I love the idea of the homework agenda. I tried passing out papers and filing them but it was to time consuming. If students are allowed to take the packet back and forth every day what keeps them from sharing their answers to other students from another class period throughout the day? I love that you can put notes/reminders at the bottom of the agenda page.

Hi Alyssa! Yes, check out this blog post for more ideas and a sample: https://www.maneuveringthemiddle.com/math-homework/

Hi Briana! I didn’t assign homework on Fridays, and really tried to plan for a cooperative learning activity if possible. This way we could practice what we did all week.

Yes, I really tried to be generous and would give points for showing work/effort, to make the grading scale easy. Thanks!

I would suggest to monitor and ask them to have a cleaned off desk if they did not have their assignment. Thanks!

Great ideas! Love that!

Yes! Well actually, I would copy it all together or if it was out of a text book, they would staple their work.

We always had school policies for the amount of credit a student could earn, so I would follow that for credit. As far as actually collecting and grading, I did the following:
1. If it was late, I didn’t sign their assignment sheet. Instead I wrote late.
2. They had until Friday, when I collected the assignment sheet and homework to complete it.
3. On Friday, I would collect everything complete or not, and put grades in the grade book. Then, I would send an email to parents letting them know. Usually, kids would then be motivated to come to tutoring to complete any missing grades. I tried to not take any papers other than the Assignment Sheet and its corresponding work.

Yes, it depended on the school policy but I would typically drop the lowest homework grade at the end of the grading period. If a student is willing to come in and work on their assignment (redo, a new one, etc), then I was always thrilled and would replace the grade! We want kids to learn from their mistakes. 🙂

I have heard that from other teachers. You could have them check their own, too.

The small numbers in the corner were used for an incentive. This photo is from a state assessment prep and I used various points for incentives to keep working!

Hi Tanya! In my example, there were eight problems but I only counted each as being worth ten points. That would be twenty points left over for trying/showing work/etc. As for marking it, each problem incorrect would be ten points off. Hope that helps. You could have either the student self grade or do a trade and grade method, whichever you felt more comfortable with.

Hi Alysia! I use the initials box to sign or stamp that it was complete before we graded it. I think you could have the student grading do that, but then you wouldn’t have a good grasp on how kids were doing throughout the week. I really liked going around at the beginning of class and touching base with students/seeing who needed extra help. Yes, I took off points for turing it in late. We had a standard policy on our campus that I followed. Also, by not having initials, it was by default late because it didn’t get checked when I came around. This section of my gradebook was during review for state testing, so the 1’s and 2’s were a little incentive I was running in my classroom. Review can be so boring and tedious, so I tried to spice it up with a sticker/point system for effort and making improvement. Hope this helps!

Do you take off points for students not having an assignment done by the time Friday rolls around? Also, what does the small 1’s and 2’s in the corner of your gradebook mean?

Hi Heather! Yes, I have students turn in their work with the agenda. If it was a handout/worksheet I provided, I just set the copier to staple it to the back. If it was something out of a text book, they would staple it to the agenda. Hope that helps!

So do you have students turn in all the papers on friday as well or just the agenda? How do you spot check if you only collect the agenda?

Hi Lisa, thanks for the question. You make a great point about students wanting to write a better grade than they earned. The first few weeks, I really talk about what it means to be honest and check over their shoulders. As I walk around to check I will make sure everyone is marking their assignment correctly. I even will flip through what has been turned in on Fridays and double check or “spot” check. After several years of doing this, I can only count a handful of times when I had to deal with a situation. You would be surprised! Yes, I tried to make everything easy to grade as well as giving points for effort, especially if the assignment was difficult. Hope that helps!