Homework

We all try to come up with effective ways of taming this beast. Some of us just ditch it all together because its been inconclusive about the gains that homework has. I have even considered this tactic as well because of the pain of grading and the influence it has. Since I'm at an Early College, I think the reality of doing homework for understanding is important for students in my courses. But if my students are not gaining an introspective look at their understanding of the concept, what is the point? In my class student homework grades are based on what they try (by that I mean a reasonable effort). When the students come in they either get a Homework Check Slip or a QR Code for Missing/Incomplete HW. They usually only get 10-15 questions that shouldn't occupy more than 30 minutes of their night.

Students that get the QR Code fill the google form linked and plan for turning in their homework while the rest of the class pairs up and checks homework.

First they switch papers an write their names on the Checked By, Fill in the title, and calculate the number of questions on the homework and the amount attempted by each student. These are all I use to calculate the grade, but the other part is much more telling and important to me gathering information. After they "grade" correct vs. incorrect, they switch papers and homework and note their missed questions. Then they finish the statements "I understand..." and "I struggled with..." What I gather from this process is the most valuable. Here are some student samples and what I've gained from them. Note this is the first hw check of the semester, so we haven't practiced much with the statements. 

So this student did well on the homework, but if you read the two responses, they actually mean the same thing to me as a mathematician. I struggle really knowing what they do or don't understand, but the number correct leads me to believe they understood the content for the most part, but struggle in articulating their abilities. 

This student just realizes that she didn't have any success at home and she "got it" when we did it in class. Likelihood is that she didn't really get the lesson and needs some deep remediation. This is also a student that does not volunteer in class, so putting her in the center of the class conversations may help. Since she focuses on environment rather than content, I know she also struggles with articulating her own learning. 

This student could specifically tell me that multiplying functions and evaluating functions are strengths, while subtracting is a weakness. She also has the skills to articulate this clear to me and explain what causes her weakness in subtraction. 

So while this student got majority correct, the details about their learning are a little hard for me to uncover exactly what the difficulties were. They get the "function notation thing"and what I infer is subtraction operations gave them trouble because "switching signs is confusing."

I also have done a version of this where I ask them to list the questions they get wrong. This allows me to do a quick item analysis of the homework and use those questions in lessons at a later date.