We can use behavioural psychology to nudge students in the right direction by making the desired action EAST: Easy, Attractive, Social and Timely. This post summarises five strategies to make an action timely, and challenges you to apply them to help students study independently.
Making it timely: key ideas
To make actions (feel) timely, we can:
- Choose our moment, asking people when they are most receptive
- Make it seem like a good idea at the time: people are more willing to commit to costs in advance; we can frame our requests accordingly
- Prompt actions, helping students go beyond good intentions and plan when and how they will act
- Help students build habits, by having students practise a specific action in a stable context
- Maintain habits under pressure: people form habits slowly and falteringly; we can help in five ways
Making it timely: a challenge
This is a real classroom dilemma, slightly adapted to preserve anonymity. What should Lucia do?
The situation
Lucia’s students respond well in lessons and seem enthusiastic about the subject and her teaching. However, when she sends them home to revise, practise or complete homework, they rarely do. Some students would rather not be studying, but most promise sincerely to complete the task, then return with vague reasons why they didn’t Lucia has considered getting using lesson time to complete these tasks, but worries that this will make it impossible to cover the syllabus and will prepare students poorly for the future..
The change
Lucia wants students to complete independent study and homework tasks consistently and well.
The solution
Please share your advice for Lucia in the comments below. The focus is on making the desired behaviour timely, but feel free to suggest other nudges to make it easy, attractive or social.
My next post will draw together the best ideas into an overall suggestion for Lucia: please comment by Sunday, 17th February.
If you find this interesting, you may want to keep up with the guide I’m writing for teachers hoping to use behavioural psychology: sign up here.
It may be also be useful to read the previous challenge: making it easy to see the suggestions teachers made to help students to focus in class; you can also read my suggested solution here.
With some classes I’ve given a low stated 5-a-day-starter style homework with short turn around (due in the next day). We then go through it the next lesson and pupils self asses their work. If they don’t have their homework then it’s clear in their books they didn’t do it even though they’ve gone through and corrected it. This quick turnaround for shorter revision tasks makes revision seem less intimidating; they don’t “put it off” if you’ve given them longer to do it at home.
We have classcharts at school and I use this as a visual cue for pupils as I record and mark in who has submitted homework. It helps pupils to see how serious you are about their efforts. It also makes one on one conversations with parents/ persistent absences of
HW easier and more logical (the evidence is there, it’s not just your opinions).
I give my classes their HW timetables in advance at the beginning of the half term. They can see what type of tasks they have coming up and can feel prepared and in control. I always set and receive hw tasks on the same day every week. This sense of routine is helpful for all of us.
Mix and match homework tasks.
With all the tasks set, I will walk through the homework and talk to the class (at the end of the lesson) about the task and use this time to anticipate those areas where student will struggle. I will use the time to explain my expectations and even take suggestions from the class.
The tasks I set are mixed up in terms of presentation. Not all tasks will require a purely written response. Through mixing it up I can also see which students respond best to different styles. From here i can look at the steps that we will need to get to the level of written work they will need to be ready for their actual exams.
1. Give homework on the same day each week and collect homework on the same day each week to build a routine/ habit. Make sure to not give homework at the end of one week and the beginning of the other as it will seem further away.
2. Get the pupils to commit to a time they will do their homework each week.
3. Have the homework displayed on the ‘homework wall’ so they can come and see what it is if your not there.
4. Give the same kind of homework and in the same place every week in their book/ booklet. For example I give knowledge learning and an essay question from a booklet each week.
5. Give a detention if it isn’t done.
I have recently started asking students to commit to a time when they are going to complete the homework and then set themselves a reminder on their phone. This has improved submission slightly and it gets better each week. After half term, I am introducing the idea of ‘homework buddies’ (they are also their buddies for supporting with completion of micro-goals’) so they will share their commitment of time with a buddy whose job it is to text or remind them on that day too.
I also use google classroom for most tasks and always reward the first 3 to submit by replying straight away and ‘nudging’ the others: ‘really interesting response Callum, who is going to be next?’ Again, it nudges some and then a message a day before usually gets a few more in ‘i’ve Loved reading these so far, Tyler, Joel, looking forward to yours’. Still not at 100% but i’m persisting and it is improving!
We are working towards KS3 homework in a hard-copy booklet (so we don’t get ‘the internet is down’ excuse) for every subject. The booklet contains a year or a term’s homework. There are 8 subjects running a trial this year. Each week’s homework is dated, and there is some form of test on the hand-in date. This allows less confident teachers to say, ‘no you can’t hand it in tomorrow, the test is now’. The tasks are varied from subject to subject, but all are review in some form – be that practice or memorisation. Some subjects are setting their homework from the previous term; some are setting extended reading (which is still tested), some are using their knowledge organisers or vocabulary lists. So far parents are delighted, they are used to this system from primary, so are very much on board. We hope to get rid of the planners, and give a set weekly testing day for each subject instead. This way, working at home regularly becomes habit.