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What Are Some Interesting Facts About the Number Six?
The number six is the smallest perfect number. That means that it is the first number where the sum of its factors equals the number. The factors of the number six are one, two and three. The sum of one, two and three is six. The product of one two and three is also six.
Six is the first congruent number, which means it is an integer that is the area of a right triangle where all the sides are rational numbers. Three, four and five are lengths of a right triangle. The area of a triangle is one-half base times height, which is three times four, which equals 12, and 12 divided by two is six. The product of any three consecutive numbers is evenly divisible by six. Six is also a triangular number, meaning that six objects can be arranged into an equilateral triangle.
Six is the fewest number of colors necessary to color a map on a mobius strip without the colors touching. In addition, six circles, placed touching each other on a circle, all touch the circumference of a circle between them without overlapping. Six is also the highest number on a standard six-sided die, the most common type of die.
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How Do I Create Meaningful and Effective Assignments?
Prepared by allison boye, ph.d. teaching, learning, and professional development center.
Assessment is a necessary part of the teaching and learning process, helping us measure whether our students have really learned what we want them to learn. While exams and quizzes are certainly favorite and useful methods of assessment, out of class assignments (written or otherwise) can offer similar insights into our students' learning. And just as creating a reliable test takes thoughtfulness and skill, so does creating meaningful and effective assignments. Undoubtedly, many instructors have been on the receiving end of disappointing student work, left wondering what went wrong… and often, those problems can be remedied in the future by some simple fine-tuning of the original assignment. This paper will take a look at some important elements to consider when developing assignments, and offer some easy approaches to creating a valuable assessment experience for all involved.
First Things First…
Before assigning any major tasks to students, it is imperative that you first define a few things for yourself as the instructor:
- Your goals for the assignment . Why are you assigning this project, and what do you hope your students will gain from completing it? What knowledge, skills, and abilities do you aim to measure with this assignment? Creating assignments is a major part of overall course design, and every project you assign should clearly align with your goals for the course in general. For instance, if you want your students to demonstrate critical thinking, perhaps asking them to simply summarize an article is not the best match for that goal; a more appropriate option might be to ask for an analysis of a controversial issue in the discipline. Ultimately, the connection between the assignment and its purpose should be clear to both you and your students to ensure that it is fulfilling the desired goals and doesn't seem like “busy work.” For some ideas about what kinds of assignments match certain learning goals, take a look at this page from DePaul University's Teaching Commons.
- Have they experienced “socialization” in the culture of your discipline (Flaxman, 2005)? Are they familiar with any conventions you might want them to know? In other words, do they know the “language” of your discipline, generally accepted style guidelines, or research protocols?
- Do they know how to conduct research? Do they know the proper style format, documentation style, acceptable resources, etc.? Do they know how to use the library (Fitzpatrick, 1989) or evaluate resources?
- What kinds of writing or work have they previously engaged in? For instance, have they completed long, formal writing assignments or research projects before? Have they ever engaged in analysis, reflection, or argumentation? Have they completed group assignments before? Do they know how to write a literature review or scientific report?
In his book Engaging Ideas (1996), John Bean provides a great list of questions to help instructors focus on their main teaching goals when creating an assignment (p.78):
1. What are the main units/modules in my course?
2. What are my main learning objectives for each module and for the course?
3. What thinking skills am I trying to develop within each unit and throughout the course?
4. What are the most difficult aspects of my course for students?
5. If I could change my students' study habits, what would I most like to change?
6. What difference do I want my course to make in my students' lives?
What your students need to know
Once you have determined your own goals for the assignment and the levels of your students, you can begin creating your assignment. However, when introducing your assignment to your students, there are several things you will need to clearly outline for them in order to ensure the most successful assignments possible.
- First, you will need to articulate the purpose of the assignment . Even though you know why the assignment is important and what it is meant to accomplish, you cannot assume that your students will intuit that purpose. Your students will appreciate an understanding of how the assignment fits into the larger goals of the course and what they will learn from the process (Hass & Osborn, 2007). Being transparent with your students and explaining why you are asking them to complete a given assignment can ultimately help motivate them to complete the assignment more thoughtfully.
- If you are asking your students to complete a writing assignment, you should define for them the “rhetorical or cognitive mode/s” you want them to employ in their writing (Flaxman, 2005). In other words, use precise verbs that communicate whether you are asking them to analyze, argue, describe, inform, etc. (Verbs like “explore” or “comment on” can be too vague and cause confusion.) Provide them with a specific task to complete, such as a problem to solve, a question to answer, or an argument to support. For those who want assignments to lead to top-down, thesis-driven writing, John Bean (1996) suggests presenting a proposition that students must defend or refute, or a problem that demands a thesis answer.
- It is also a good idea to define the audience you want your students to address with their assignment, if possible – especially with writing assignments. Otherwise, students will address only the instructor, often assuming little requires explanation or development (Hedengren, 2004; MIT, 1999). Further, asking students to address the instructor, who typically knows more about the topic than the student, places the student in an unnatural rhetorical position. Instead, you might consider asking your students to prepare their assignments for alternative audiences such as other students who missed last week's classes, a group that opposes their position, or people reading a popular magazine or newspaper. In fact, a study by Bean (1996) indicated the students often appreciate and enjoy assignments that vary elements such as audience or rhetorical context, so don't be afraid to get creative!
- Obviously, you will also need to articulate clearly the logistics or “business aspects” of the assignment . In other words, be explicit with your students about required elements such as the format, length, documentation style, writing style (formal or informal?), and deadlines. One caveat, however: do not allow the logistics of the paper take precedence over the content in your assignment description; if you spend all of your time describing these things, students might suspect that is all you care about in their execution of the assignment.
- Finally, you should clarify your evaluation criteria for the assignment. What elements of content are most important? Will you grade holistically or weight features separately? How much weight will be given to individual elements, etc? Another precaution to take when defining requirements for your students is to take care that your instructions and rubric also do not overshadow the content; prescribing too rigidly each element of an assignment can limit students' freedom to explore and discover. According to Beth Finch Hedengren, “A good assignment provides the purpose and guidelines… without dictating exactly what to say” (2004, p. 27). If you decide to utilize a grading rubric, be sure to provide that to the students along with the assignment description, prior to their completion of the assignment.
A great way to get students engaged with an assignment and build buy-in is to encourage their collaboration on its design and/or on the grading criteria (Hudd, 2003). In his article “Conducting Writing Assignments,” Richard Leahy (2002) offers a few ideas for building in said collaboration:
• Ask the students to develop the grading scale themselves from scratch, starting with choosing the categories.
• Set the grading categories yourself, but ask the students to help write the descriptions.
• Draft the complete grading scale yourself, then give it to your students for review and suggestions.
A Few Do's and Don'ts…
Determining your goals for the assignment and its essential logistics is a good start to creating an effective assignment. However, there are a few more simple factors to consider in your final design. First, here are a few things you should do :
- Do provide detail in your assignment description . Research has shown that students frequently prefer some guiding constraints when completing assignments (Bean, 1996), and that more detail (within reason) can lead to more successful student responses. One idea is to provide students with physical assignment handouts , in addition to or instead of a simple description in a syllabus. This can meet the needs of concrete learners and give them something tangible to refer to. Likewise, it is often beneficial to make explicit for students the process or steps necessary to complete an assignment, given that students – especially younger ones – might need guidance in planning and time management (MIT, 1999).
- Do use open-ended questions. The most effective and challenging assignments focus on questions that lead students to thinking and explaining, rather than simple yes or no answers, whether explicitly part of the assignment description or in the brainstorming heuristics (Gardner, 2005).
- Do direct students to appropriate available resources . Giving students pointers about other venues for assistance can help them get started on the right track independently. These kinds of suggestions might include information about campus resources such as the University Writing Center or discipline-specific librarians, suggesting specific journals or books, or even sections of their textbook, or providing them with lists of research ideas or links to acceptable websites.
