By Tim Hickey July 18, 2016 —
“The
best way for a student to get out of difficulty is to go through it.” —Aristotle
“I
fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who
has practiced one kick 10,000 times.” —Bruce Lee
“Mastering
a skill requires a fair amount of focused practice. . . . It’s
not until students have practiced upwards of about 24 times that they reach
80-percent competency.” —Robert Marzano,
Debra Pickering, and Jane Pollack in Classroom
Instruction That Works (2001, p. 69)
“There
is a consistent progression to the lessons of . . . champion teachers. . . .
It’s best described as I/We/You. . . . Others use the terms direct instruction, guided practice, and independent
practice.” —Doug Lemov in Teach Like a Champion: 49 Techniques that Put Students on
the Path to College (2010, p. 71)
My
name is Tim Hickey. I teach math, and I give my students worksheets. In a way,
it feels like confessing a sin to say it. Modern edu-culture frowns on the
worksheet for its inability to engage students and its inauthentic,
out-of-context existence. And yet, the best teachers I know give their students
worksheets. Why? I would point to three reasons.
First, practicing math problems provides
students with the opportunity to improve their math skills. This simple, common
sense statement is rooted in historical pedagogical tradition (see Aristotle
quote above), evident in other arenas of life (see Bruce Lee), and supported by
leading educational researchers and authors (see Robert Marzano and his
colleagues as well as Doug Lemov). So I give worksheets. Let me be clear that students
need an overall balance between out-of-context practice and authentic, applied
problem solving. But the latter cannot happen without the former. I have
written in my past five blog posts here on the value of project-based learning
and integrating technology into the mathematics classroom, and I believe
passionately in the value of both to engage students and enrich their lives. But,
to use a basketball analogy, you’re more likely to make a free throw in a game
if you’ve spent hours doing it in practice.
Second, teachers are busy. We have a
perpetual list of a thousand things to do, and if we can get through a few hundred
in any given day, then the job is well done. That is just the reality of
teaching. Giving my students a worksheet gives me the chance to get through my
day with my sanity intact. Not every lesson can possibly be 3D printing and
real-world modeling, nor should it be. Giving worksheets every day is lazy;
however, giving them strategically is practical and pedagogically sound. We all
know that many teachers burn out early in their careers. If giving the
occasional worksheet allows a great teacher to stay in the classroom longer
than a handful of years, then that is a net win for students. I would note that
I have crafted some of my best future lessons on days when I have carved out
planning time for myself because I just gave a worksheet in class that day. The
long-term gain was worth the short-term expediency.
Third, practicing math problems fosters joy
and inspiration in students. Seriously. The better one is at math, the more fun
it becomes. To be sure, students can practice in a variety of ways. For
instance, the attached Black and Gold worksheet requires students to work
together on product rule and quotient rule. And I do believe that highlighting
to students the specific ways that they have improved their math skills (e.g., “You’ve
worked so hard at dividing fractions this year, and it’s really paying off!”)
is crucial, because fostering metacognition in students is key to developing
their growth mindset. But some form of practice for students is required in the
mathematics classroom.
Worksheets provide practice, practice leads
to improvement, and improvement is fun and inspiring. So go ahead and give that
worksheet. Your students will be just fine, and so will you.
Tim
Hickey is a Nationally Board Certified Teacher and the math department chair at
Monticello High School in Charlottesville, Virginia.