Still loving the new school, but not loving the last minute scrambling to get everything together. Guess I'll figure it out soon (or it will be June and a moot point). The school philosophy sort of discourages the use of textbooks for homework problems, and we're to create our own thing. I'm fine with that because mostly that's what I do, but this year with basically 3 classes to get materials ready for, it's a challenge.
Anyway, wa wa wa. What I am pleased about is how my algebra 1 homeworks are going. I know when I'm learning something new, I like to have immediate feedback on my correctness. At the same time, if I'm a high school student that may quickly look at the answer without struggling with the problem first, that wouldn't benefit me. Therefore, I've been giving about 10 problems per homework and then putting an extra box on the bottom of the sheet with all the answers in mixed order. So they have to do all problems and cross them all off and will know soon if something is amiss.
I had feedback today as I was handing out the next assignment. One girl looked at the sheet and whooped, "YES! Thank you for the answer bank!".
I guess for algebra (not the line graphing) it'll be pretty easy to keep this up, but the geometry ... hmmmm, will have to think about it.
I've been doing this same thing and I love how hard they work when I put the scrambled answer bank on the assignments. I think the immediate feedback is so important when you are just starting to learn a new concept. I do all my own worksheets for algebra I also. I like to design my own assignments with stuff I know they need more of. I also like to include one or 2 review and 1 or two TAKS along with the new material. I try to make their assignments no more than 20 minutes and I give them about 10 minutes to get started in class so I can make sure they are on the right track.
ReplyDeleteOoh, I like your "extra review" problem idea. Thanks for the suggestion.
ReplyDeleteMs. Cookie
I really like the idea of the scrambled answer bank at the bottom of the worksheet. But creating your own problems when their tons available in books? Seems like you are recreating the wheel. No need to create work!
ReplyDeleteI sometimes see what you mean, and I may pull from books, but many times, the books don't have the amount or type of problems I want. Either way, yes, it is a ton of work.
ReplyDeleteMs. Cookie
There's Algebra w/ Pizzazz. Have you looked into this??? What you're doing sounds like this.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.marcymathworks.com/
I LOVE Pizzazz .... but apparently, it's STRONGLY suggested that I create my own stuff.
ReplyDeleteMs. Cookie