Practice Problems on Khan

One type of homework I assign is to do certain practice problem sets on Khan Academy.  From September - November I was having difficulty motivating the students to do enough problems to understand the concept completely.  For example, I would assign ten problems for completion points.  Most students would complete their ten problems (some would only spend seconds on a problem) but it wouldn’t matter to them if they got them correct or not.  Therefore, the student wasn’t receiving a full understanding of the material.

In December, I changed the requirement.  I assigned a minimum of ten problems but I took the ten problems for a percent grade. In addition, I allowed students to do more than ten to raise their grade.   This changed the student attitude completely.  Most students now complete as many problems as he/she needs individually to understand the type of problem being presented.  Some students will get the first ten correct and be finished.  Others, now spend the time they need to be prepared for class the next day.

In conclusion, I have found students seem to be motivated by the grade more than anything else.