- Do consider providing models – both successful and unsuccessful models (Miller, 2007). These models could be provided by past students, or models you have created yourself. You could even ask students to evaluate the models themselves using the determined evaluation criteria, helping them to visualize the final product, think critically about how to complete the assignment, and ideally, recognize success in their own work.
- Do consider including a way for students to make the assignment their own. In their study, Hass and Osborn (2007) confirmed the importance of personal engagement for students when completing an assignment. Indeed, students will be more engaged in an assignment if it is personally meaningful, practical, or purposeful beyond the classroom. You might think of ways to encourage students to tap into their own experiences or curiosities, to solve or explore a real problem, or connect to the larger community. Offering variety in assignment selection can also help students feel more individualized, creative, and in control.
- If your assignment is substantial or long, do consider sequencing it. Far too often, assignments are given as one-shot final products that receive grades at the end of the semester, eternally abandoned by the student. By sequencing a large assignment, or essentially breaking it down into a systematic approach consisting of interconnected smaller elements (such as a project proposal, an annotated bibliography, or a rough draft, or a series of mini-assignments related to the longer assignment), you can encourage thoughtfulness, complexity, and thoroughness in your students, as well as emphasize process over final product.
Next are a few elements to avoid in your assignments:
- Do not ask too many questions in your assignment. In an effort to challenge students, instructors often err in the other direction, asking more questions than students can reasonably address in a single assignment without losing focus. Offering an overly specific “checklist” prompt often leads to externally organized papers, in which inexperienced students “slavishly follow the checklist instead of integrating their ideas into more organically-discovered structure” (Flaxman, 2005).
- Do not expect or suggest that there is an “ideal” response to the assignment. A common error for instructors is to dictate content of an assignment too rigidly, or to imply that there is a single correct response or a specific conclusion to reach, either explicitly or implicitly (Flaxman, 2005). Undoubtedly, students do not appreciate feeling as if they must read an instructor's mind to complete an assignment successfully, or that their own ideas have nowhere to go, and can lose motivation as a result. Similarly, avoid assignments that simply ask for regurgitation (Miller, 2007). Again, the best assignments invite students to engage in critical thinking, not just reproduce lectures or readings.
- Do not provide vague or confusing commands . Do students know what you mean when they are asked to “examine” or “discuss” a topic? Return to what you determined about your students' experiences and levels to help you decide what directions will make the most sense to them and what will require more explanation or guidance, and avoid verbiage that might confound them.
- Do not impose impossible time restraints or require the use of insufficient resources for completion of the assignment. For instance, if you are asking all of your students to use the same resource, ensure that there are enough copies available for all students to access – or at least put one copy on reserve in the library. Likewise, make sure that you are providing your students with ample time to locate resources and effectively complete the assignment (Fitzpatrick, 1989).
The assignments we give to students don't simply have to be research papers or reports. There are many options for effective yet creative ways to assess your students' learning! Here are just a few:
Journals, Posters, Portfolios, Letters, Brochures, Management plans, Editorials, Instruction Manuals, Imitations of a text, Case studies, Debates, News release, Dialogues, Videos, Collages, Plays, Power Point presentations
Ultimately, the success of student responses to an assignment often rests on the instructor's deliberate design of the assignment. By being purposeful and thoughtful from the beginning, you can ensure that your assignments will not only serve as effective assessment methods, but also engage and delight your students. If you would like further help in constructing or revising an assignment, the Teaching, Learning, and Professional Development Center is glad to offer individual consultations. In addition, look into some of the resources provided below.
Online Resources
“Creating Effective Assignments” http://www.unh.edu/teaching-excellence/resources/Assignments.htm This site, from the University of New Hampshire's Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, provides a brief overview of effective assignment design, with a focus on determining and communicating goals and expectations.
Gardner, T. (2005, June 12). Ten Tips for Designing Writing Assignments. Traci's Lists of Ten. http://www.tengrrl.com/tens/034.shtml This is a brief yet useful list of tips for assignment design, prepared by a writing teacher and curriculum developer for the National Council of Teachers of English . The website will also link you to several other lists of “ten tips” related to literacy pedagogy.
“How to Create Effective Assignments for College Students.” http:// tilt.colostate.edu/retreat/2011/zimmerman.pdf This PDF is a simplified bulleted list, prepared by Dr. Toni Zimmerman from Colorado State University, offering some helpful ideas for coming up with creative assignments.
“Learner-Centered Assessment” http://cte.uwaterloo.ca/teaching_resources/tips/learner_centered_assessment.html From the Centre for Teaching Excellence at the University of Waterloo, this is a short list of suggestions for the process of designing an assessment with your students' interests in mind. “Matching Learning Goals to Assignment Types.” http://teachingcommons.depaul.edu/How_to/design_assignments/assignments_learning_goals.html This is a great page from DePaul University's Teaching Commons, providing a chart that helps instructors match assignments with learning goals.
Additional References Bean, J.C. (1996). Engaging ideas: The professor's guide to integrating writing, critical thinking, and active learning in the classroom . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Fitzpatrick, R. (1989). Research and writing assignments that reduce fear lead to better papers and more confident students. Writing Across the Curriculum , 3.2, pp. 15 – 24.
Flaxman, R. (2005). Creating meaningful writing assignments. The Teaching Exchange . Retrieved Jan. 9, 2008 from http://www.brown.edu/Administration/Sheridan_Center/pubs/teachingExchange/jan2005/01_flaxman.pdf
Hass, M. & Osborn, J. (2007, August 13). An emic view of student writing and the writing process. Across the Disciplines, 4.
Hedengren, B.F. (2004). A TA's guide to teaching writing in all disciplines . Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's.
Hudd, S. S. (2003, April). Syllabus under construction: Involving students in the creation of class assignments. Teaching Sociology , 31, pp. 195 – 202.
Leahy, R. (2002). Conducting writing assignments. College Teaching , 50.2, pp. 50 – 54.
Miller, H. (2007). Designing effective writing assignments. Teaching with writing . University of Minnesota Center for Writing. Retrieved Jan. 9, 2008, from http://writing.umn.edu/tww/assignments/designing.html
MIT Online Writing and Communication Center (1999). Creating Writing Assignments. Retrieved January 9, 2008 from http://web.mit.edu/writing/Faculty/createeffective.html .
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How to make homework fun: 7 tried and tested strategies.
Some people may find work left for them to do at home a bit difficult or even tiresome. There are many reasons that can lead to this. Especially for the students who are given school work to go and finish up by their teachers. There are various things that can lead to them not doing the work as expected. Research conducted shows that there are different ways of making that homework fun when doing it.
Introducing incentives
Starting with a warm up, making it a routine, creating an accommodating work place, doing it in a group/family, getting help when stuck, have an organized system.
It is known for many people to like getting rewarded for work done. You should not be predictable but at one point or the other parents and teachers can decide to reward those who do their work. This will make others want to do their homework for they know by the end of the day they are going to get something hence finding it fun.
When you got some work to do at home it is advisable always to start with a warm up this will make you set your mind on the work that you are about to do and even find it taking up less effort than you expected.
It is important to make your daily work a routine. This will enable you get used to it to the point where you will find the work not getting you into a lot of trouble.
Before you start your work it is always good to create a sweet work place. This will enable you enjoy the work even more. For example if it involves things like cleaning the house ensure you put the air conditioners on to avoid sweating that will give you an unpleasant feeling.
As they say many hands make work easier, division of tasks or even bringing your heads together will not only make your work fun but even ease it. You may also be advised to get assistance from this company.
When you realize you are stuck, it is advisable to get help. This will enable you to find a way forward or even help you learn from the mistake that led you into that.
Planning is key to every aspect of success. If you want to have an easier time with your work, plan well in advance for it.
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One More Tip
It is important to review the reading assignments which are not directly assigned in class, to take notes each class period, and study for roughly two hours outside of the classroom setting for each hour spent in the classroom setting.
