Week Thirteen Prompt (4/11 - 4/15)

Question: What role do you think homework plays in learning mathematics? What type of homework policies and procedures will you put in place in your classroom? How will you grade homework and how will you use homework grades?

Homework is an assessment in a mathematics classroom. It assesses the students understanding of the topics and concepts being taught. The homework gives the students and the teacher feedback on what the class struggled with, what may need to be re-taught, and what things students should refocus on. I use the students feedback on their homework and their homework scores as an evaluation of my teaching. If the homework’s skill level is appropriate and students do well on it, I know I can move forward with new topics or challenge them with more applied problems. However, if the students struggled with homework that should have been relatively easy, I know I need to re-teach the material and find where the class is struggling the most.
During student teaching my cooperating teacher has a set homework policy. For homework from the textbook, I walk around the classroom checking each student’s progress on the homework and scoring them a 1 through 5 (5 being scored for a complete homework assignment, and a 0 for nothing at all). I am not a big fan of this strategy because I have noticed several students writing in random answers, or simply copying down work from other students as I walk around the classroom checking on their peers.
I like a homework policy my high school calculus teacher used when I was in her class. She assigned the homework the day before, and the next day she would have students write question problems on the white board. The rest of the class would then try to answer the problems on the board, and if they couldn’t then my teacher would walk through the process of solving each problem. If a student was able to answer the question, she would have the student explain the process or would explain the student’s process depending on what she had planned for the rest of the period. Once all questions were answered, my teacher would pull a bag out with five marbles in it. Three of the marbles were green and two were yellow. A student would pick a marble out of the bag and if they pulled a yellow marble everyone would pass the homework in and she would grade it for correctness. If a student pulled a green marble, they would put their homework in their folder and my teacher would continue with the day’s lesson.
This policy forces students to ask questions on their homework, and complete it for correctness in case they are asked to turn their homework in for points. It also helps the students explain their mathematical knowledge to others. I believe I would use this policy in my future classrooms and grade their homework assignments on correctness. Because different classes will be turning in different amounts of homework, I would make homework 10-15% of their final grade.