Homework Club

Your After-School Learning Space

Homework Club provides a structured, supportive environment where students can complete assignments, study, and get help from teachers. Located in the library, this program runs Monday through Thursday from 3:30 to 4:30 PM and is open to all students regardless of grade level or academic standing.

What makes Homework Club special? It's more than just a quiet place to work. Our teachers rotate through to provide assistance with any subject, and you'll find yourself surrounded by peers who are also committed to their academic success. Many students find that they can complete their homework more efficiently here than at home, where distractions are more common.

No Sign-Up Required

Simply show up any day you need help. Bring your homework, textbooks, and any materials you're working with. We provide computers, reference materials, and even snacks to keep you fueled while you work. Whether you come every day or just when you need extra help, you're always welcome.

Who should attend Homework Club? Everyone! Students who attend regularly tend to:

• Complete homework more efficiently and with less stress
• Get immediate answers to questions instead of staying stuck
• Build better study habits and organizational skills
• Form study groups with classmates working on similar material
• Improve their grades through consistent support and effort

Your teachers are your first and best resource when you're struggling with coursework. Every teacher at NAMS is committed to student success and wants to help you understand the material—but they can only help if you ask.

Don't let embarrassment hold you back. Asking questions doesn't make you look unintelligent; it shows that you're engaged and care about learning. Teachers actually appreciate when students ask questions because it helps them understand what needs more explanation.

When and How to Get Teacher Help:

During Class: Don't hesitate to raise your hand and ask questions during instruction. If something doesn't make sense to you, chances are other students are confused too. Your question might help everyone.

After Class: Stay for a few minutes after class if you need clarification on something specific. This works well for quick questions that don't require extended explanation.

Lunch Hour: Many teachers are available in their classrooms during lunch. Check with your teacher about their availability—this is a great time for one-on-one help without the pressure of other students waiting.

By Email: If you prefer, you can email your teacher with questions. This works particularly well if you need to explain what you're struggling with or if you want to arrange a time to meet.

Before or After School: Teachers are often willing to meet with students outside regular class hours. Ask your teacher if they can schedule a meeting with you—most will be happy to arrange a time that works for both of you.

Remember: Your teachers want you to succeed.

They chose education as a career because they want to help students learn and grow. Reaching out for help isn't a burden—it's exactly what they're here for.

💻 Computer Lab Access

The computer lab is available during lunch hours and after school when supervision is available. This resource is particularly valuable for students who don't have reliable internet or computer access at home.

Available Resources:

• Computers with high-speed internet access
• Printing and copying services for school assignments
• Educational software and research databases
• Quiet workspace conducive to focused work

The lab is supervised by staff who can help with basic technical issues and ensure the space remains productive for everyone.

📚 Library Resources

Our school library is more than just books—it's a learning hub. The library is open throughout the school day and offers a quiet environment for studying, research materials for assignments, and assistance from our library technician.

What You'll Find:

• Fiction and non-fiction books for all reading levels
• Reference materials and research databases
• Quiet individual study spaces
• Tables for group work
• Computers for research and writing
• Printing and copying services

Our library technician can help you locate resources, develop research strategies, and navigate online databases for projects and essays.

The internet offers countless educational resources, but not all are created equal. We've curated this list of high-quality, reliable websites that provide legitimate help with homework and studying. These resources are meant to help you learn, not to do your work for you.

Important: Online resources should supplement your learning, not replace it. Use these sites to understand concepts, practice skills, and study—but always do your own work. Using these sites to get answers without understanding is cheating and hurts your learning.

First Nations Resources

These platforms are prioritized to help you connect with Indigenous history, culture, and perspectives.

