Homework

(light guitar music) (students softly talking) Couldn't have said it any better myself, that's great. [Ryan] I teach here in Anaheim, California. This is Anaheim High School. This year I'm teaching Math 3, 4 Honors, which are freshman. and my top goal for students in my class is to enjoy learning and to not see school as something that they just have to do, but to see school as something that's helping them get the life that they wanna get. When I started teaching around 2006, and I would give students homework, and I would do the best I could. I would teach them in class, we would do our activities, I would assign them either a worksheet or problems from the book. And then, I would have to spend an enormous amount of time going over the homework. "Oh, did anybody miss problem number three?" Then, I would have to work out problem number three on the board for them. And, maybe half the class got problem number three right so they're bored because they didn't have that question. But, then if I moved on too fast, I'd be leaving out the student that did struggle. So, I was always trying to decide how can I assess student practice outside the classroom. Now, as Khan Academy has expanded, it has problems mapped to pretty much every standard that I cover during class, and I know that I can trust those problems to be good, rich problems. I like it way better than regular homework that I've had in the past because, if I get a worksheet, sometimes teachers don't check if you do it right. they just checked that you turned it in. And, with Khan Academy, you get immediate feedback if you did something wrong or right. [Ryan] I usually make my assignments due on Sunday night, which gives students the entire week to work on it. Maybe, after the second day that they've had a chance with it, I'll pull the assignment up on my projector and then I can work out a problem as an example in class. About three assignments per week pretty much seems to be appropriate depending on the level of your class. (light background music) (Ryan teaching) Not only do I see their score, but I also can see how many times that they have tried an assignment. So, I could look at my class roster and see, I have this student that tried 20 times on an assignment. If that's happening, then to me, I feel I need to really intervene for that student and see what the misconception is. You get unlimited amounts of tries to do it. So, like, if you get one wrong, you don't get punished for it. All you have to do is redo it and try to do it again, but better. And also, the questions aren't just the same ones over and over, you get different ones. [Ryan] I personally put the Khan Academy assignments into our gradebook, strictly on the score that they get. So if it's a four question assignment, and they get three out of four, I will put a three out of four in the gradebook. I also give students the opportunity to go back and try again, and I will adjust their score if they've shown that they can master it, even if it's at a later date. So, always leaving that window for growth open to students is very helpful. Wow! Good job! I think it's Khan Academy and Mr. Kyle. He and the website just make my learning better and other students' learning better. I know that they are getting the most out of their time. (music plays)