Love it or hate it, online homework is becoming increasingly popular, with as many as seven in 10 teachers using it as a resource. Though it may be convenient for teachers (less clutter and less grading), this digitized work is plagued with student inconveniences. Homework, undoubtedly, will always be unpopular — but putting it on Canvas (or some other “learning management system”) only makes it more of a hassle. Here are five reasons to abolish this form of educational torture.
1. It is clunky and slow.
When students have a pen and paper, they can chug away at their work with good pacing. Online materials, however, can be delayed by slow internet connection, computer bugs, and web browser woes. I cannot count how many damn times Canvas has crashed my perfectly up-to-date computer. When these issues come up, students are frustrated by the time they actually get to the work. And that mindset is not going to help master any material.
2. It is impersonal.
Often, online assignments are graded upon submission. You turn in your work, and the website spits a grade out at you. The instructor does not view your answers or good work; instead, a machine assigns a letter. Thus, it is profoundly aggravating to put much work into an assignment just for it to instantly give you a low grade —and no comments on how to improve or what went wrong.
3. Your grade can be wrong.
Say the assignment is to type words into boxes (i.e. “fill in the blank”). Say your finger slips and you miss a letter. Or you capitalize something by mistake. Or your professor doesn’t anticipate a perfectly correct answer (this has happened in multiple of my classes). If any of these scenarios come true, you lose points off your grade. Worst of all, your score does not accurately reflect your learning; it reflects a “glitch” in the system or a small typo.
4. Or your grade can be lost.
If a grade book crashes but the professor collects your work on paper, you can easily resubmit and recover your scores. However, if all the work is stored online and the database crashes, well, there’s no coming back from that. Storing data online and online alone is a great risk. If instructors elect to assign items electronically, the assignments should be at least low stakes.
5. You don’t get to (physically) write your answers.
The act of writing (pen and paper) actually improves learning and memory. Plus, it’s much easier to make a quick typo. Often, writing out work can be helpful, especially if you’re in a language or math class. Unfortunately, it is often these subjects that end up having online submissions.
6. It encourages cheating.
Often, online work shows you which questions or problems someone got wrong. With this information, they can easily “help” someone else out with the assignment — AKA cheating. Of course, students can share answers with paper assignments — but no one can be certain if all the answer are correct. If a professor goes as far to have an exam online, less-than-honest students are bound to Google search more difficult questions.