• Native Land Digital An essential tool for understanding the land we live on. This interactive map helps you learn about Indigenous territories, languages, and treaties across the globe.
• Indspire - Rivers to Success Provides mentorship and resources to help Indigenous youth navigate their educational journey from high school to their careers.
• First Peoples’ Map of B.C. A gold standard for visualizing Indigenous language, arts, and heritage. A great tool for understanding the diversity of First Nations cultures.
• The Canadian Encyclopedia: Indigenous Perspectives A comprehensive collection of articles and primary sources on treaties, leaders, and history curated by Indigenous authors.
• National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR) The definitive source for learning about the residential school system and the journey toward reconciliation.
• First Nations Child & Family Caring Society Features "Spirit Bear" and "Shannen’s Dream" resources that teach youth about equity and First Nations rights.
• FirstVoices A community-led platform for language revitalization with dictionaries, games, and apps for over 100 Indigenous languages.

Academic Support & Homework Tools

Use these to strengthen your understanding of core subjects like Math, Science, and English.

Literacy & Writing

• Indigenous Storybooks Traditional stories available in multiple Indigenous languages alongside English and French for read-along practice.
• Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) The most reliable guide for grammar, essay structure, and properly citing sources (including oral teachings).
• FNESC Authentic First Peoples Texts A guide for finding books and literature written by Indigenous authors to ensure culturally accurate reading material.
• Strong Nations Bookstore An Indigenous-owned source for high-interest books and graphic novels categorized by reading level.

Numeracy & Science

• Math Catcher (Mathematics Through Storytelling) Uses Indigenous cultural contexts and animated stories to teach complex math concepts like logic and patterns.
• Show Me Your Math Explores the math hidden in community practices like beading, lodge construction, and traditional games.
• Indigenous STEAM Focuses on land-based educational materials that bridge Indigenous knowledge with Western science.
• Empowering the Spirit: Numeracy Provides videos and resources exploring numeracy through traditional contexts like teepee structure and rock games.
• Khan Academy Free comprehensive lessons in math, science, and history with step-by-step video explanations.
• Mathway A step-by-step math solver. Best used to check your work and understand the process of solving a problem.
• PhET Interactive Simulations Visualizes abstract science and math concepts through interactive, research-based simulations.

World Exploration & General Knowledge

• Crash Course (YouTube): Fast-paced videos that make complex topics in history and science accessible and entertaining.
• SparkNotes: Study guides and analysis for literature to deepen your understanding of English class books.
• National Geographic Kids: Engaging visuals and stories for exploring geography, animals, and world cultures.
• BBC Bitesize: Digestible revision guides and quizzes for almost every school subject.

Saskatchewan First Nations & Indigenous Learning

These resources prioritize the history, treaties, and cultural knowledge unique to the land now called Saskatchewan.

• Office of the Treaty Commissioner (OTC) Saskatchewan’s primary resource for Treaty education. Their K–12 Treaty Resource Kits are the gold standard for understanding the history and future of the Treaty relationship in our province.
• Saskatchewan Indigenous Cultural Centre (SICC) Dedicated to preserving the eight Indigenous languages of Saskatchewan. Their library and archives offer incredible digital resources for language learning and cultural protocols.
• Gabriel Dumont Institute (GDI) - Virtual Museum While focused on Métis history, GDI is a Saskatoon-based powerhouse for Indigenous literacy. Their "Virtual Museum" contains thousands of photos, oral histories, and Michif language tools.
• Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations (FSIN) - Education The FSIN Education and Training Secretariat provides advocacy and specific programs like the "Science, Math, and Technology Outreach Program" for First Nations youth.
• Wanuskewin Heritage Park - Education Resources Offers grade-specific curriculum guides that focus on the Plains Cree culture and the archaeological history of the Opimihaw Valley near Saskatoon.
• Saskatchewan Teachers’ Federation (STF) - Indigenous Portal A massive database (iPortal) created with the University of Saskatchewan featuring over 65,000 items related to Indigenous studies and education.

