Homework Tips
Here are a few tips to help your homework grades rise (and your test grades, too)!
1. Work in pencil. I mean it! Get yourself a good mechanical pencil and a click eraser. It is very frustrating to try to do math with a dull pencil or with a pencil that has a tiny eraser. Worst of all is to try to work in ink! Even college professors do not do their math in ink! You need to be able to erase. You will find it very difficult to write anything down if you first have to be sure it is correct because it can't be erased. Writing in ink causes a mental block. Writing in pencil allows you to make mistakes (and fix them). Also, the click eraser lasts a long time and, because it is a gum eraser, it erases very cleanly without smudging your paper.
2. Put your header on your paper. For our class, you should have your name, the date, your class period, and the assignment written in the top-right portion of the page.
3. Copy the instructions. A common problem for math students from elementary school to college is that they memorize methods of completing problems but fail to memorize when to use each method. In algebra, especially, you cannot tell what to do to a problem by the way it looks. There might be three or four different instructions for the same type of equation. Instructions matter.
4. Copy the original problem. Half of the battle in algebra is knowing how to set a problem up. Working a problem that is already set up is completely different from setting it up yourself. Remember that your homework is your study sheet. It will be most helpful to you later to spend a couple of minutes writing the original problem.
5. Show your work. It may be easy to you now, but will it still be clear six weeks from now? Remember that there is a nine-weeks test coming up! And again, you will not get full credit for most types of problems without justifying your answer.
6. Work neatly and DO NOT try to save paper. I'm not saying you should be wasteful, but lay your work out with readability in mind, not paper economy. I’m all for saving paper but sometimes math calls for you to use quite a bit.
7. If you are stuck, look back in your notes for a similar example. That's what your notes are for, but a lot of people just give up. Also, look in your text book for help. Think about what the problem is asking you. Use everything you know, not just what you learned in class that day. If you are still really stuck, then do as much work as you can, and then write down why you think your answer is wrong (or why you are stuck). DO NOT ERASE AND LEAVE IT BLANK JUST BECAUSE YOU KNOW IT IS WRONG. Put a question mark in the margin so that you will remember which problem gave you trouble so you can ask the teacher about it. Your teacher would rather see your wrong answers than nothing. Since your homework grade in my class is based on completion, you need to be able to show some work (even if it is wrong) in order to get full credit. The worst thing you could do is write nothing.
8. When you get your paper back, file it in your notebook. Keep your returned homework and quizzes & tests in order by date in separate tabs in your notebook. This is a huge help at test time, and it will save you a lot more time than you spend on it.