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How To Complete Your Homework Assignment In A Fun Way
While doing homework is a necessary part of your academic studies, it doesn't mean you can’t find ways of making the activity an enjoyable one. This can be accomplished in various ways and you also have a long history of bored students to assist you with good ideas from which you can build on as well.
The main goal at the end should be the proper completion of your assignments, to accomplish this you can make use of various tools to assist you. At the same time, you can also choose from various methods and schemes of activity that suits your personal tastes. The following is a list of ideas that can help make completing your assignments more than just a chore:
- Form a peer group or work with friends
Working with friends is an easy way of making your assignments an enjoyable and productive experience. Ask your classmates to join you in forming a study group or join an existing one if available.
- Make use of animated educational videos
There are many animated and graphical videos discussing difficult academic topics and principles. These can usually be found for free viewing on just about every popular streaming website. Visit any of these sites and use the search bar to search for your desired topic, you will find many videos providing interesting demonstrations and explanations of academic topics.
- Create quiz cards to help with revision later on
Most teachers structure assignment content to aid students study for their final exams. You could give yourself the project of creating quiz cards to help you study as you proceed through your homework. Creating a short checklist can also be quite useful in giving yourself a way to assess your progress as you work.
- Give yourself time challenges
Instead of dragging through your assignments, challenge yourself to complete them as fast as you can. One problem many students experience while conducting their studies is not lack of understanding, but lack of interest. Make your assignments more challenging by giving yourself time limits to beat and improve upon.
- Alternate between set periods of work and relaxation
Working for long hours can cause serious mental strain, especially after spending all day at school studying. Separate your assignments into smaller modules and work on each one separately, with breaks in between. This will help reduce the monotony of completing homework and improve your efficiency.
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28 Ideas On How To Make Homework Fun For Students
Do your children seem to need continual nagging to complete their homework? If your answer is “yes,” then don’t worry; we’ve all been there. Parents naturally want their kids to advance and do well in class, but after a full day of paper, pens, and books, many students won’t feel like doing their assignments.
No matter what the ages or grades of the students are, academic burnout may happen to any student, which affects overall learning and development. To solve this issue, we have brought 28 ideas on how to make homework fun and interesting for students of any age. Not only for parents but also if you are a tutor, these tricks and tips will come to your use.
28 Ideas on How To Make Homework Fun for Students
Homework enables the students to revise and evaluate the classroom learning and develops a habit of self-study, which in turn helps the students to score better. But it can be energy-draining, challenging, monotonous, and difficult to focus upon for students of any age.
Getting students to enjoy their homework and assignments could be immensely difficult at times. Especially after a long break or vacation, they find it difficult to focus on homework. Simultaneously, the importance of home tasks cannot be ignored. Wondering what the solution is?
It’s easy – why not make the homework fun and engaging? Yes, this is the ALL-IN-ONE solution to create a spark of interest in homework. There is practically a plethora of ways to let students feel enthusiastic while doing homework. However, not every strategy suits every student.
For instance, some students love to go outdoors and complete their homework or study amidst nature. On the other hand, some students simply want to stay indoors and complete home tasks in their study area.
So, while implementing a strategy or adopting ways to make homework fun and interesting, you must make sure you are doing the right thing for the right individual so that the student receives maximum benefits.
Here are 28 brilliant ideas that will guide you on how to make homework fun for elementary, middle, and high schoolers. Take a look:
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1. rewards are magical motivators.
It’s nothing new to provide children with little rewards in the classroom. But when it comes to the concept of homework for students, these approaches are rarely used. Instructors aren’t always aware of what’s offered or if it’s useful, and some parents may create their rewards. A great idea is to offer rewards inside the classroom.
Giving out vouchers, stickers, snacks, toys, or meal coupons that let youngsters earn money by doing their homework is something we advocate. The advantages of these magical motivators include having a friend sitting next to you in class, access to the internet, and unscheduled time in the classroom. If they link accomplishing their tasks to positive classroom experiences, students will be more engaged and motivated both inside and outside of the classroom.
2. Get Some Favorite Snacks
How to make homework fun and captivating? Let’s face the truth: A hungry student will be disinterested, uninspired, and miserable. Give them something healthful and palpable to eat while they do their schoolwork because most young kids are ravenous when they get home from school. Some options are apple slices, popcorn, grapes, crackers, flapjacks, and cheese.
If you want to attempt something a little more systematic, make a list of nutritious after-school snack suggestions and recipes and try them out every day. A delicious, crunchy apple is one of the healthiest nutrients for youngsters’ brain development. Some other nutritious and palpable snacks for students are Pancakes, Butter Popcorn, Fruit-flavored Yogurt, nut mix, sliced pears with ricotta cheese, Banana Smoothies, etc.
3. Beat the Clock
This is perfect for young kids who are reluctant to complete their schoolwork. Try it out, and you’ll thank us later. Young children like competing in races. By creating timed tasks, you may make schoolwork feel more like a race. For instance, keep track of the number of words they can spell properly or the number of arithmetic problems they can do in five minutes. Challenge your child to beat their previous best the next day.
To make it more fun, a little competition with siblings or best friends will work great. Nevertheless, make sure that the competition is healthy and doesn’t turn into an aggressive one. Often, students’ psychology works differently, and they tend to be violent in these kinds of situations.
4. Get A Homework Buddy
Allow your child to have a buddy or two over to study if they struggle with a particular topic or have difficulties concentrating in a quiet, empty room. If a second child is too distracting, set an example by helping your youngster. You may pay bills, prepare supper, respond to emails, or even work on a crossword puzzle or other mental exercise while they are doing their schoolwork.
Working on homework teaches children that work is a part of life, not just school, and fosters friendship without being overpowering.
5. Design an Awesome Workspace
Improve the area where your kids complete their schoolwork to increase efficiency, creativity, and problem-solving abilities. Have tools and materials available, such as cool notepads or notebooks, colored pens, highlighters, and sticky notes, to assist students in completing difficult projects.
Use calendars, whiteboards, chalkboards, corkboards, or even simply paper and tape to help them visualize and keep track of all they need to complete. You may also decorate it with art and other items that inspire you. For pupils older than 5 years old, you may also hang up some aesthetically pleasing motivating quotations and photos in their study space to help them stay focused and goal-oriented.
6. Make Them Feel Comfortable
The comfort level of the students is the first and foremost thing you have to take care of while making them complete their homework. Not every learner has the same comfort level in the same ways, and these levels tend to differ from one person to another. It’s the responsibility of a parent or a teacher to understand their comfort zone and then plan accordingly.
For instance, provide them with a variety of alternatives or let them design their strategy. You might also inquire as to what time they like to complete their assignment. You won’t need to repeatedly remind people of their duties if you reach an agreement.
7. Incorporate Intervals and Breaks
Some learners might be able to finish their entire load of homework in one sitting. If your class has any pupils that can’t sit still, think about introducing breaks into the assignment process. Weekly study regimens can accommodate breaks.
Give a food break, allow them to complete one level of a video game, or let them talk to a buddy during a quick break. To establish expectations for when and how homework breaks should be taken, teachers might talk about these concepts with parents and students.
This functions in two main ways. It first rewards pupils for finishing their schoolwork. In addition, it gives them a mental break so they can come back to their job reenergized and motivated.
8. Role Plays Work Wonders
Create your little school and let your youngster take the role of the instructor to make enjoyable learning-based games. Assume the position of the student, and have your youngster explain a concept to you in the teacher’s role. This game will help players better comprehend the topic and develop their logical and reasoning abilities. It works especially well with courses that call for theory, like science.
By letting your kid pick their favorite stuffed animals and playthings and placing them in their little classroom, you can make schoolwork enjoyable. Begin by registering, saying “mummy,” “gift,” “Mr. Teddy,” etc. Since kids love to pretend to be teachers, you’ll soon notice that your kid is becoming more self-assured.
9. Make Them Stay Positive and Focused
Ensure to keep the students’ attitudes toward school and the values of their schoolwork are always positive. To keep them inspired and on track, shower your youngster with compliments on how great they’re doing. If they are getting pissed off with the pressure of homework, make them understand its importance and how positively it can impact their learning.
