How I balance between completion grades and grading homework all the time is homework quizzes. Up to twice a week, I give an unannounced homework quiz. On those days, the homework is worth 10 points. I prompt the students by saying, "Clear your desks except for your homework and a blank piece of paper (and a pencil)." I choose 7 questions from the homework assignment and write those on the board. The students, then, choose 5 of those 7 questions and copy the question numbers and the answers from their already completed homework on the blank sheet of paper. Next, they walk over to the inbox and staple the homework quiz to the homework paper and turn it in. Each of the 5 questions is worth 2 points (10 points total). If a student gets a question incorrect, I check to see if he/she showed work on his/her homework. If so, only 1 point is taken away. If only the answer is written on the original homework, 2 points are taken away. This promotes showing work. On days that I don't give homework quizzes, those homework assignments are worth 2 points. This gives more weight to homework quizzes and less weight to completion grades. Before I started doing this, I awarded 5 points for completing homework. I would check to see if students showed their work, but I didn't really check much else. This did not give much meaning to homework for students because it didn't matter if they tried to get the right answers.
Let me know if you are interested in adopting this method and have questions about this. :-)
I have been trying to find a good balance for homework grading and I think this is it! How is it working for you??
ReplyDeleteIt's worked quite well for me for several years. The students show more effort when they know that there's a chance that I might grade it. AND it doesn't obligate me to grade each assignment.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you do for kids that are absent on a homework quiz day? How do they make it up?
ReplyDeleteI just have them turn their homework in and choose 5 myself.
DeleteDo you feel that you do not answer as many homework questions now because of this policy? I am looking for some way for my kids to put more effort instead of waiting to ask me the next day as I let them ask questions before I check the homework.
ReplyDeleteI haven't really seen a difference in the number of questions kids asked at the beginning of class. I restrict my students to 3 questions. I have them post the question numbers on the board under the heading "Top 3". Sorry it took so long to reply back.
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