I have had experiences where the teacher hands out a lot of worksheets and sits back while the kids work on them. There is hardly any teaching going on and the kids are bored out of their minds. I believe that kids need a lot of hands on with the materials because they will actually learn and retain the information and it will be FUN. What do yall think about worksheets in the classroom? And when should they be used, if at all, in the classroom?

I agree with both posts that hands on activities should be used in the classroom. I definately think it helps students retain more information through activities that are fun and they will remember. I don't think worksheets are teaching, I think it is simply teachers not doing their jobs. However, I do understand that kids need practice, so I think that sending worksheets how for students to work on would be a much better idea than using them in the classroom. However, they could perhaps be given as study guides to help students grasp the concepts better and not be used as grades so students would not feel like they were being forced to do the boring worksheets.

I think that worksheets are a big reason for students burning out on school. I know that for the most part students view them as busy work and question why they have to do them. Emily, I like the idea of worksheets as study guides but I do not feel like they should be given on a daily basis. When I was in elementary school i remember worksheets as just fill in the blank, and there can only be one answer. Doesn't that limit the creative capacity of students just a little?

I've been in two classes already with Block I and Block II and I must say in the fourth grade class I was just in all I saw were worksheets. However, I believe it was this way because the EOG's were coming up and all the students were doing was reviewing. They were always doing math worksheets..but, they all passed the math EOG..so maybe it works. Although it may not be the most enjoyable for the children and we may not agree with it right now..would all these teachers really hand out worksheets if it didn't work? I don't know, but I know for my class it worked well. My first grade class never did worksheets, unless it was a math review..other than that they did hands on stuff. Like when they studied the parts of the earth, the different layers, they used chocolate covered cherries to demonstrate the different layers..which is a great idea by the way...and the kids loved it! Maybe it also depends on the grade level and group of kids in a classroom to what the teacher can do.

I agree with you Allison. I think most students work best when the surriculum is spiced up. Visual images and group work and games help to retain information for some students. I think there are cases where work sheets are helpful for factual data such as spelling and writing, but ofcourse there are other alternatives.

Here is a great piece of information to check out on teaching methods

http://www.lifeway.com/lwc/article_main ... 26,00.html

I definitely think worksheets are a waste of time. I see them as busy work because I have had teachers who handed them out day after day and the class would take five minutes filling them out with as little effort as possible. The next day the class could not even tell you what they had learned the day before. I think hands on activities or projects that require students to explain and justify their answers and ideas are a lot more productive than simple fill in the blank worksheets. I'm sure that worksheets could serve as a type of review or something like that.. but I am going to try to keep them to a minimum in my classroom.

I think that the problem with worksheets is that they generally isolate whatever they are about rather than teaching the students how to apply whatever they are about to the world around them. It doesn't MATTER if we can do long division; it matters if we can USE long division in our daily lives.

Worksheets are almost like trying to learn how to play the piano on a piece of paper with piano keys drawn on it - yes, you can learn where to put your hands and where the notes are, but you probably aren't going to enjoy it or get as much out of it as you would if you were learning the skill by applying it to a real piano. Plus the skill of fingering chords, etc., in isolation (on a sheet of paper) is pretty useless.

I think that too many teachers rely solely upon worksheets. Students need hands-on activities to keep their interest and their minds on the task at hand. I agree with Kristi that worksheets can be used as homework assignments and for reviewing. (In moderation of course )

Worksheets= substitues, burnt out teachers, busy work

I think worksheets are an easy way for teachers to have students doing something to save them from being faced with questions that challenge them to do extra work to make the lessons relevant to real life. Worksheets are worthless and perfect for the teacher who teaches to the test and not for relativity and student creativity.

Linda brock