Spend five minutes after each homework session going over your child’s accomplishments. Have a look at our selection of free-to-download home learning packs if you’re out of things to do. To keep them motivated, you can reward or recognize their achievements in front of their peers. This will not only boost their confidence but also will help them maintain a positive outlook toward homework and studies.
10. Take It Outside
Outdoor learning is one of the most feasible ways to do homework with fun in a natural environment. If the weather is good, create a cozy and safe study space outside and let the student finish all the homework outdoors.
Studies also demonstrate that being outside, nearer to nature enhances productivity. The fresh air can aid students’ attention if they have spent the entire day in a classroom. In between jobs, rewarding them with a brief game of football or Frisbee will keep them engaged. You can conduct some fun outdoor Math or English fun homework activities.
11. Altering the homework concept
Many kids feel burdened by their homework assignments. What if, though, you adopt a whole new approach to homework? It can be argued that schoolwork has a lot of unfavorable associations. These concepts usually start early in life and persist into college.
By referring to assignments in different ways, teachers can change these mental habits. Better ways to describe homework include home learning, brain workouts, and study time. You might try using these phrases in place of homework in the classroom.
12. Get Help If You Need
Homework can be frustrating if your child doesn’t understand the material or gets bored easily. Furthermore, excessive pressurizing or insisting on too much can mess up the student’s psychology. To be honest, in extreme cases, none of the methods will work. If your child or student is struggling beyond the normal limit, get them some expert help!
Education Advisors have plenty of advice for students who are not able to cope with homework. They also conduct counseling sessions from time to time in case it’s required.
13. Go for Audio-Visual Resources
Engaging additional senses in the at-home learning process is another technique to cheer up your boring assignments. Focus may be improved by using a child’s perception of touch, smell, or taste in a unique manner.
Sending kids home with instructions for making scented play dough, for instance, improve learning. The dough may be used in classes including math and spatial concepts. Plus, the aroma of scented/colored clays keeps kids focused while they work. Additionally, it enables children to link the smell to what they learned, improving memory and recall.
Another item that teachers might give their pupils as a take-home is a stress ball. Before, during, or after tasks, using a stress ball can encourage creative thinking and anxiety reduction positively.
14. Meditation Can Reduce Stress
Stress is not something that happens only to adults. With the increased competition in academics, young learners nowadays are suffering from severe stress, which ushers’ negative impacts on their mental health. Sometimes, both the little children and older students can’t express this stress and fail to explain how they are feeling.
Homework pressure often creates such challenging situations which disrupt the emotional equilibrium of youngsters. In situations like this, meditation can reduce stress and improve focus. Positive thinking, fear and the tension and anxiety that lead to depression may all be lessened by meditation. Being aware without judgment is one of the foundational elements of meditation, and this attitude of acceptance may ward against unpleasant thoughts.
15. Make It a Group Effort
Since time immemorial, team working is super effective for any activity. The same applies to homework as well. If students sit for the home task in a group, they will be able to wrap all the assignments up quickly.
Now the question is – how? Teamwork involves group discussions as well as brainstorming, which gives rise to new ideas. Students try to develop new ways to complete homework through mutual discussion.
16. Take Help from Learning Apps and Libraries
If your child struggles with their homework, it can be difficult for you as well. Games and visual examples in amusing math practice applications may be a terrific way to give your youngster practice with things he is having trouble with. Therefore, make schoolwork enjoyable for your youngster by downloading an app that simplifies the subject.
There are so many online applications and libraries that will help students enjoy fun and encouraging homework sessions. If the toddler or an older student specifically refers to a particular app or a website, talk to him/her about it properly. Then visit the online resource, and if you think it is a legit and helpful one, let your child or student use it during his/her homework time.
17. Tell Them Not to Take It Too Seriously
There are more important things in life than homework and grades. Too much focus on grades can affect your child’s love for learning. Think about what values you want to instill in your child and make sure the homework is not getting in the way.
If you believe your child’s teacher is giving out too much homework after you see your child demonstrate an understanding of the subject, don’t be afraid to voice your concern. Even if nothing changes, it will show your children that you care and empathize with them. That matters a lot!
18. Storytelling Can Be a Great Idea
Storytelling is a fantastic idea to make children complete their homework without facing any boredom. Especially for specific subjects like Math, History, and Literature, storytelling develops a context that allows the students to grasp things very easily.
If you find a student is finding it difficult to understand a concept and complete assignments on it, you can give a try to the storytelling method a since it works well. Storytelling has the power to captivate learners and keep them engaged irrespective of their age and grades.
19. Create A Homework Mood
Creating a mood for homework is a bit difficult for younger students but setting the right environment can help them complete the tasks as quickly as possible. However, it’s not an issue for the senior students but can be a bit overwhelming for the little kids.
You can select a comfortable location for them to study and use their favorite stickers, lights, etc., to decorate the space. Keeping in mind the results as well as their abilities to take the pressure, set goals and establish rewards. It’s vital to make them understand the goals and disclose a bit about the rewards but don’t let them know exactly what’s going to happen. This will create an enthusiasm to complete the homework in no time.
20. Turn on Some Music
The psychological effects of music are undeniable. Music brings concentration and helps to focus on a particular work pleasantly. Then why not use it for your children’s homework? Science dictates that music is the best aid for studying.
Play some soft music while the student is doing his/her homework and this will help to create an ambiance. You can also play cool, energetic, upbeat music since it radiates energetic vibes and the student will find immense energy as well as positivity to complete the tasks.
21. Ask Them to Do the Tough Tasks First
One more cool thing to try out is doing the tough tasks first. It’s a perfect strategy if the student has a list of various tasks of different levels of complexity. You will be able to realize how much time he/she needs to complete the tasks and edit afterward if needed.
Completing the more complex tasks at first enables a student to think and decide critically. The remaining time can be enjoyed with much lower stress while doing the easier assignments. If your child gets bored very quickly you can try this method out.
22. Get Creative
Wondering how to make homework fun creatively? Homework doesn’t sound exciting to students. To be more specific, solving sums after sums or writing science projects doesn’t sound fun alone. Rather, if you mingle these tasks with an artsy adventure, the same old boring homework sessions become interesting.
For instance, you can ask them to paint out the math problems, prepare a model for their science projects, or act a portion of the history or literature books. Some other effective ideas may include creating a range of paintings while explaining a paragraph to a child, making clay characters, and doing some moves with the music.
23. Doing Homework at School
Nowadays, as the syllabuses are changing, students have too much pressure from homework to deal with. After coming home from school, it’s quite natural for them to feel exhausted. At times it becomes impossible for a kid to keep their eyes open for homework.
The best remedy here is to complete the majority of their homework at school. Your child also doesn’t have to stay up all night looking for answers or trying to understand how to remember academic facts. They can use their free time at school to complete some of the homework to stay relaxed later. Also, completing homework with peers involves so much engagement and fun.
24. Ask Them to Work on Different Subjects in a Session
Are you trying to know how to make homework fun without putting in much effort? Plan a routine for your child so that they can work on different subjects in a single session. Try to mix and match the subjects to make them feel comfortable with the pace of the study.
Working on a maximum of 3 subjects a session will help a student to get rid of the homework quickly without considering it as a pressure. Ensure they are not in a rush to complete one subject after another. Make it as systematic and orderly as you can to avoid any unwanted confusion.
25. Get Academic Help
Getting a little homework help is a feasible way to make homework fun. Nevertheless, you must make sure that none of you, the teachers, or the program facilitators are not spoon-feeding them, or else it will affect the student’s development in terms of learning.
If there is a math problem that is too difficult to solve or a paragraph with heavy words, you or the tutor can give your helping hand to the student so that he/she can complete it on his/her own. For instance, you can give a clue to solve the sum or narrate the context of the paragraph.
