Optional homework almost definitely won't get done. Making it count ensures that students would actually do it, which is useful to instructors (what do they need to focus on in class? Is the class understanding the lectures?).

You can still grade the homework (to give both lecturers and students feedback), but just have it not count towards the kids letter grade in the course. If no one is doing it, then you could make the grade for homework pass / fail: did you hand something gradeable in or not?

Hm, then I feel like students might do the minimum passable work. Which, to be fair, is pretty close to optimal for the real world.

Maybe that's the trick - make the requirements for passing good enough that the minimum still requires learning and engagement, and then just grade on a straight pass/fail.

That's how a bunch of courses I attended and TAed did it. You needed to beat a specific rating averaged over your homework assignments to be allowed to take the exams. Occasionally caused really good students to fluke the last 1 or 2 assignments since they were sure to have qualified, but generally kept everyone doing them and allowed for failing occasionally (which is useful because students then are less motivated to try and hide their failure, which gives the TAs better feedback about progress and problems)

or have it count to a small part of the grade.

Basically, perhaps construct a class like this

1) HW 20% of the grade

2) Quiz (say 1 Q a week related to homework that was returned a week ago, give students a chance to figure out what they did wrong) - say 20% of grade

3) midterm and final, a 30/30 or 20/40 split.

one can adjust the percentages to achieve one's desired pedagogical goals.

personally, I don't find copying homework to be a problem if the student figures out what they copied. It's no worse than students frantically copying down everything the teacher puts on the board or slides which seems to be a common way students study.

> 2) Quiz (say 1 Q a week related to homework that was returned a week ago, give students a chance to figure out what they did wrong) - say 20% of grade

I never had quizzes except from professors who issued them to keep attendance up. Quizzes by nature are short and shallow. At the college level they are not particularly useful for establishing understanding.

ok, that's reasonable response. and as other commentator said, not enough time as it is os takaing 10-20m out of a lecture isn't good.

Quizzes aren't really great at the college level. They waste too time--and you already don't really have enough time to begin with.

> almost definitely won't get done.

While I believe "almost definitely" is a bit too strong, one of the most important lessons undergraduates need to learn asap is learning how to learn effectively. Homework is only a tool that can be very helpful when learning, but it's not the only tool available.

> which is useful to instructors

That's nice, but it's the instructor's job to serve serve the students.

> Is the class understanding the lectures?

In most classes, this should be easy to determine simply from interacting with the students in class, the questions they ask during office hours, etc.

--

The ideal instructor should offer regular homework problems/projects that are clear examples of what the students will be expected to know, and check the work of anybody that wants to take advantage of the instructor's knowledge. However, if a student feels their time would be better spent elsewhere[1], that's their business.

The exam will reveal if they made a good decision. Like any skill, many students will make mistakes when they first attempt this kind of project/time management. Fortunately, as undergraduates, the consequences of failure are usually having to retake the class. Later in life, failure may mean losing a job or other far more damaging consequences.

(For the record, when I was an undergraduate at UC Davis, many classes had optional homework. I spent a lot of time working on it for some classes, and others I skipped because it was trivial compared to what I was doing every day at my job.)

[1] e.g. other classes, a job, their own self-study, or maintaining friendships at a social event

> Optional homework almost definitely won't get done.

Then they fail?

I don't mean to sound glib, but I don't see the issue here.

Students that want to pass will pass, students that don't, won't.

I say this as a student that didn't pass.

Really depends on the goal. Is the goal to teach everyone in the class? If so, "just let them fail" is a poor strategy. (It's also one that will get the teacher bad performance reviews.)

They might be learning more from 'optional' homework though. For instance, my dynamics professor didn't issue any graded homework, although the homework in the class was my largest time sink last semester. The homework was scored so you knew what you did wrong, but the entire course was graded on tests (which were difficult enough that afaik nobody managed >70% before the curve). After the first test, it was pretty clear that the homework wasn't 'optional'. While this did help w/ teaching self-study, overall I think it was a poor way to run the course, since then the tests became overwhelmingly stressful for nearly everyone. I think that grading is necessary, and at the college level quizzes are typically pointless, but without homework there is little left to judge comprehension on.

Pass/fail grading for making an attempt.

> Here's the easiest solution: stop grading homework

Because it's not that simple. These are INTRO classes.

For many students, an intro CS class may be the first class they have encountered in their lives in which they finally have to work.

So, part of the job of a teacher is to teach the class material but also to teach good studying habits. Without grading homework, the first real feedback that a student is in trouble will come on a midterm when they fail--the feedback is WAY too late at that point.

That having been said--your professor isn't as stupid as you think he is. Plagiarism that fools the professor is as much work as just doing the assignment.

And professors have lots of ways of dealing with plagiarists far short of disciplinary proceedings. For example, partial credit on exams is quite subjective, and plagiarists tend to lose the "coin flip" if the professor is on the fence.

The problem I have is simply that there are quite a few professors who simply don't care. They make it far too easy to cheat--reusing a previous year's project or exam, for example, is a no-no.

I think that there is a solution that is being overlooked, which worked pretty well in my intro class. The professor explained that he would be using plagarism software and wouldn't be accepting excuses. He also explained that he expected to see comments explaining nearly everything, and provided a style guide. While this is training a bad coding practice (who want's to read code that has that many unnecessary comments?), I don't see any way around it for an intro course, since it's really hard to avoid reusing assignments. There aren't that many ways to code 'hello world', but if you make it clear that code must be thoroughly commented then it will drastically reduce false positives. Doesn't stop people copying wholesale from stackexchange, but w/ that level of commenting required I don't think students are really learning less. And this isn't required for higher-level courses, since by that point the assignments are complex enough that accidental plagiarism is extremely unlikely.

Not sure if you missed it, or I'm misunderstanding you, but he wrote:

> Give them homework and "grade it" to give them feedback

which addresses your main point.

It doesn't address the point. Homework that doesn't count won't get done, so won't provide feedback.

Exactly. I have tried "Voluntary Homework" with even upper level classes--it doesn't work.

I generally put homework at about 5% of grade. You can avoid doing it and still get the grade you want, but it's a bit of an obstacle. And most decent students will do the homework anyhow.

Intro classes don't get that option. I put it at about 25% of the grade.

But then where does your grade come from? More testing doesn’t seem like a good solution.

Grade by completion. Maybe 50% of questions right rounds up to 100%?

Completion of what?

a set of problems, the homework

I'm confused. The fix for grading homework is to grade homework?

"Completion" is pretty ill-defined if there's no attempt to judge content.

Like I said, rounding up from 50% seems reasonable

Ok, but that’s essentially just saying to grade homework gently. Which is totally fine but doesn’t seem to address the concerns with plagiarism nor with the earlier comment that instructors simply shouldn’t assign homework.

lab work.

How about just stop grading on a curve? At least then, cheaters can't hurt the grades of non-cheaters.