In my last post I spoke about my disappointment with homework. As a partial solution, I have changed my HW policy (at least for now). Now, students will receive 5 "free" points just for doing their homework (it has always been 10). The other five points will now come checking the answers for two questions that I consider relatively basic--pulling information from the reading that students at this level should be able to do. Each of those questions is worth 2.5 points. Any student who gets 10 points for their HW will also get part of the OWLSbuck pot for that day, which is now set at 20 OB. So, if only one student gets 10, she will get all 20 OB's.
My hope is that the level of motivation will rise. With Mrs. Nolan's help in class, we can check these problems relatively easily, students can know their HW score right away, and perhaps the level of concentration will increase. Honestly, I think some students just write whatever for these answers, knowing that credit is for completion only. So, the student who wrote "coconuts" for the total amount of power spent lifting a 10,000 N box 10 meters in 2 seconds got the same credit as the student who knew the answer was 50,000 watts.
Simple machines is almost done and then we are on to energy. The test is Friday--students should be studying now! The test is online and ready to go. Check it out.
Sweet justice.
