Although contrary to popular student belief, instructors do not enjoy assigning and grading homework. In my classroom "homework" is considered any assignment that is non-proctored or any assignment where the student has the opportunity to do it at home or in collaboration with others. Students and instructors often have a different view of what "homework" is and what its intentions are. It is my belief that students often see homework as a chore or task that must be completed to earn some portion of their final grade. Homework is often seen as a burden to their already heavy workload and the reward to their overall final grade is often minimal compared to the effort they feel they have put in. In my classroom I am attempting to change these negative attitudes towards homework by helping the student achieve self actualization.

Whether a student does their homework or not is analogous to an individual athlete who is a member of a team and does not attend a practice. When a player does not come to practice, the team has now developed abilities apart from the individual who in not in attendance. The team is held back as a cohesive unit due to the player who is now behind the rest of the team in both knowledge and the application of necessary skill sets. The rest of the team is now hindered from moving forward in accomplishing their own individual and team goals due to the fact that they must allow a truant team member adequate time and knowledge to catch up with the pace of the rest of the team. This is not fair to the team members who came to practice and participated in practicing the skill sets necessary to be successful. It is also not fair to the coach who must now spend extra time with the truant individual because they have not practiced and are behind the rest of the team in knowledge and the acquisition of skill sets necessary for success.

In the classroom when a student has not completed the homework assignments it is difficult for the class as a whole to move forward. The student who has not practiced the material has not comprehended the knowledge needed to have success in the course and therefore will have difficulty applying and analyzing desired skill sets. Many students are under the assumption that learning takes place in the classroom. Actually, most learning occurs while practicing for an event. While practicing one often learns the nuances of a task and develops strategies to accomplish the task correctly and repeatedly. There is some practice that takes place in the classroom, but it is often introductory instruction with student modeling rather than true practice.

When students complete the homework assigned for practice between lectures this allows the instructor the ability to build on those practiced concepts and develop them as they are used in various ways and purposes. The student who has not allowed themselves adequate time to become acquainted with the material through practice will not have the foundational knowledge necessary and will be challenged when trying to use an unclear concept in any way other than its original intended purpose. As a cohesive unit trying to all accomplish the same goal of passing the course, the class is now unable to proceed at the pace set by the instructor at the beginning of the course.

So why assign homework if it causes so many problems? Why not just provide students with a list of the concepts necessary for the exams and say good luck? Well of course this would not be an appropriate attitude for an instructor and it would also not reinforce the concept that students should be spending two hours outside of class for every one hour they spend in class. The fact that students need to be practicing at home the concepts learned in class is not in question. What can be debated is how homework is assigned, what the assignments will be, the frequency and amount of homework being assigned, and the rewards and benefits of completing homework assignments.

When an animal such as a spider, a bird, or a honeybee produces something extraordinary in nature like a delicate web, an intricate nest, or a complex honeycomb, we as humans would probably say that the animal's instinct is taking action and it is through instinct that the animal is behaving in its unique particular way. Is it possible that an animal has preferences and can make distinctions between good choices and bad choices? Most of us would probably answer no to this question and again would just call an animal's choices instinct, because it is my belief that the rationale of most humans is that the ability to reason and discern is what seperates humans from animals. There must be however an environment that an individual animal must find to be an ideal situation to exist in. During the animal's duration on Earth, if it finds that ideal environment, then perhaps instinct tells the animal that this environment is ideal for optimal existence.

In psychology the idea that each human being has an internal force driving them towards maximizing their individual potential is referred to as self-actualization. The term was introduced by Kurt Goldstein in his book The Organism: A Holistic Approach to Biology Derived from Pathological Data in Man.In this work he defines self-actualization as a driving life force that will ultimately lead to maximizing one's abilities and determine the path of one's life. Goldstein's theories were later expanded upon by Abraham Maslow in his work A Theory of Human Motivation where Maslow introduces his hierarchy of needstheory. This theory states that all human beings possess certain needs and desires and that to be complete as human beings these basic needs and desires must be met. His theory is called a hierarchy because it was his belief that the these necessary internal needs must be met in a particular order and that one need could not be met before the one below it has been fulfilled.

The most basic needs in Maslow's hierarchy of needs are physiological needs such as food, shelter, water, breathing, sleep, and even sex. Once these needs have been met the individual then seeks to fulfill safety needs. These needs would be the need to secure family, possessions, employment, property, and one's moral codes. Maslow suggests that once these two basic needs have been met an individual now possesses the capacity to love. Maslow says that it is only after the basic physiological and safety needs are met can an individual show intimacy towards another and develop positive relationships with other human beings. Maslow believed that if one has met their physiological needs, they feel safe, and have shown the capacity for love, the individual will soon develop self-confidence, self-esteem, will respect others, and will receive respect from others.

Self-actualization is at the top tier of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. It is his belief that if the four layers of needs are met above, then one has reached self-actualization. Maslow states that a person who is self-actualized now possesses the desire to problem solve, create, explore, accept facts, and conduct their affairs with morality and lack of prejudice. Some psychologists have suggested that before an individual actually reaches this state of self-actualization that an individual must experience the full cognitive process of developing knowledge and eventually synthesizing and evaluating that knowledge. They suggest that an individuals aesthetic needs must also be met where the individual appreciates beauty and symmetry as it exists in the world around them.

