Individualized Homework (Goal Folders)

Does this sound familiar?  Every kid brings home the same math homework on a pre-determined skill (possibly even one that has just been taught that day).  Not only is it unrealistic to think that every child will be able to be independently successful on a newly introduced skill, some children just do not have the parental support at home to utilize for homework help.  The Kindergarten team at my school started something that lead to the whole school adopting a new mindset and strategy for homework that is individualized.  Different students work on different goals at home based on what they need!  I helped develop "Goal Folders" for the 4th and 5th grades.  Take a peek at what it looks like inside one of our goal folders. 

 We sat down and decided on all of the math skills a 5th grader should have mastered by the end of the year.  We created these charts with the goal on the left, then examples on how to practice it, a spot for dates practiced at home, and a column for mastery date.  Each night, students take their goal folder home and decided on one math goal to work on for that night- something they have not yet mastered.  They create their own problems to practice the skill for 20 minutes and write the date. They have to show me their work the next morning (and I have a reward system for reinforcing this).  I continuously assess them on their goals to see if we can mark any more mastered.  Students get pumped up and excited to "master another goal" and beg for specific goal quizzes each week.  One might say "I'm ready to pass metric conversions, can I PLEASE take the quiz?"  They take pride in themselves as they master each of their goals.  Students can even set their own specific goal for themselves.  We may highlight 3 goals together to focus on until they are mastered. 

Parents like knowing exactly what is expected of their child within the year. And they LOVE seeing their child master goal after goal.  I usually launch these at the first parent teacher conferences so I can explain it in person to them. 

Here are the reading goals.  These goals need to be practiced over and over, and you never really master a skill.  You might be having wonderful connections in one book, but you have to keep working on that in your next book too.Once you master determine importance in one book, and move to a harder book, you may need to work on it again.  Therefore, I do not require my students to put dates on the reading goals.  They just need to show me their reading log each morning. 

This system has worked extremely well for us.  One student may be practicing multiplication at home, where another is working on exponents and fraction division.  Each of them is right where they need to be.  How much better does that sound than everyone doing the same thing?!  MUCH.