• ROVER (Recommended Online Video Education Resources) A video-on-demand service managed by the Saskatchewan Ministry of Education. It provides students with immediate access to educational videos that directly support the SK curriculum.
• Athabasca Denesuline Education Authority (ADEA) Numeracy Features unique numeracy resources that integrate Northern Saskatchewan Indigenous perspectives into math, including "Small Numbers" animated videos.
• Saskatchewan Polytechnic - Indigenous Student Centres Even for high school students, their campus centres offer STEM support, tutoring, and "Cree for Beginners" sessions that are often open to the community.
• Meewasin Valley Authority - Land-Based Learning Saskatoon-specific resources that connect science and biology outcomes with Indigenous Ways of Knowing at sites like the Northeast Swale.

What You Need to Know

Critical Information About AI and Your Learning

AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and others have become widely available to students. While these tools can be helpful in limited circumstances, they also pose serious risks to your learning, academic integrity, and future success. Understanding these risks—and how to use AI ethically if at all—is essential for every student.

The Science: How AI Use Affects Your Brain and Learning

Recent research in educational neuroscience and cognitive psychology has revealed concerning impacts of AI use on student learning and brain development. When you outsource thinking to AI, you're not just avoiding work—you're preventing your brain from developing the very skills that education is designed to build.

Understanding Cognitive Development

The brain possesses great adaptability, particularly during the teenage years and early adulthood. Each time you tackle a challenging task, delve into intricate ideas, or refine your work for better quality, your brain actively creates new neural links and reinforces existing ones. This is the fundamental biological process of learning—achieved through focused mental activity.

If AI performs this mental labour for you, this development is stunted. Your brain opts for the easiest route, leaving the neural connections that should be strengthening to remain undeveloped or nonexistent.

Research-Documented Cognitive Harms of AI Overreliance:

1. Skill Atrophy and Cognitive Offloading:When you regularly use AI to complete tasks your brain should be doing—writing, problem-solving, analysis—those cognitive abilities weaken from disuse. Research shows that students who rely on AI perform significantly worse on assessments requiring independent thought, even after short periods of AI dependence.

2. Reduced Critical Thinking Capacity:Critical thinking develops through practice wrestling with problems. AI provides instant answers, completely bypassing the cognitive struggle that builds analytical skills. Studies show that students accustomed to AI assistance demonstrate measurably lower critical thinking abilities when AI is unavailable.

3. Shallow Learning and Poor Retention:Deep learning requires elaborative processing—connecting new information to existing knowledge, considering multiple perspectives, and engaging with material deeply. AI shortcuts prevent this processing, resulting in shallow understanding that doesn't stick. You might complete the assignment, but weeks later, you'll remember nothing.

4. Dependency and Learned Helplessness:Regular AI use creates psychological dependency. Students report feeling unable to complete work without AI assistance, experiencing anxiety and helplessness when forced to work independently. This learned helplessness extends beyond academics into other areas of life.

5. Attention and Focus Erosion:AI provides instant gratification—immediate answers to any question. This trains your brain to seek quick rewards rather than engaging in sustained, focused thinking. Research shows this diminishes your capacity for deep work and extended concentration, abilities essential for success in challenging academic and professional environments.

6. Creativity Suppression:Creativity requires generating original ideas, making unexpected connections, and thinking divergently. When AI generates ideas for you, your creative thinking muscles atrophy. Students who rely on AI for ideation show measurably reduced creative capacity over time.

Why Struggle is Essential for Learning

Modern education research consistently shows that productive struggle—working through difficult problems, grappling with complex concepts, revising work multiple times—is not just helpful for learning; it's essential for learning. This is called "desirable difficulty" in cognitive science.

When you struggle with a challenging math problem, your brain is:

• Building and strengthening neural pathways specific to mathematical reasoning
• Developing problem-solving heuristics that apply to future problems
• Creating strong memory traces through effortful retrieval and application
• Building metacognitive awareness of your own thinking processes
• Developing resilience, perseverance, and growth mindset

AI removes all of this. You get an answer, but you get none of the learning, none of the cognitive development, none of the skill-building that struggling through the problem would have created.

Long-Term Consequences: Beyond School

The impacts of AI overreliance extend far beyond your current grades:

Academic Consequences: Tests, exams, and in-class assignments immediately expose gaps in understanding. You can't use AI during a test, and when you've let AI do your thinking all semester, you won't have developed the knowledge or skills to succeed independently.

