Reply To: What about homework?

[Daniel Whittaker]

This year I tried something new for me.  I would give students practice problems in class by way of a worksheet of some kind.  I never collected it, but I did give them access to the answers if they wanted them.  The next day, to start class, I would give them a short quiz on the content of the worksheet.  They had the ability to do the full worksheet if they needed the extra practice, or not do it if they didn’t need it.

I have mixed feelings about the success of this.  For some students it was great, they understood the concept quickly and didn’t need to spend time practicing.  For other students, they really needed the practice, but didn’t do it because they knew it wouldn’t be graded, they never fully connected that it was graded by grading the quiz!

With the quizzes, they often took a big chunk of class time.  I think I need to make them shorter.  I’m really not sure.  I just know that I don’t like assigning long sets of practice!