Originally published Oct. 2018, updated Nov. 2020
Working at home is hard for my students. They’re mostly working parents, so they’ve already juggled shifts and childcare to get to class a couple of nights a week.
And then we ask them to find more time for homework.
It doesn’t always work.
But we want it to, because once a week math classes are not enough.
It is painfully easy to work hard in class, make progress, grasp a challenging concept, and then leave, think about everything except math, and come back a week later, feeling like you’ve forgotten everything you learned.
My homework system is intentionally flexible, but still.
To work independently you have to find the time, and the motivation, and the materials, and the focus, and get everyone else to let you focus. And you have to know where to start, and not give up when you get stuck.
This year, I’m experimenting with really planning for it.
Week 1: Plan
We brainstormed times they might fit work into their lives. Things like: on my lunch break, after the kids go to bed, in the waiting room. I made a point to frame the conversation as small bits of time, that did not have to look like homework at the kitchen table for an hour after dinner. They thought about their schedules and made plans, and back up plans. I made copies: one for them, one for me.
Week 2: Check in
I returned their plans and asked them to write one of two notes on the back. If the plan worked, what about it worked? OR If the plan didn’t work, what would they do differently next week?
Week 3: Repeat
Return the plans, write another note. This time, I added a list of some of the best tips from their Week 2 check ins and asked them to think about adopting some of their classmates’ ideas.
Three weeks in a row is about as much time as I feel like I can devote to this right now, but I kept their twice annotated plans, and they’ll make a reappearance later in the semester (especially if homework starts to lag)
And, can I take a minute to brag about a student who has embraced this?
This student is back in school for the first time in years, a single mom working in the kind of entry level health care job that’s lots of hands on work, for little money. She downloaded Kahn Academy, tried it, and came in discouraged a few weeks ago that she was working at a lower level than her young son.
This week, she came in beaming and eager to show me how her scores had gone up.
She was proud of the score.
I was proud of how she made it happen: Studying on her half-hour lunch breaks four days in a row, plus a few random times when she had a few free minutes.
I wanted to get up on a soap box and point her dedication out as an example to everyone in the class. She wouldn’t have appreciated that, though, so I just told her I was proud of her. (And then told you all about it….)
<3
Fall 2020: Expanded and updated tools to scaffold independent and asynchronous work.
