By
Susan Zielinski, posted August 29, 2016 —
Do you spend too much time gathering,
entering, and sharing homework grades? Would you like an easy way to see which
homework problems were confusing to your students and gather their questions? My
solution? Google forms!
After a few terms of collecting daily
homework grades in class, either on a paper grade sheet or using an app, I was
frustrated. Some days I forgot; some days I ran out of time; and every day, I
begrudged wasting class time collecting
grades. Because I have students self-grade and then revise their homework (the
subject of my last blog post), collecting homework was not an
option. Even worse, once I had the grades on paper, I was also wasting time entering
each homework individually into Canvas
(software) so my students could see their grades. Further, it was
ineffective to always be asking, “Which questions do you want to go over? Number
two? Anyone else want to see that one? Any others?” The vocal kids would lobby for
their problems, whether or not anyone else was interested, while their quieter classmates
would rarely get their questions answered.
So, in keeping with my goal of
students taking responsibility for their work, I created a short Google form
where students enter their daily self-grade, list the problems on which they
are are stuck, and ask questions. Completing the form takes students less than
two minutes, and they must submit their grade at least ten minutes before class
starts.
What a valuable ten minutes that is
for me! Before each class, I take a quick look at the data. On the basis of
that info, I might decide to review a common problem with the whole class, group
students who had the same question, pair a student with someone who can answer
the question, ask a student to present, talk to a student individually, or
simply move right along to the next topic if no one had questions. If a
student’s question doesn’t get answered in class, I follow up with an email. Overall,
more questions get answered more efficiently by more people.
I also use the Google form to ask
students if they want to present the “checkpoint” problem they were assigned as
a preview of the upcoming material. I choose a student who volunteered to
present. As an added bonus, I now have a record of who volunteered over the
year that I use as a proxy for “prepared for class.”
The
Details
When a student completes her
homework, she checks the answers in the back of the book or other source and
gives herself a grade. Then she goes to the Google form and enters her grade, any
of her incorrect solutions, and any questions she has. Next, through the magic
of Google and an add-in named RowCall (suggested by my colleague Melissa
Poole), her data is updated in a Google sheet and then published to her own
private web page. Now she can see exactly what she has submitted and what she
still needs to correct.
When students submit homework revisions,
I change their homework grade directly in the Google sheet and note the old
grade in a comment for tracking. At the end of the grading period, I use the
sheet to tally up their grades and make one entry in Canvas. Check out this system
for yourself, which is easier to use than to read about:
Daily
Submission Form
Google
Sheet with data
Susie’s
page (bookmarked once by
Susie so she can refer to it all year)
Susan Zielinski, szielinski@sps.edu,
teaches mathematics at St. Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire. She is
currently a doctoral student at Northeastern University,
researching collaboration and power sharing in the classroom, algebraic
misconceptions, and engaging assessments. Before her teaching career, she
served in the Air Force, worked as an industrial engineer, and homeschooled her
children. In her free time, she loves to travel, spend time in the woods, and
ballroom dance