Educational Pedagogy

BY ALEX VALENCIC

Via Tom D'Amico (@TDOttawa)

Via John Evans

In decades past, students needed little more than paper, pencils, and time to get their schoolwork done. For the vast majority of students, that's no longer the case. Most schoolwork these days necessitates a computer and an internet connection, and that includes work to be done at home. One federal survey found that 70 percent of American teachers  assign homework that needs to be done online; 90 percent of high schoolers say they have to do internet-based homework at least a few times a month. Nearly half of all students say they get such assignments daily or almost daily.

Via John Evans

Last year I wrote about a new strategy of not checking homework but assessing understanding through short quizzes. I thought this might be a good time to follow up with the results of that endeavor.

So, we are halfway through our second 9 weeks of school, and this is the first year where I started out not checking homework. In August, I carefully explained to students that there would be suggested homework problems and that even though I would not check their homework, there would be frequent quizzes to check their understanding.

The initial response was, “yay, no homework,” which quickly turned to “why does my grade look like this?”

Via John Evans