Post-Secondary Reality: University and college professors are skilled at identifying AI-generated work, and the consequences are severe—academic misconduct charges that can result in course failure or expulsion. More importantly, post-secondary education requires high-level independent thinking that AI dependency makes impossible.

Career Limitations: Employers need people who can think critically, solve novel problems, write clearly, and learn new skills. If you've outsourced these abilities to AI throughout school, you won't have developed them. No amount of AI can substitute for genuine competence in the workplace.

Life Skills Deficit: Success in life—relationships, parenting, citizenship, personal growth—requires the same critical thinking, problem-solving, and communication skills that education develops. AI shortcuts during your formative years mean these capacities never fully mature.

Loss of Voice and Identity: When AI does your thinking and writing, your own voice, ideas, and perspectives never fully develop. You become dependent on external systems for thoughts that should be your own.

Academic Integrity: This is Cheating

Let's be absolutely clear: having AI write your essay, solve your homework problems, or complete any academic work for you is cheating. It's no different than copying from a classmate, looking up answers during a test, or paying someone to write your paper.

Why is this cheating? Because you're submitting work as your own that you didn't create. The assignment is meant to assess what you have learned and what you can do. When AI does the work, you haven't demonstrated any learning or ability—you've only demonstrated you can copy and paste.

These Actions Constitute Cheating and Academic Dishonesty:

• Having AI write your essay, paragraph, or any portion of written work
• Asking AI to solve math problems, science problems, or homework questions and submitting those solutions
• Using AI to generate outlines, thesis statements, topic sentences, or any structural elements of your work
• Having AI paraphrase or reword source material (this is still plagiarism)
• Using AI to "improve" or "enhance" your writing to the point where it's no longer your authentic work
• Copying AI-generated code, lab reports, presentations, or any other academic work
• Having AI answer discussion questions, create study guides from your readings, or complete any assignment meant to demonstrate your understanding

Understanding Plagiarism in the Age of AI

Plagiarism is presenting someone else's words, ideas, or work as your own. Traditionally, this meant copying from books, websites, or other students without attribution. AI adds a new dimension: the "someone else" is now a machine, but the principle remains the same.

AI-generated text is plagiarism because it's not your original work. Even if you modify it slightly, even if you ask AI to write "in your style," even if you claim you're just using it for "help"—if AI generated the content, it's not yours.

Study Tips & Strategies

🕐 Create a Schedule

Set specific study time daily. Regular routines build good habits.

📍 Find Your Space

Quiet place, good lighting. Turn off distractions.

✅ Break It Down

Large tasks feel smaller when divided. One step at a time.

📝 Take Good Notes

Write important info in class. Good notes = easier studying.

❓ Ask Questions

Don't understand? Ask! Teachers and friends can help.

👥 Study Groups

Teaching each other helps everyone learn better.

⏸️ Take Breaks

Study 25-30 min, break 5 min. Your brain needs rest!

🎯 Stay Organized

Use a planner. Write down assignments and due dates.

💤 Get Sleep

8-10 hours helps your brain remember. Don't skip sleep!

🥗 Eat Healthy

Your brain needs fuel. Breakfast and healthy snacks matter.

🎉 Reward Yourself

After studying, do something fun. You earned it!

🔄 Review Daily

Don't wait for tests. Review notes a little each day.

Subject-Specific Help

📖 Reading & English

• Read aloud - hear the words
• Look up unknown words
• Break reading into chunks
• Summarize each paragraph
• Use audiobooks for support

🧮 Math

• Review textbook examples
• Watch Khan Academy videos
• Break into smaller steps
• Check work as you go
• Ask for different explanations

🔬 Science

• Draw diagrams
• Watch videos/simulations
• Make flashcards
• Relate to real life
• Study with partners

🌍 Social Studies

• Create timelines
• Connect to today
• Use maps
• Watch documentaries
• Discuss with family