The Homework Trap

I found a blog a few days ago. It is by Kenneth Golberg, and he talks about something he calls the homework trap. In it he make three recommendations for helping students who are not getting their homework done. One of these is that students who are struggling with homework be allowed to do homework for a set amount of time rather than a set number of problems. He suggests that students for whom school work is difficult will develop avoidance behaviors if they are force to struggle through long hours of homework. I see his point, but I also wonder if 10 or 15 minutes of homework is enough for these kids. Students who struggle with homework are likely to be somewhat behind their peers, or have gaps in their past learning. If they have reduced numbers of problems to solve, will they continue to fall behind? What makes a concept or skill "stick" in a students brain? Is it spending a certain amount of time with that concept or skill or is it doing a certain number of exercises involving what is to be learned? Maybe the whole idea of being behind is antiquated. If we move to competency based instruction maybe this won't matter any more and students can simply learn at their own pace. But is that just "the soft bigotry of low expectations"? As with many issues in education, I feel ambivalent about the idea of using time as the limiting factor for homework. However, we have tried the current method of forcing students to finish their homework for a long time, and it doesn't seem to be working. Maybe it's time to try letting students limit their time on homework.

Parents and Homework

I have been planning to write a post about how parents view homework and how important it is to communicate with parents about homework if you are taking a non-traditional approach to homework for about a week now. This topic first occurred to me at parent-teacher conferences. I was describing my use of learning goals sheets to a parent, and feeling quite proud of myself. He turned to me and said "Are the other teachers using this approach?" My heart sank. I had to admit that I was the only teacher currently taking this approach to homework. At this point he turned to his son and said "You'll have to do regular homework next year, so don't get too used to this learning goal stuff." I sometimes feel that because I am trying to make changes and take a more progressive view of homework, that I am at odds with parents. I feel defensive, and that I am at odds with parents because I am using non-traditional methods for homework.

I have had several unpleasant interactions with parents this year, probably for several reasons. One reason may be that I have not adequately communicated my reasons for taking a different approach to homework. Another may be that I don't fully know what I am doing yet, and so I haven't been completely consistent with my approach.

Today, I was reading the book Rethinking Homework: Best Practices That Support Diverse Needs by Cathy Vatterott. In the book she recommends increasing communication with parents about the suggested role that they could take to homework. She suggests that parents should not be helping students with homework or acting as enforcers, but rather monitoring their child's homework habits and progress. She also says that teachers should provide parents with the means to frequently communicate this information to the teacher. Parents can be asked to report back to the teacher about how long assignments are taking and whether a student was able to complete the assignment on his or her own. Vatterott says that any time a student cannot independently finish a homework assignment, that he or she should not be expected to complete it, but should instead be provided with additional instruction or support.

Suggested Guidelines for Parent Involvement in Homework (p.50)

Parents are encouraged to ...

• Ask their child about what the child is studying in school.
• Ask their child to show them any homework assignments.
• Assist their child in organizing homework materials.
• Help their child formulate a plan for completing homework. (This should decrease as the child gets older.)
• Provide an appropriate space for their child to do homework.

Parents may, if they wish...

• Help their child interpret assignment directions.
• Proofread their child's work, pointing out errors. (Again, this should decrease as the child progresses through school.)
• Read aloud required reading to their child.
• Give practice quizzes to their child to help prepare for tests.
• Help their child brainstorm ideas for papers or projects.
• Praise their child for completing homework.

Parents are not expected to...

• Attempt to teach their child concepts or skills the child is unfamiliar with.
• Complete assignments for their child.
• Allow their child to sacrifice sleep to complete homework.

I am planning to provide this list of guidelines to parents at the beginning of next year. I will also ask for their feedback about homework consistently throughout the year. I can email a parent feedback checklist to parents so that I am not dependent on students remembering to bring it home. This checklist will ask parents how long a given assignment took their child, and ask for a reason, if the child was not able to finish it. Providing the guidelines, and asking parents to provide this feedback may help open the lines of communication between us, and may help to eliminate some of the criticism that I have been getting this year.

Learning Goals

Finding an alternative to nightly homework can be a frustrating process. While teaching the most recent unit, on percents and their applications, I assigned students a set of learning goals which they were require to prove that they had mastered. There was no required homework. Students could post their evidence on Edmodo, or they could write out their evidence and turn it in to me. (Initially, I told students that they could go over the learning goals verbally with me in class, but that turned out to be all that I had time to do each class period. I needed time to meet with students about questions, and so, after two days, I stopped allowing students to deliver their evidence to me verbally.) I looked at the learning goals nightly, and wrote comments back to students. If I felt a student had proven that she met a goal, I would initial it, and check it off on a master list. I thought this was a good plan because students would get quick feedback, and I would have a good idea of how each student was doing.

However, there were problems. First, I created too many learning goals. There were fourteen for the unit. Going over the learning goals was taking over my life. The second problem was that students were not looking at the textbook materials at all, since there was no homework assigned. There wasn't any variety in the problems that they wrote to prove they had met a goal, since they just wrote problems identical to the ones I had done in class. Another problem was that same students who didn't do their homework before, also didn't submit their learning goals, so they still weren't getting feedback, and I still didn't know what their level of comprehension was. Finally, students didn't do any better on the percent test than they had on any other test this year. So learning goals are not the magic bullet, but I am not giving up. For the next unit, I have created slightly fewer (11) learning goals. I am assigning a few problems out of the textbook, but no more than ten, and usually fewer than that. If nothing else, the students have a better idea of what they are supposed to be learning, and are more focused on concepts instead of lesson numbers than they were before.

The Homework Dilemma

I am starting this blog because after six years of teaching 7th grade math, I find homework to be a constant frustration. I know that kids don't enjoy it, and I want to make sure that, if I am assigning it, it has a purpose. I have tried so many different options, and still haven't settled on the best, most effective way to use homework. Should it be no homework, a flipped classroom, drill-and-kill (okay, not drill-and-kill), a few problems that involve more writing and problems solving, a lot of problems with a right or wrong answer, review problems but not new content, new content but no review? The homework dilemma has not been solved. Research does not point a clear path, so let's put our heads together, do some action research, and figure out what works.