Day 71

I posted a few thoughts from students on the use of homework in my class. You can read the post here. I’m going to go through a few of there responses in this post.

The benefits of having homework is an opportunity to see what kind of questions will be on the test and train us.

This quote summarized the point of the checklists. I don’t love that is just about test — but some of the course is.

Making checklists shorter would help or lowering the rate of how many we have to get write cause sometimes people are like half a point off and then they have to do it all over again.

I set most of the checklist completion score at 90%. It was a score I determined that the students had to complete and would show an understanding of the material. Sometimes, the missing one question can make the score 89.8% and they are not considered passing. I’ve toyed with the idea of not requiring a certain score to lowering the score. The required score to complete the weekly homework is arbitrary. I will probably lower the score that is required. 

The benefits of having the checklist and homework are that this information gets drilled into our memory and since we need to get a 90 on the checklist it really gets drilled in and when the tests come I’m ready and know the info.

Again, the checklists are good at getting the information drilled in their heads. They do know the specific information they need to know by the time of the test. However, I wish the course would allow for a more diverse perspective of understanding.

One way we could take the drawbacks is that we make the work just a little shorter not so much in one checklist

I’ve been working on this. I don’t give homework over breaks. I minimized the reviews. Every year I cut a little bit out of the homework. But, it’s time to cut a little bit more.

I think if you eliminated homework in this class, the actual class time would have to be harder and that some kids might not learn as much if they are more independent learners.

I like this sentiment. I hope that students are becoming independent learners. I’m not sure if one could claim they are independent learners when I dictate most of the information they have to know and the time they have to know it.

There were more responses and I will tackle those responses tomorrow.