In Class Assignments

Today's class activities reminded me of the value in and usage of in-class assignments or points.  Today two of my classes watched a video at the end of class and instead of completing a worksheet related to the lesson for the day I decided to simply show a related video and ask students to reflect on five things they learned.  It is a really simple assignment that is done fairly quickly, but allows the students to get in some very important learning from the video that requires them to pay attention or miss the information they will need to complete the assignment.  It also quickly shows me who is paying attention or not and who can synthesize information from videos and who struggles.  These are quick grading items for me as well.  I am not so much concern with looking for right and wrong answers as much as who is paying attention, following instructions, and putting effort into their writing skills.

Completing this with two of my classes today actually inspired me to use the concept of in-class points for work with two of my other classes.  It was a review day for the 7th grade before their test tomorrow.  Normally on review day we go over my expectations for the essay questions and then I give them time to either play online review games I have set up through www.quia.com or to use their study guide.  The study guide is not usually a popular item, because the games are more fun and contain actual test questions, but today I had students study for half the period with their study guide and gave points to those that showed me they worked (written work on essays or definitions) before allowing them game time.  I will be anxious to see if I see some improved effort on the essays simply because of the time some of them spent with looking at the essays versus their normal aversion to preparation for them.

Sometimes I feel like I place too much emphasis on out of class assignments, projects, or just maybe too many worksheets in general. I need to understand that sometimes giving small in-class assignments can be just as beneficial or valuable as the ones I have students do outside of the classroom.