), 22% reported that they have a “high level of personal contentment,” the Generation M2 researchers found. On the opposite side, 20% of the heavy media users (more than 16 hours per day) reported that they had a “low level of personal contentment.”

Twenty-one percent of 8- to 18-year-olds are heavy media users. The problem is that we need to teach these kids to channel their media use. According to the Norton Online Living Report’s authors, parents know that they’re responsible for their children’s media use, but just 7 in 10 kids have rules. Thirty-three percent of the parents in the survey said that it’s hard to make media rules because so much new technology wasn’t around when they were kids.

The Norton Online Living Report researchers found that one in five students admitted they did something online that their parents wouldn’t approve. One-in-five students reported that their parents caught them, too.

“Supervision is inherently difficult when it comes to the online world,” the study’s authors wrote. “Not only is the Web’s content available to anyone with a search engine, it’s easy for kids to bypass parents altogether by logging on from outside the household.”

Educators have the tough job of balancing the curriculum with the students’ digital obsession, of incorporating 21st century skills with 21st century safety, and encouraging academic success in a world of media excess. I think we’re up to the challenge, but our role will be more to guide the digital natives with their technology use while they lead the way.

References:

“Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year Olds.” (2010) Kaiser Family Foundation. http://www.kff.org/entmedia/upload/8010.pdf Accessed January 26, 2010

“Norton Online Living Report.” (2009) Symantec Corporation. http://www.nortononlineliving.com/documents/NOLR_Report_09.pdf Accessed January 21, 2010.

“Selected National Findings: Speak Up 2008 for Students, Teachers, Parents and Administrators.” (2009.) Project Tomorrow. http://www.tomorrow.org Accessed December 8, 2009.

Some nights Mom spot-checks Lexi’s assignment notebook against the homework the teacher posted online. It helps prevent missing assignments, Mom said.

The ’Net is a great educational tool, not just for classrooms, but for classroom communication as well. Teachers who host a classroom web page provide parents a resource for finding out about tests, projects, and assignments.

In the year since Texas high school teacher Susan Byrd has been posting homework online, she has received very few parent phone calls or e-mails about assignments.

Byrd recommends that teachers upload documents in user-friendly formats. “Not everyone has access to Publisher [and other programs], so you want to use generic programs,” Byrd said. “Also, you want to make sure that the file size isn’t huge because if a kid has dial-up at home, [downloading] is torture.”

While it’s convenient for students and parents to check the daily homework assignments online, some worry that posting assignments doesn’t encourage students to be responsible.

Suzanne Tingley, a former superintendent and author of Dealing with Difficult Parents, said it’s wise to post major assignments, mid-term exams, and research papers, but not daily work. She’s concerned that posting all assignments won’t encourage students to develop good study habits.

“When students go to college, no one will post assignments online for parents. The students are old enough in high school for that responsibility and posting homework online really teaches kids nothing,” Tingley said.

Posting assignments online also adds another layer of responsibility for the teacher, Tingley said.

Deb, a middle school social studies teacher in Wis., has been teaching for 19 years and posting student homework online for five years. Like Tingley, Deb worried about posting homework online because viewing assignments online doesn’t teach students to take good notes.

“I felt that it was taking away the students’ responsibility to write assignments in their assignment notebooks,” Deb said. “I have seen value in doing this and changed my mind. It not only helps students double check what they have recorded, but it also allows parents access to the information.”

Deb sees posting homework online as a reminder of work that needs to be done, but it’s not a substitute for assignment notebooks. She posts enough information online to remind students what they need to complete, but she doesn’t include every detail of instruction.

“Students know that with this resource there is little room for the excuse that they didn’t know what the assignment was or they forgot their assignment notebook at school,” Deb said.

Since she began posting homework online, Byrd has found that students turn in homework more consistently. Her classroom is 100 percent paperless, so students expect to visit the classroom site for daily work and grade updates.

“The kids see their current average right when they log on,” Byrd said. “It’s been enormously powerful.”

As a parent, Byrd relies on the system her daughter’s school uses to keep on top of assignments and tests. She checks the system twice a week and can see when big tests or projects are coming up.

“She’s more responsible because she knows I know what’s happening, too!” Byrd said.