26. Planning Is the Key
Planning is a powerful habit to make homework sessions fun and organized. Not only at school, but also this habit will help a student throughout his/her life. It’s required for a student to be extremely serious about homework in a studying period and systematic planning can help in completing all the assignments on time.
If your child is in high school or middle school, you can guide him/her to make homework routines. However, elementary school kids and preschool students need their parents’ or teachers’ assistance to make advanced homework plans.
27. Ask Them to Write on Their Favorite Topics
Working on something you love will make you feel more connected to the work. The same applies to both the kids’ homework and older students’ homework. If you are thinking about how to make doing homework fun, you can ask them to write a paragraph or a short essay on their favorite topics.
To implement this strategy, first, talk to the students on a one-on-one basis and try to know their individual preferences in terms of writing. Then assign them a task where they will write whatever they want on their favorite topics. This will act as a warm-up session before doing the homework.
28. Provide Choice
One of the key reasons why younger and older students become disengaged with their homework is they find it meaningless. This is where the mentors and the parents have to play the biggest role. They need to make the student understand why homework is important and how it can benefit them in the future.
This will make the kids’ homework sessions more engaging and they will be able to connect emotionally or personally. How to make homework fun in this way? It’s simple, provide the students with more choices while assigning the homework. For instance, if there is a tough project, they can choose to work alone on it or work with partners.
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Elementary school homework tips.
Homework gives elementary students a way to practice the concepts. But you have to be very careful while making them do the home tasks as at this age they don’t develop an understanding regarding the benefits of homework. To them, homework is just something that parents and teachers use to restrict them from doing what they want.
Below are some effective tips on how to make homework fun for kindergarten students.
- Make sure kids have a creative, engaging, and well-lit place to do the homework.
- Give the kids delicious snacks from time to time so that they don’t get distracted due to hunger.
- Encourage the children to complete their homework by giving them small rewards or recognizing their efforts to make the entire process more manageable.
- Instead of dictating to them what to do and threatening them, be a mentor, a leader, and a motivator.
- Create a homework routine for elementary students manually or use desktop app for planning your homework. Don’t forget to keep short breaks in between.
- Try to keep distractions to a minimum. This means no phone calls, loud music, and TV during homework time.
Set good examples for them but without comparing them with anybody. Have you ever seen your little one saving money? Point that quality out, praise him/her for it, and set it as an example.
Middle School Homework Tips
Middle school students develop a fair understanding of the importance of homework. So, you are not supposed to face much trouble to make them complete their tasks. Check out these middle school homework tips below. These tips will work wonders if you are looking for ways to make homework fun for 7th graders or 8th graders.
- Designate a specific amount of time for homework. This will help them to complete work on time.
- Help them prioritize which tasks to do on a priority basis. In this way, they will develop the ability to make decisions.
- Continuously encourage them to evaluate their work so that they can find the mistakes and correct them on their own.
- Put away the phone to prevent them from being distracted from time to time.
- When needed, help them to complete homework instead of spoon-feeding the whole thing. Give clues to solve a sum, point out some important areas, or explain them in a paragraph so that they can complete the next tasks by themselves.
- Don’t pressurize or force yourself to do homework. Parents need to know when to stop, especially when they are feeling exhausted, frustrated, and confused.
High School Homework Tips
When it comes to homework, high school students are better able to manage their time, stay focused and finish their tasks. This enables them to understand the value of homework. They don’t do any tantrums and get less distracted because they understand the consequences of not completing home tasks on time. But if you want to know how to make homework more enjoyable for high school students throughout the school year, here are some effective tips:
- Tell them to write down their homework every day in a notebook, or a planner to keep it more organized.
- Ask them to write their homework with a blue pen on a white sheet to remember their writing. Also, it’s the best combo to do homework faster.
- Help your teens to divide their homework schedule in a planned way and keep short breaks to freshen up their minds. For instance, if they work for 30 minutes, they can take a 5 minutes break.
- Doing homework with buddies is a proven method to complete homework on time and also in an accurate manner.
- If they get stuck while doing any specific homework, ask them to take help from online resources, libraries, video demonstrations, and journals.
Homework Dos and Don’ts
Let’s face it – nobody loves homework although it’s super important for your child’s learning and development. While high school students understand the importance and need of doing school assignments at home, elementary and preschool children can’t develop the understanding at their age.
Several things are to be kept in mind while expecting homework from students in proper time. To make the students complete their homework happily, we have brought some amazing dos and don’ts that parents or teachers need to follow:
Homework Do’s
1. monitor the answers.
After your child has completed his/her homework, check it once to find what went right and what went wrong. If you find any mistake in his/her work, try not to point that out directly. Instead, give your youngster clues so that he/she can find out the mistakes now.
2. Remove the Distractions
Thinking about how to make homework more fun for your child? Remove the distractions from the study room first including social media on the computer, mobile phones, unnecessary toys, etc. Remember, a decluttered environment is the reason behind a decluttered head. They will be able to focus more on the homework when there isn’t a pile of distractions around them.
3. Be A Cheerleader
Always be your child’s motivator when he/she is doing homework. Students may not be correct always but humiliating them may make them demotivated and frustrated at the same time. Celebrate small successes such as completion of the tasks within time, the maximum number of correct answers, the maximum time the child has devoted to homework, etc. Give treats like candies, stickers, pens/pencils, and colored boxes to celebrate their success.
4. Work in Collaboration
The parents and the children need to work together in terms of homework. There must be a proper channel of communication between both parties so that the child’s overall performance can be monitored.
Homework Don’ts
1. don’t force them to homework.
Forcing a student to do the homework can bring immensely negative results. Children won’t like homework – it’s quite normal but forcefully making them do it is tremendously fatal as it will develop a permanent fear or discomfort that will hamper their overall growth.
2. Don’t Show Them Your Frustration
Kids have a lot of tantrums. Especially, the tantrums increase while doing homework. Often teachers and parents get frustrated but showing them the frustration is not at all a good idea. Not only will the child become stubborn but also, they will develop a fear of doing assignments or getting help from you. If you want to make homework fun for 6th graders or students of any other grades, don’t show your frustration in front of them.
3. Don’t Compare with Their Peers
Comparison is something that demotivates a child to a great extent. It develops a deep resentment in their mind which doesn’t fade away even after growing older. Comparing their grades or skills with their peers is probably the worst idea to make students do homework.
4. Don’t Keep Electronic Devices in Front of Them
Yes, you can give the students electronic gadgets for a few minutes as small rewards but don’t keep the devices in front of them all the time when they are doing homework. This may loosen their concentration and will make them distracted from their respective tasks.
How A Homework Planning App Can Help a Student?
A homework app is the best time-management tool that enables students to organize everything they need to do throughout a week, month, academic year, or semester. It’s an easy way to keep your homework sessions organized. In case you are still thinking about how to make homework fun for your child, software with proper features of homework planning can help him/her out.
The academic pressure on school children sometimes becomes too difficult to handle, especially when there is so much to do. This is where student planners for their home assignments are found to be beneficial. Here is an explanation of how an efficient home assignment planning tool can help students finish their tasks on time:
1. Gives Students A Break
It might also be helpful to make sure that kids have some downtime to unwind and not become overburdened with assignments. If teachers are assigning homework through software, they will see how long a piece of homework will take to be completed, and they can allocate the tasks accordingly scheduling breaks in between.
2. Reduces Stress
Homework pressure may not sound like a big deal to you because you have already left those days behind but to your child, it’s a headache. The fear of being scolded by parents/teachers is one of their biggest concerns to them. Thanks to digital planners, these tools know exactly how to help each student in a customized way.
3. Increases Productivity
How to make homework interesting? Students who use a school planner are more productive and can manage their time more effectively. Students today struggle with procrastination because the internet age offers so many diversions. However, if they have noted down the tasks they must complete, they will be more motivated to complete them.
4. Easier for Parents and Teachers
A homework app with intuitive features of planning helps to complete an assignment within time in a systematic manner. Younger students who still rely on the help of their parents and teachers to do their schoolwork often fail to inform them about their homework status. Having homework software can easily sort this problem out and reduces mentors’ work and hassle.