In conclusion, self actualization is the culmination of achieving one's full potential. As a college student, the way this can hope to be achieved is by traversing the levels described in the cognitive domain of Bloom's Taxonomy and achieve the level of evaluation. At my campus we have defined the level of evaluation as the point when a student contributes to their school through tutoring or mentoring programs where the student passes their knowledge onto another individual and can express their learned ideas and reasoning abilities on a subject in a logical manner. It is also our belief that a student's ability to reach this level of cognition is increased exponentially by participating in good homework habits. As mentioned earlier, the definition of homework is different for student and instructor and varies widely among each creating more diversity. In my classes I am seeking to redefine attitudes towards what homework is and why the student is asked to do it through homework choices that help the student in their life's pursuit of self-actualization.

In an effort to help students in their self-actualization pursuit a radical new approach to assigning and assessing homework is taking place in my college classroom. It is an approach which allows students to pick and choose from a wide range of problem sets, the problems they feel will optimize their performance on proctored assessments. The student is not given a limit to the number of problems they must attempt, but they are given a minimal number of problems to attempt in order to receive the reward for this portion of their overall grade. This approach takes some practice, but if the process is delivered and administered correctly, I believe the theory is sound.

The theory is that if students understand a concept, they are allowed to move on to the next concept and practice as many problems as necessary until they feel they have mastered the topic.  At my campus we are allowing up to 20% of a student's overall grade to be determined from non-proctored assessments such as homework or classwork. The student is ultimately responsible to be able to perform the desired actions of the homework sections assigned, so it is the theory that if the student decides for themselves whether they understand a concept or not, they will retain the material better. In fact, they might actually be learning the concept by accepting the process on their own terms.

This is in contradiction to traditional homework assignments where an instructor assigns all the odd problems of a section, or perhaps every third or fourth problem. In this model the student often gets the impression that this is an assignment that is for the instructor and fail to see the value of the homework as practice for a higher stakes assessment. I often have students who the night before an exam that is worth 20% of their overall grade are trying to complete an overdue homework assignment that is unrelated to the high-stakes exam and is worth little to nothing towards their overall grade in the course just because that homework assignment happens to be due on the same date as the high-stakes exam. It is illogical and makes little sense, but happens often. When the student begins to realize that the homework assignments are for their benefit, and not the instructor or their homework grade, they are on their way to achieving self-actualization.

When this process is administered correctly the student is having adequate practice time before every high stakes assessment. Another misconception of the the student is the meaning behind a due date. By putting due dates on homework assignments, because the definition of due by is often defined as do the night before, I find student the night before a high-stakes exam studying for the test by doing all the homework due for the entire week. The instructor's intention by assigning a due dateis of course that the student spread the workload out over the week and be prepared for the lecture topics and the exams as they are delivered. Of course this seldom happens and the homework assignment now becomes a burden that hinders the studying process for the high-stakes assessment and causes unnecessary anxiety.

The process works as follows. First provide to each student a list that provides the sections that will be covered during the semester along with the problem sets that fit your expectations for the course. If they are not part of your expectation set and the problem set does not aid in student understanding of the material, omit it from the problem set. The next step is to establish a frequency of problems that the students should be practicing over a given time period. In my classes I am rewarding my students for completing 125 problems. Each time they complete 125 problems I will reward them 1% towards their overall homework grade. It does not seem like much, and that is the point. Why should I give valuable credit to a student for completing problems they already know the answers to?

In a check for understanding, I am assigning 10-15 even problems from the text each weekend that the student must complete by the next class period. This is the score that will be recorded for a grade, and the answers will eith be right or wrong with no partial credit given. I have noticed that students tend to show more effort on assignments with firm due dates. I am making it a rule that if a student does not get the weekend assignment into my box before the second class meeting of the week it will not be accepted. The student is allowed to self actualize if they miss a weekend assignment by completing the 125 practice problems and earn the missing 1% back.

The idea of these assignments is for the student to seek outside resources. Another factor involved in achieving self-actualization is the realization of one's abilities, and limitations, and the acceptance of another person's assistance. Some students will have to put forth a lot more effort in this area of the course than others. The completion of odd-numbered textbook problems will not negatively effect the student, it can only benefit. This is the ultimate goal of this project is that the student does the odd-numbered problems but for no other reason but to self-actualize through practicing the material.

The other 5% of the student's homework grade can be earned by completeing a web-search assignment. This asssignment is checked for completeness and effort only and seeks to meet students at the synthesis level of the Bloom's Taxonomy. I go into more detail in other Hubs about web-searches and the value they bring to the classroom so please feel free to check them out. This assignment is also encouraged to not be done individually as some of the topics are likely to be beyond the individual students capabilities.

These are examples of the homework strategies I am using in my classroom to help students self-actualize through homework assignments. Although this process is foreign to most students, the majority seem to catch on quickly and understand that you the instructor are doing this because you care about their individual learning process and are not just assigning problems at random to fulfill a symbolic quota of some sort. By encouraging them to work together on assignments and allowing them choices on which problems they feel they need to practice their self-confidence should increase. The freedom to choose is inherent to the self-actualization process. This is what distinguishes us as individuals.

This Hub represents one of the many strategies I exercise in my developmental mathematics college classroom. If you find these techniques interesting, would like more information, or feel the need to ask me a question about something I have said, please feel free to drop me a line on my either here, my blog, or my Twitter account. Also please feel free to comment on this Hub and any of my other Hubs available on this site. Thank you for your continued interest in my classroom practices and educational theories and keep looking for new and exciting Hubs related to the exciting and often controversial world of developmental college mathematics.