Student Work #2 - Anna Kue

Every Friday the 4th graders in my classroom are given a piece of homework to bring home to be completed and brought back to school on Monday. The homework usually consists of a math worksheet like the one shown here. Recently the homework sheets have just been multiplication worksheets cut in half so the students only have 21 questions to do over the weekend rather than 42. This particular worksheet is "2 digit x 1 digit" problems.

This particular student answered all of the questions but 2, and the answers to the 19 other questions are correct. The two unanswered questions aren't any harder than the rest, so I'm a little confused as to why she skipped those especially because they are in the middle of the worksheet. This student is an ELL student but is one of the most talkative in class. She is always quick to raise her hand and offer an answer even if she can't put into words exactly what she means, she has the knowledge. I don't think that the students know that the teacher doesn't grade their homework so I still am not sure why she didn't answer those two questions.This however does not matter in the end because my mentor teacher simply gives the students credit for returning their homework and does not check the math problems to see if they are correct. Therefore even though she skipped a couple problems, she still receives full credit for returning her homework.

The big idea of the homework is to give students the opportunity to practice their multiplication at home, but I feel that it would be benefit the students more if it was graded or if the math worksheets were more interesting than the repetitive worksheets. 

This student definitely knows how to do multiplication and I think that it would benefit her to know that she is doing great on these larger problems. It is clear that she solved these problems on her own without the use of a calculator because you can see her thought process on the paper as she borrows and carries the numbers.