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How to make homework fun with clarifi.
To assist students to achieve their highest potential, Clarifi is a homework software that acts as an ideal digital homework attention coach. We are dedicated to helping students achieve their academic goals. The pupils may complete their homework independently with the help of this digital planning app for homework.
It is a straightforward and uncomplicated desktop program that gives them more confidence to finish their assignment as quickly and effectively as possible. It is the only research-backed desktop application that enables children who are easily distracted to do their schoolwork without a parent watching over them. Monitoring student behavior is the only way to be sure they are doing their assignments.
However, keeping track of pupils’ activity is a time-consuming and important duty. However, Clarifi is available to make this procedure as easy as possible. With the aid of this program, students can effortlessly enter each homework assignment and keep track of the due dates for each one based on the class or the current day.
They receive prizes from the automated coach for maintaining concentration and doing their homework. When all pupils turn in their schoolwork on time, they will receive diamonds as a reward. This element motivates pupils to develop the positive habit of finishing their home assignments on time. Clarifi is an easy digital homework attention planner that provides kids with the ability to filter out distractions, improve their executive functioning, and keep all of their assignments organized in one location.
Clarifi guarantees to raise their capacity for concentration and focus as well as their academic performance. It incorporates functions that provide users the means to remain centered, motivated, and organized while finishing their schoolwork on their own. When kids use the app, it is specially designed with cutting-edge technology that blocks all other apps.
Generating an undistracted and focused environment for students with Clarifi is the answer to “how to make homework less boring.”
Students Can Now Complete Homework with Fun!
With these tricks and tips, students can now efficiently engage themselves in homework. Learners need to study and complete their homework/assignments with a positive mindset and not forcefully. As soon as a student starts doing his/her homework strenuously, the interest is eventually lost, leading to mistakes and burnout.
But with the tricks mentioned above, homework sessions can now be immensely fun and interesting. Whether you are a teacher, parent, or student, these are some tried and tested ways to complete home tasks engagingly. Stay tuned to Clarifi for similar informative blogs like this. If to need help with your children’s homework and know more about how to make homework fun get in touch with Clarifi today.
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8 Ways to Make Homework More Exciting
Instead, I suggest we rethink homework. If we agree that the function of schooling is to make our kids better thinkers, creators, and learners, and that homework is a time for giving kids a chance to develop these skills outside of school, then we can begin to see it in a different light. Above all, homework should be interesting and fun to do, and should involve real learning experiences, not the drudgery that is far too common for so many schoolchildren.
I like using Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences as a framework for envisioning what creative homework assignments might look like. His theory suggests that there are at least eight different intelligences that each child or teen possesses: Word Smart, Number/Logic Smart, Picture Smart, Body Smart, Music Smart, People Smart, Self Smart, and Nature Smart. I believe students should be given options in how they are to do homework assignments that cover the broad range of intelligences that are part of a student’s potential. So, let’s say that the lesson during the school day is a unit on birds. Here is how different homework options might be structured.
- Word Smart (this category includes some of your standard homework assignments — and kids who are especially Word Smart may prefer these options): writing book reports, giving oral presentations, writing compositions
- Number/Logic Smart : collecting statistics about birds, or researching the question ”How does a bird fly?”
- Picture Smart : gathering together (or creating) charts and/or maps of a bird’s migration patterns; creating a diagram showing a bird’s life cycle, making a media presentation on the variety of birds in the student’s local area.
- Body Smart : hiking to a bird’s natural habitat and writing down observations of bird behaviors, building a replica of a specific bird’s nest, or building a bird house and keeping track of how it’s used by birds.
- Music Smart : collecting recordings online of different bird calls and then rehearsing and finally imitating them back in class.
- People Smart : interviewing a local birdwatcher about his hobby.
- Self Smart : keeping a journal of watching birds in one’s backyard.
- Nature Smart : volunteering with a community organization designed to safeguard the welfare of the local bird population.
Note that these activities are meaningful, many of them have a positive impact on the welfare of birds, and they all help deepen a student’s understanding of birds and avian behaviors. Students could choose one to do each week, or students could do one or more of the options and then share their findings or outcomes at a special ”bird unit” celebration at the end of the semester.
See how different this approach to homework is from filling out multiple choice answer sheets, or fill in the blank math problems, or other rote assignments. One of the advantages of homework is that a student has some unstructured time to pursue one or more of these interesting options at home, and also has better access to the materials and/or environments with which to complete the options (e.g. access to nature).
Teachers need to stop assigning homework simply because they think it’s something they HAVE to do to be an effective teacher. And they should stop equating lots of assigned homework with lots of learning. Instead, homework should be seen as an enrichment of the material covered in class. Besides, with the richness and complexity of the assignments (e.g. building a bird house), it’s going to be much more difficult for students to claim that their dog ate their homework!
This page was brought to you by Thomas Armstrong, Ph.D. and www.institute4learning.com .
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11 Strategies to Make Homework Fun and Manageable
Posted by Erica Warren on May 11, 2021
Homework Don'ts:
- Never pair homework with a punishment. When this is done, students associate homework with unpleasantries, and it can have a negative impact on future assignments.
- Don't call home assignments, "homework." Who wants to take their work home? Besides, when it is called work, it becomes work. Personally, I like to call it, "home fun!"
Homework Dos:
- Create enticing names for home assignments. For example, I never teach script or cursive. I teach roller-coaster letters!
- Generate excitement about upcoming assignments by sharing your own excitement and enthusiasm for the content.
- Bring creative options such as drawing, sculpting, and music into assignments.
- Introduce the fun factor to your lessons. Many students enjoy making games as well as playing them, so try to weave these into the curriculum. Encouraging these entertaining options can make academics more memorable too.
- Bring color into assignments. Instead of requiring your students to write in pencil or a black pen, encourage them to use an array of erasable colors, highlighters, and pens. Personally, I love to use Frixion pens , highlighters , and markers .
- Offer a variety of assignment options. Students possess different strengths, and they also have their own preferred ways of learning . Providing options allows them to share their knowledge and choose an approach that appeals to them.
- Limit the amount of homework. Students are often cognitively exhausted after a long day of schooling, and they need time to relax and also get involved in other afterschool activities.
- Offering students extra credit for completing home assignments can be very motivating. One of my favorite assignments is offering students the opportunity to make test corrections. This way, students can learn from mishaps and any misconceptions can be corrected.
- Offer homework passes: We all need personal days.
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9 Awesome Assignment Writing Tips to Get Better Marks!
There are some things that are common among every student in the universe: they do not like getting up early, they hate it when their best friend is absent, and they absolutely despise writing assignments.
Well, we can’t solve the first two problems (because it’s between you, your parents and your best friend) – we can definitely solve the third one – writing assignments.
We know that the word ‘assignment’ usually sends shivers down your spine. You have got a blank page, a ticking clock, and probably your best buddy – procrastination. Those are enough things to send you into panic mode.
So what if we tell you that writing those dreadful assignments can be a really fun and easy process? All you need is some assignment writing tips up your sleeve, and we’re going to give you just that.
Yes, in this blog, we’ll be sharing 9 tips that will completely transform your assignment writing process (and get you an A Grade.) Ready? Let’s go!
List of 9 Tips That Will Help You Write Awesome Assignments
1. understand what exactly you need to do.
Yes, we can use the “just swing it” method while doing a lot of things in life. But, it’s not very wise to practice it while writing assignments. (Unless you want to face the wrath of your teacher.)
Basically, even if there is even one tiny thing that you don’t get about the assignment, clarify it with your teacher or classmates BEFORE starting the assignment.
Otherwise, you’d end up working on something that wasn’t even supposed to be done, and all your effort and time would go down the drain, along with a good grade.
Moral of the story: If you want to ace the assignment, you’ve to be very, very clear about what you need to work on. Don’t be afraid to ask questions – because it’s always worth it.
