Assignment #5: Complete the 4 part assignment format as you read, reflect, and respond to Chapter 5 – Homework and Practice.
Remember: Although your course packet asks you to post to blog for parts A, B, C, and D…we are asking that you only post part C and D. We’re trying to make the blog easier to read and more user- friendly. Thanks!
A. Self Assessment of Current Beliefs and Practices: This component asks you to reflect on how and why you currently use the instructional strategies of Homework and Practice in your classroom. The intent of this is to activate your prior knowledge of your strategy use so that you can make comparisons as you read the chapter. Below are the questions to help you complete your self-assessment. After completing your self assessment please post a thought or two as a comment (click on comment link below) to this posting labeled Week Five: Homework and Practice.
• Think about the kinds of homework you assign to your students and what some of the purposes of those assignments might be.
• Do you have questions about using homework?
• How do you decide which skills students need to practice a great deal and which skills they can just have a basic proficiency in?
• What makes skill practice effective?
B. Read & Reflect “Research & Theory”: This portion of the assignment asks you to read chapter 5 and reflect briefly on your thinking after reading the “Research and Theory” section for both homework and practice. You may want to think and respond to one of the bulleted thoughts below. After completing your chapter reflection, please post it as a comment (click on comment link below) in the posting labeled Week Five: Homework and Practice.
• Reviewing the research on homework emphasizes the importance of commenting on students' homework assignments. What strategies would your recommend to a teacher who wants to assign homework but claims that it is logistically impossible to comment on students' work?
• The research described in this chapter suggests that, especially for older students, homework seems to be positively correlated with student achievement. Even when some parents who are opposed to homework become aware of this research, they express strong negative feelings about homework. What do you think are some of the reasons for these feelings?
C. Practice: Choose one of the specific “classroom practice” strategies or techniques shared in this chapter to teach to your students (If you are not currently teaching, you may share how you would use this strategy in your classroom). Please post a brief reflection of how this went to the posting labeled Week Five: Homework and Practice. Click on the “comment” link below..
D. Final Strategy Reflection: Use the following sequence of questions/promps to reflect on what you’ve learned about both the strategies presented in the chapter and what you’ve learned about yourself as both a teacher and a learner. Please post your brief reflection to the posting labeled Week Five: Homework and Practice by clicking on the “comment” link below.
How has the information you read in this chapter on homework and practice effected your thinking about teaching and learning? What have you learned about yourself as a teacher and learner? Use the following questions to assist you in writing a brief strategy reflection:
• How might I change how use both homework and practice in my classroom?
• What is something you now understand better about homework or practice?
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Chapter 5: C. I was very interested in this chapter because I have become quite frustrated with student' performance around homework, particularly at the lower levels. I have done everything from altering the way that I go over homework to asking my classes whether they find it helpful and if they think that I should not give homework at all (interestingly the majority always want to continue have it.) So, I've continued to scratch my head as to why it doesn't seem to be effective. So I had a complete "aha!" moment when I read that feedback was crucial if homework is to be helpful for students. Interestingly, when I was in graduate school, I took a class and I was told in one of my methodology classes that it is not helpful when a teacher, especially in a foreign language class when the homework is about practicing vocab. or grammatical concepts, collects the homework, marks it up with "red ink" and returns it. Rather, we were taught, it is more helpful to assign the work, check it off at the beginning of the class for student accountability, and then go over it, having the students correct their own work and ask questions as we go over the homework about what they don't understand. The point being that at that point, confusion would be clarified and the learning would take place. It's always sounded good to me, and some students have done well with this model. The problem and frustration for me has been that there has also been a sizable group that clearly isn't self-correcting or even paying that much attention to what we're doing. I've tried to increase student' interest by having students write answers on the board or I've had answers already written out on transparencies to have the process go more quickly, but nothing has engaged a certain group of kids. Ugh. So, even though it should probably seem obvious, I guess that some ideas just get stuck in one's head and the idea of giving feedback, vs. putting "red ink" on homework just didn't get through to me. (duh!) Anyway, so now I'm trying to figure out how to do that in a time-manageable way. Hmmmmm. I still like the idea of self-correcting because I believe it has merit. I'm thinking about going through the process mentioned above and then having the students hand in their homework afterward. At that point I will look it over and see how much effort they've 1) put into actually doing the assignmnet and 2) put into making corrections, writing notes about things they don't understand etc. I think that part of their homework grade will be based on the first part and part of it will be based on what I see after they turn it in. If I create a rubric around that process, I can hopefully just check off what is strong, and what needs to be improved on without having to write a bunch of feedback. Do you think that this would work and be effective? After just spending 90 minutes giving feedback for one class of 27 students on the effort and achievement rubric I'm trying to figure out how to manage feedback. It can clearly become overwhelming.
D. What was a stunning lesson for me in this chapter - like jumping into a river in January-is that feedback on homework is IMPORTANT!! I can't believe that I could have missed this. Sheesh!! I've always given lots of feedback on essays and tests, but daily homework, due to what I stated above, simply flew under my radar. I'm hoping that by starting this process, I will be happier with my students' response and output around the entire process. It will be very interesting to see. What a helpful chapter!
Hi Robin...Thanks again for your great thoughts. This is a helpful chapter for me to go back to and read and reread because my own thoughts on homework are very conflicted. I also believe that the expectations with the grade that I primarily work with (K-6) are very different than those of your students. The biggest word/idea that shouts out to me from this chapter is PURPOSE. All assignments have to have purpose and that purpose needs to be made clear to the students. I think it's a great idea to collect the students' work after they have gone over and self-corrected...I think that you will be considering two very important aspects of the students completing the assignment: their original effort and new understandings after you've reviewed the assignment. I do see how this can all be very time consuming for you though...how about if you chose the most important assignment of the week (one that reviewed the week's work) and provided this type of feedback only once a week. I don't think you could keep this up everyday. Let me know how this is going for you..I'm very interested!
At that point I will look it over and see how much effort they've 1) put into actually doing the assignmnet and 2) put into making corrections, writing notes about things they don't understand etc. I think that part of their homework grade will be based on the first part and part of it will be based on what I see after they turn it in. If I create a rubric around that process, I can hopefully just check off what
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