Week Eight Prompt (2/21 - 3/4)

Week Eight Prompt:


Think about what you are learning from examining and grading students’ written work. (This written work can be homework assignments, quizzes, tests, or anything else in writing that students produce, such as a short response to a question you pose at the end of class.) Specifically,

• Identify and discuss (briefly) three things you are learning about students’ mathematical understanding from examining and grading their written work.

• Identify and discuss (briefly) three things you are learning about students’ beliefs and/or attitudes about mathematics and/or learning from examining and grading their written work.

• How has your planning and teaching been impacting by what you have learned from examining and grading students’ written work?


After grading my students’ homework, I have noticed several things about their understanding of mathematics. I am able to see what level of understanding they are at. I am able to see this by looking at their mistakes they are making on their work. I still have several students who are constantly making simple multiplication, division, and sign errors when multiplying positive and negatives. This has helped me to target these students who need the extra help an attention. I am also able to see the students’ thought process as they work through problems. I can see where they are making mistakes, where my instruction might need to focus more on, and how effect my instruction is. I use the graded material as feedback for my instruction. I find it very helpful to see how I can improve my instruction based on how the students are doing, and what I need to focus on during the next lesson.
I have found a lot about students attitudes towards mathematics by grading their homework and quizzes. Students tend to take the easy way out and don’t put forth as much effort as they can. I have noticed students do not complete their homework because they would have to do it at home and they do not want to. They will stop at problems that require them to apply their understanding in a different way (word problems, problems that require student to apply previous knowledge from different chapters to solve, etc.) The majority of the students want the easiest way out, and their work reflects that.
Like previously stated before, I try to use graded work and tests to evaluate how I am doing as a teacher. I will try to find common mistakes that students made and go back over my lessons to see if I covered them fully. This is something that I think will help me become a more effective teacher. Another way the graded work will impacts my planning is that it changes the types of bell work I do. I want to help them build the skills that they struggled with, so by looking at concepts they struggled with I can create bell work that focuses on these skills. This will help the students strengthen these skills that they may be weak on, and will help them recall the information to build upon.