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Mrs Saunders' Homework Philosophy...

Homework...

The easiest and quickest way to divide students, parents, educators, academics and administrators is to begin voicing your opinion about either homework's benefits or drawbacks. So in an effort to express both my personal and professional view, I will speak only from my own student/teaching experiences and professional reading.

 

In 2013 I was part of the Homework Policy Review Committee at my school and we were assigned the task of updating and reviewing the points within the document, which we managed successfully. We examined policies from other schools, explored the recent coverage in the media regarding the effectiveness of homework and explored current academic research literature. Several interesting aspects were raised throughout the course of this process.

 

Some of my own current impressions and homework practices include;

 

  1. Providing any amount of homework is either too much or not enough for certain families. While this can be confounding for the teacher, I have found it can be overcome through the provision of open-ended tasks, extension opportunities, or optional exercises.

  2. Not every student has reliable online access at home. Inequality cannot be ignored - substitutions must be provided.

  3. At no time is not doing your homework a punishable offence at school. No negative consequences are implemented onto students due to incompletion. I support this philosophy, however, I have witnessed it bring additional stress upon those parents who want their children to complete their homework for fear of appearing unorganized or lazy. My students know that at any time if they cannot complete the set homework, they write a brief note and ask a parent to initial it - no further questions are asked. Life is busy for us all. I do notify parents after two weeks of incomplete homework that isn't initialled - this is a natural consequence for students; it is informing the parent without punishing the student.

  4. Homework's purpose should be clear to all: student, teacher and parent. While the latest research supports the view of there being little benefit for primary aged students, the research was specifically comparing repetitive drill style activities to more engaging activities. The research did not advocate dispensing with homework altogether; it articulated how certain types of traditionally set homework did not achieve the educational outcomes previously assumed. Our challenge as teachers is to work with families and educational institutions to design activities that actually support a measurable increase in effective learning.

  5. What is engaging and interesting to one student, may be totally boring to another! Sometimes the curriculum content that is expected of students contains topics that are difficult to make fun for everybody's tastes. This, as teachers, of course is our challenge, but it can be quite difficult at times. As adults, we are aware that we often just have to get on with a job that needs to be done. I consider it a life skill to be able to do this efficiently, without losing sight of its overall purpose or longterm benefit.

 

"Homework has long been an academic laggard, slow to adopt scientifically-supported approaches to learning. No wonder it’s assailed by critics on all sides, whether they believe homework is piled on too heavily or given too sparingly. Maybe the heated debates about the amount of homework children are assigned would cool if it became clear that the homework was effectively advancing their learning".

Article Source: "Brilliant Report", a newsletter by Annie Murphy Paul

Innovative take on creating engagement via Homework

'The Myth Of Homework' - Explaining the issue.

Then there's the 'Flipped Classroom' philosophy, which inverts the process of 'Teacher delivers information, students practice at home' to 'Student explores new concept at home ready for the classroom activity the following day'. The Flipped method relies on access to technology for students to engage in online discussions, videos, blogs, web tasks etc before sharing their thoughts and questions within the classroom context. Even in the realm of adult education, engaging in self-paced online learning is increasing in popularity via Massive Open Online Communities (MOOCs) - a process with growing momentum and global success. Without explicitly applying the term, I have been using Flipped Classroom ideology in my Homework program for some time in various ways. This would be my primary use of Edmodo with my students and even this website fulfils this role.

I encourage you to take a look at this infographic and I welcome further comment on this issue.

 

Jemima Saunders

What about Flipped Learning?

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