The end of the semester has any number of regular milestones for teachers, among them the receipt of student evaluations of teaching. Particularly for those who teach large course sections, the anticipated experience of reading evaluations is often bemusement. Frequently, there are significant numbers of student comments on both "sides"…

Research has shown that the types of tasks assigned to students affect their learning. Various authors have described desirable features of mathematical tasks or of the activity they initiate. Others have suggested task taxonomies that might be used in classifying mathematical tasks. Drawing on this literature, we propose a set of task types that…

Parents in the United States expect their students to have homework; and students, especially in middle school and high school, expect daily homework assignments from their teachers. However, it is difficult to create effective homework assignments. Despite the challenges involved, the authors believe that homework "can" be an important…

Studies in cognitive science have verified that working memory (where the brain solves problems) can manipulate nearly all elements of knowledge that can be recalled automatically from long-term memory, but only a few elements that have not previously been well memorized. Research in reading comprehension has found that "lecture notes with…

Targeted homework is based upon the belief that homework can make a significant contribution to student achievement in the areas of knowledge, skills, and values. It centers on the notion that homework achieves maximum effectiveness when teachers share the school's homework policy as well as their policy with students and parents or guardians. The…

One aspect of Jean Piaget's theory of intellectual development is presented and its implications for designing and using homework problems is discussed. Suggested is a way in which homework problems can be used to provide students an opportunity for self-regulation. Also discussed are the deficiencies of typical homework problems and examples are…