First of all, homework did not count against you. After all, why should practice count against you? Not doing homework or not doing it well does not inherently indicate how well students are mastering content.
Secondly, doing your homework assignments will lead to you receiving an extra grade for the grading period. This is a nice reinforcement of the idea that practice leads to learning. Unlike extra credit, an extra grade does not overly inflate the summative grade, but it does provide an incentive to practice.
Finally, and most AFL-ish, was the fact that Ms. Moody gives students practice problems for homework and then tells them to do as many or as few from each section as they need to do to ensure that they understand the concept. She is putting the students in charge of their own learning by giving them a means to assess themselves and tailor their practice accordingly. Rather than simply assign students 10 practice problems, the students might instead be given 5 examples of one type of problem and 5 of another. Then the students are told to do as many of each type as they need to. So while one student might do 1 of each, another might do 2 of 1 type and 3 of another, and still another students might do all 10.
What a great way to individualize the practice process and give students ownership of their learning!
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