2. Plan Your Time Well
Sometimes, we all wish there were more than 24 hours in a day. That way, we’d have so much more time to do assignments and meet the deadlines, right?
Well, you can still write great assignments on time. All you need to do is plan your time well. As soon as you get your assignment, create a solid schedule and follow it religiously until the deadline.
For example, you can set a deadline yourself for each sub-topic in the assignment, OR you can create a time-table and allot a few hours of the day to writing that assignment.
If you want to know more about how you can manage your time well and beat the procrastination monster, you can check out our comprehensive list of time management strategies.
3. Always Start With Research
First things first, gather as much knowledge as you can about the topic of your assignment. Read all the pre-existing material. In fact, take a deep dive into it.
After that, note down all the important points that you came across. Once that’s done, start working on your assignment using the knowledge you gained.
This way, you will be able to hand in a much more solid assignment because 1) the assignment would be more detailed and comprehensive, and 2) You do better when you know better.
Read more: How To Make Class Notes Worth Reading?
4. Prepare a Structure Beforehand
Even though all those inspirational quotes ask us to ‘go with the flow’, it’s not the right thing to do while writing assignments. Assignment writing isn’t a piece of cake, so it’s better to be prepared.
Before writing the content of your assignment, first lay down the structure you’re going to follow. This will make your assignment writing process a lot smoother.
For example, if you need to write about what buyer persona is, you should first divide your assignment into different subtopics like the definition, importance, steps to create one, and so on.
5. Write a Classy Introduction
Your introduction is going to set the tone for the rest of your assignment, so you need to make it awesome. Write an intro that makes the reader feel like you know what you’re talking about.
Also, don’t keep the introduction too long. Cut to the chase and get to the meat of your assignment quickly. Remember, your introduction needs to hook the readers and grab their attention in a matter of seconds!
At the end of the intro, write a little about everything that you’ve included in the assignment. You can include a little background information about the topic to establish the context.
6. Don’t Use Slang Words
This isn’t a chat room. This isn’t an extra paper you’re scribbling on to pass time. This is an assignment – a professional thing that needs to be written professionally.
Even though you might have the habit of using slang words while talking or texting, you absolutely can’t use them while writing your assignment. As simple as that.
For example, you can’t write, “LOL girl, that was hilarious” to describe a funny anecdote or “Damn, that was dope” to describe an incredible thing that happened. 🙂
7. Proofread, Proofread & Proofread
Don’t just hand over the assignment to your teacher the minute your write the last word. Proofread it at least three times. Read it out loud. Check for spellings, punctuations, and other grammatical mistakes.
No matter how great your assignment is and how hard you worked on it, if the teacher comes across tons of mistakes in the assignment, it won’t be able to leave a good impression.
So, if you don’t want your effort to go down the drain, have some patience and proofread your assignment until you’re sure that there are no more mistakes.
Read more: Study Guide: What is it & How to Create an Amazing One?
8. Cite Your References
When you’ll write your assignment, it’s natural that you’ll refer to books and other materials related to the topic. After all, as we said, research is the key to writing great assignments.
So, if you’re using a few lines, phrases, or stats from SOMEONE else’s work in YOUR assignment, don’t forget to cite the reference. Here’s why you need to do it:
First, if you cite the source of the information, your work won’t seem copied and it won’t be termed as ‘plagiarised’. Secondly, it’d give the impression that you researched thoroughly before writing the assignment!
9. Use Bit.ai
Last but definitely not least on our list of assignment writing tips is: use Bit.ai . This nifty platform simplifies and automates your entire documentation process.
See, you’ve spent hours working on the assignment. You did all the research, you compiled all the information, and you wrote the assignment really well.
But, between all this, you might overlook the presentation aspect of your assignment, which matters as much as the content of your assignment.
We totally understand. The deadline is lingering upon you, so you don’t have the time to care about the format of your assignment. But that doesn’t change the fact that a clumsy-looking assignment never works.
Luckily, Bit solves that problem for you by automating the design aspect of your documents for you. 😎 With over 90+ fully responsive and gorgeous templates , Bit has made the process of writing assignments super smooth.
With just one click, you can change the look of your entire assignment. You can even change the layout of the theme and update the color of your assignment too. How great is that?
Before you go!
Our team at bit.ai has created a few awesome education templates to make your processes more efficient. Make sure to check them out before you go, y ou might need them!
- Class Notes Template
- Lesson Plan Template
- Letter of Recommendation Template
- Recommended Reading Template
- Research Paper Template
- Thesis Template
- Checklist Template
- To-Do List Template
- White Paper Template
- eBook Template
Start Writing Efficient Assignments Today!
If you made it this far, we’re sure you’re going to ace your next assignment. Just follow all the tips we’ve given, use Bit.ai, and you’d end up with an assignment you could be proud of.
Remember, assignment writing doesn’t have to be a dreadful task. Just do thorough research on the topic first, prepare a structure beforehand, and you’ll be on your way to writing a great assignment.
If you’ve got any other assignment writing tips that worked for you, let us know by tweeting us @bit_docs. We’d be more than happy to include it on our list. Good luck!
Further reads:
11 Grammarly Alternatives and Competitors You Must Know!
8 Different Types of Writing Styles (And How to Improve Your Own)
Top 9 Writing Checkers Every Writer Should Use!
9 Best Paraphrasing Tools In 2022 (Free & Paid)
Collaborative Teaching: What is it & How to Do it the Right Way?
12 Best Student Tools for Better Learning in 2022
Student Collaboration: What, Why, and Tools!
Lesson plan: What is it & How to Create an Effective One? (Free template)
Learning Objectives: What are they & How to Write them?
Thesis Statement: Definition, Importance, Steps & Tips!
9 Powerful Mind Mapping Software & Tools for Business!
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About Bit.ai
Bit.ai is the essential next-gen workplace and document collaboration platform. that helps teams share knowledge by connecting any type of digital content. With this intuitive, cloud-based solution, anyone can work visually and collaborate in real-time while creating internal notes, team projects, knowledge bases, client-facing content, and more.
The smartest online Google Docs and Word alternative, Bit.ai is used in over 100 countries by professionals everywhere, from IT teams creating internal documentation and knowledge bases, to sales and marketing teams sharing client materials and client portals.
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Communication Across the Disciplines
10 tips for writing assignments.
- Clarify the task. Don't let questions about the task encourage procrastination.
- Do the research early. Collecting and absorbing the material will help you meditate on what you will write, even if you don't get to work on the writing immediately.
- Leave a strong paper trail. Frequently, the lack of good note taking doesn't register until you are in the throes of the final preparation of your project, when deadlines loom, and materials are difficult to recover. This is because one often reads and discards materials as not being relevant during the research process, only to discover later, during the writing process, that they are.
- Brainstorm, make notes, jot down ideas as they occur, and begin by writing the stuff you do know. Most writing will be complex and you can't do all of the stages--brainstorming, drafting, revising, editing, proofreading--in one fell swoop. Breaking the process into smaller steps makes it more manageable, and lets you make progress even when you don't have large chunks of time to devote to writing.
- Get feedback. It's difficult to anticipate the gaps, confusion, and potential misinterpretations that complex writing can generate. You need to have at least one outside reader to help you.
- Allow time for revising and editing. Once the ideas are drafted, you'll usually find that you need to go back and re-read, re-search, re-organize, and re-think what you have said.
- Make the organization apparent. Use paragraphs, subheadings, and spatial divisions (layout) to indicate clearly changes in subject matter, focus, and depth. Sometimes this is a good time to prepare an outline, to make sure that your organization makes sense.
- Write the introduction last. A good introduction must point forward to what the writing contains. It is a promise to the reader, and should be accurate. The best introductions will be prepared after you know what you will say and how you will say it.
- Check for accuracy. Research-based writing is often complex and it is easy to overlook a mistake made while drafting. Check your sources, read carefully through your quotations, citations, and documentation.
- Proofread carefully. This is often a step left out in the crunch to finish by a deadline, and yet, it is often little mistakes (typos, errors of punctuation and grammar) which communicate to your reader a sense of carelessness or inability to write.
