Fortnightly homeworks: the advantages

For more information contact: Jon Woolf.

A weekly homework cycle can lead to pressure on students to complete work without reflection, and on the lecturer to teach the material required for the next problem set in a rush. In addition students have only one tutorial in which to obtain help, which may not be enough for more complicated and subtle ideas which take time for students to digest. An alternative is to set homework problem sets fortnightly; obviously each problem set is longer so that the same material can be covered. This has several advantages:

• students have ample time to complete the work, and to reflect upon it;
• students have two tutorials in which to ask questions and clarify confusions, leading to a deeper understanding on their part;
• the second tutorial on each homework is a good time to provide feedback on the previous problem set (with just one tutorial per problem set there is rarely time to provide feedback);
• with more time between sheets it is easier to adjust the pace of the lectures to the requirements of the problem sets;
• it is less time consuming for the lecturer to set, upload to VITAL, and mark half the number of problem sets (even if each is longer).

Fortnightly homework was trialled in MATH344 Combinatorics in Semester 1 of 2016-17 and the informal feedback from students was very positive. They were almost unanimous in finding it allowed them more time to complete homework to their satisfaction. Feedback on the module questionnaire was also entirely positive.