So as I prepare for our next 21st Century meeting I have been trying to get my thoughts together about homework. What the purpose is, what types of assignments I value and what types of assignment I truly think will enhance student learning in my classroom. I think it is clear through research and data that the majority of fill in the blank homework is pointless (unless you are measuring compliance). I have also been reading a great deal about "Unschooling" and what that is/the theory behind it. Some common things that I have found are (these are from a recent Times article, but I have found the same information in various sources).
• The onslaught of homework comes despite the fact that an exhaustive review by the nation's top homework scholar, Duke University's Harris Cooper, concluded that homework does not measurably improve academic achievement for kids in grade school. That's right: all the sweat and tears do not make Johnny a better reader or mathematician.
• Teachers in many of the nations that outperform the U.S. on student achievement tests--such as Japan, Denmark and the Czech Republic--tend to assign less homework than American teachers, but instructors in low-scoring countries like Greece, Thailand and Iran tend to pile it on.
This obviously leads me to believe that the amount of learning is not directly correlated to the amount (hours) of homework done a night. Also many parents have reported the concern of their kids completing homework to get done, not concentrating on the learning or the objective of the given assignment (shocker huh?!)
So questions then start floating in my head about my thoughts of homework and what the goal of it is. Ultimately (in my perfect world) a child would be required to take a concept being taught in school and apply it in a way that is interesting, fun, exciting to them. For example for me, it might be using mathmatics for gymnastics or knitting (my hobbies). For someone else, it could be applying mathmatics to skiing/snowboarding and configuring the best slopes in Colorado.
But how do we make this type of homework happen? How do we take the concepts that are our essential learnings and have kids really apply them to something they love and can use?
Just some of my thinking going on before Thursday :)
posted by bkitch @ 9:07 AM
2 Comments:
Thanks for sharing your thinking. It should be a good discussion on Thursday . . .
First of all, I didn't realize that gymnastics was one of your hobbies. Were you a competitive gynmast?
Your question is a great one. I am also anti-busy work; I don't do packets, studyguides, or random posters. Sometimes I worry that I have sacrificed too much "fun stuff" in the interest of college-prep reading, writing, and discussion, but my students and I try to find interesting connections to art, music, and film.
I think it must be harder, though, when it comes to Spanish because repetition is part of learning vocabulary, verb conjugation, and other language basics. I know that Lauren Gaffney puts the learning objective at the top of each of her assignments (I definitely want to steal this idea), and I'm guessing that students could even start writing their own objectives at the tops of assignments.
Do you think that making the larger, overall goal more visible might help enlighten the purpose of smaller assignments? Are the assignments worth doing in your mind yet a mystery to your students, or do they seem pointless to both you and your students?
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