- Forgive yourself for what is not perfect. We never stop learning how to write. No draft is ever perfect, but the deadline requires that you do your best and then send it out into the world of the reader.
Created by Susan Wyche
- Articles / Homework
Smart Homework: 13 Ways to Make It Meaningful
by MiddleWeb · Published 08/04/2014 · Updated 11/17/2019
In the first installment of Rick Wormeli’s homework advice, he made the case for take-home assignments that matter for learning and engage student interest . In Part 2, Rick offers some guiding principles that can help teachers create homework challenges that motivate kids and spark deeper learning in and out of school.
These articles are adapted and updated from Rick’s seminal book about teaching in the middle grades, Day One & Beyond: Practical Matters for New Middle Level Teachers . Rick continues to offer great advice about homework, differentiation, assessment and many other topics in workshops and presentations across North America. Check back in Part 1 for some additional homework resources.
I’ve been accumulating guiding principles for creating highly motivating homework assignments for many years — from my own teaching and from the distilled wisdom of others. Here are a baker’s dozen. Choose the ones most appropriate for students’ learning goals and your curriculum.
1. Give students a clear picture of the final product. This doesn’t mean everything is structured for them, or that there aren’t multiple pathways to the same high quality result. There’s room for student personalities to be expressed. Students clearly know what is expected, however. A clear picture sets purpose for doing the assignment. Priming the brain to focus on particular aspects of the learning experience helps the brain process the information for long-term retention. Setting purpose for homework assignments has an impact on learning and the assignment’s completion rate, as research by Marzano and others confirms.
2. Incorporate a cause into the assignment. Middle level students are motivated when they feel they are righting a wrong. They are very sensitive to justice and injustice. As a group, they are also very nurturing of those less fortunate than them. Find a community or personal cause for which students can fight fairly and incorporate your content and skills in that good fight— students will be all over the assignment.
4. Incorporate people whom students admire in their assignments. Students are motivated when asked to share what they know and feel about these folks. We are a society of heroes, and young adolescents are interested in talking about and becoming heroic figures.
5. Allow choices, as appropriate. Allow students to do the even-numbered or odd-numbered problems, or allow them to choose from three prompts, not just one. Let them choose the word that best describes the political or scientific process. Let them identify their own diet and its effects on young adolescent bodies. Let them choose to work with partners or individually. How about allowing them to choose from several multiple-intelligence based tasks? If they are working in ways that are comfortable, they are more likely to do the work. By making the choice, they have upped their ownership of the task.
6. Incorporate cultural products into the assignment. If students have to use magazines, television shows, foods, sports equipment, and other products they already use, they are likely to do the work. The brain loves to do tasks in contexts with which it is familiar.
7. Allow students to collaborate in determining how homework will be assessed. If they help design the criteria for success, such as when they create the rubric for an assignment, they “own” the assignment. It comes off as something done by them, not to them. They also internalize the expectations—another way for them to have clear targets.
With some assignments we can post well-done versions from previous years (or ones we’ve created for this purpose) and ask students to analyze the essential characteristics that make these assignments exemplary. Students who analyze such assignments will compare those works with their own and internalize the criteria for success, referencing the criteria while doing the assignment, not just when it’s finished.
9. Spruce up your prompts. Don’t ask students to repeatedly answer questions or summarize. Try some of these openers instead: Decide between, argue against, Why did ______ argue for, compare, contrast, plan, classify, retell ______ from the point of view of ______, Organize, build, interview, predict, categorize, simplify, deduce, formulate, blend, suppose, invent, imagine, devise, compose, combine, rank, recommend, defend, choose.
10. Have everyone turn in a paper. In her classic, Homework: A New Direction (1992), Neila Connors reminded teachers to have all students turn in a paper, regardless of whether they did the assignment. If a student doesn’t have his homework, he writes on the paper the name of the assignment and why he didn’t do it.
11. Do not give homework passes. I used to do this; then I realized how much it minimized the importance of homework. It’s like saying, “Oh, well, the homework really wasn’t that important to your learning. You’ll learn just as well without it.” Homework should be so productive for students that missing it is like missing the lesson itself.
12. Integrate homework with other subjects. One assignment can count in two classes. Such assignments are usually complex enough to warrant the dual grade and it’s a way to work smarter, not harder, for both students and teachers. Teachers can split the pile of papers to grade, then share the grades with each other, and students don’t have homework piling up in multiple classes.
There are times when every teacher on the team assigns a half-hour assignment, and so do the elective or encore class teachers. This could mean three to four hours of homework for the student, which is inappropriate for young adolescents.
13. Occasionally, let students identify what homework would be most effective. Sometimes the really creative assignments are the ones that students design themselves. After teaching a lesson, ask your students what it would take to practice the material so well it became clearly understood. Many of the choices will be rigorous and very appropriate.
This is one reason I always recommend that, as a basic premise, we avoid Monday morning quizzes and weekend or holiday homework assignments. Sure, there will be exceptions when long-term projects come due. But if we are really about teaching so that students learn and not about appearing rigorous and assigning tasks to show that we have taught, then we’ll carefully consider all the effects of our homework expectations. Our students will be more productive at school for having healthier lives at home.
▶ More resources from Rick Wormeli:
Although Rick never mentions the word homework in this article about helping adolescent students improve their “executive function,” you will immediately see the connections! At the AMLE website .
NEXT: In our final excerpt from Day One & Beyond, Rick Wormeli shares his approach to homework assessment – with an clear emphasis on maintaining teacher sanity.
His books include Meet Me in the Middle ; Day One and Beyond ; Fair Isn’t Always Equal: Assessment and Grading in the Differentiated Classroom ; Differentiation: From Planning to Practice; Metaphors & Analogies: Power Tools for Teaching Any Subject, and Summarization in Any Subject , plus The Collected Writings (So Far) of Rick Wormeli: Crazy Good Stuff I Learned about Teaching Along the Way .
He is currently working on his first young adult fiction novel and a new book on homework practices in the 21 st century.
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Tags: Day One & Beyond grading homework homework homework guidelines homework policies Rick Wormeli why homework
MiddleWeb is all about the middle grades, with great 4-8 resources, book reviews, and guest posts by educators who support the success of young adolescents. And be sure to subscribe to MiddleWeb SmartBrief for the latest middle grades news & commentary from around the USA.
4 Responses
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This is a really great article. It has helped me tremendously in making new and better decisions about homework.
Fabulous sage advice! Although I love every single suggestion you’ve included, I am particularly fond of the elimination of the “homework pass”. As a former middle-level teacher and administrator, I too found the homework pass diminished the importance of follow-up work – a necessary component in determining the level of student understanding.
I do give 2 passes, but they just extend due date by a day. And if not used, they may be returned at the end of the 9 weeks for extra credit.
Rick Wormeli’s ideas and tips in this article continue to be stimulating and useful. That said, it’s been more than a decade since the first edition of his book on grading, homework and assessment, Fair Isn’t Always Equal appeared.
In the intervening years, Rick’s thinking about homework has benefited from his work with teachers and in schools and plenty of debate. In April 2018, he published a new 2nd edition of Fair Isn’t Always Equal that includes an even deeper discussion of homework and its relationship to best practice, differentiation, and the moral obligation of educators to insist on effective homework policies.
Visitors to the Stenhouse page for the new book can preview the *entire* text for free, so be sure to check that out.
Here’s a brief excerpt from the new book:
Tenet: Homework should enable students to practice what they have already learned in class and should not present new content for the first time. Principled Responses:
• I will not assign homework to students who do not understand the content. • I will give homework to some students and no homework or different assignments to others, depending on their proficiency. • I will use exit slips and formative assessment during class so I can determine proper after-school practice for each student. • I will not give homework because parents and administrators expect me to do so, or assign homework because it’s a particular day of the week. • I will assign homework only if it furthers students’ proficiency in the field we’re studying.
Thanks to Rick for giving us permission to share this!
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