Learning from Assessments
I like to give my students the opportunity to learn from their mistakes. I no longer hand out homework assignments until the end of class because I am frustrated with the students that have been brainwashed into thinking that effective "learning" and successfully completing a "homework" assignment, both produce the same results.
In my opinion, homework is often a mindless "task" that students try to accomplish before the real learning takes place.
I am trying to strike a balance between inspiring students to learn and assigning the appropriate amount of homework to validate a students success.
Hi Susan - Thanks for your post to the forum. I so agree - the more that we can demonstrate the relevancy of papers, presentations etc. the better students realize why they are important!
Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career. Susan
I like this approach. Too often students perceive homework, projects, and research as punitive, never connecting the reinforcing value. To be successful, the students are owed explanations of what and why connects how. We do not know what type of learning environment they were exposed to prior arriving in our school, so we must ensure that we nourish them to want to learn through our methods of explanation and presentation.
Great idea about handing out homework at the end of the class period. It seems that over half the students start working on the homework in class and ignore the lecture or class interaction. Giving the homework out at the end of class would certainly eliminate the distraction.
I also agree with your second statement. I have had several students ask me why they need to do the homework, as if it is punishment. They looked astonished when I told them it is to help reinforce what we covered in class.
Hi Thomas - You have a novel approach to Homework assignments but I see how it would really work. I assume that you do review the assignments (i.e. work through problems?) so that students can see where they might have gone wrong. Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career. Susan
In my math courses, I rarely grade homework on correctness; I it's either complete or incomplete. I view HW as the students chance to practice what was discussed in the lesson. My method of instruction is give the lesson, then students practice (ie HW), then give some debrief time (usually at the beginning of the next lesson) where they ask questions about the various HW exercises.
I also give daily mini-quizzes/warm-up exercises and often a more formal quiz at the end of each concept we cover.
