I loved the article from CathyVatterott in Educational leadership this month! Just what we need to know: By using homework for practice in self-assessment and complex thinking skills, we can put students in charge of the learning process.
In my discipline – Mathematics - No
more p. 238 5-57 the odds for assignments, no more 32 “drill and kill’ math worksheets,
no more 90 minute homework assignments, no more going over homework the next
day for 25 minutes of class, no more assigning homework at the last minute, no
more students not knowing the answers and being able to check your work as you
practice, no more homework filled with only lower level cognitive demand tasks!
Homework will be worthy of our students’ best efforts? Right?
Not so fast.
Is homework really an essential element to the process of student learning? The short answer is yes. But the best protocols to follow for homework are not quite as clear.

Here is what we do know: The assignment of homework can no longer be
a superficial exercise for you or your team. My colleagues and I now think
the “homework” you assign students, as well as the way you think about homework
as an in-class activity is one of the most important team discussions you can have, for agreement, before the unit begins.
Research does indicate that
homework can be helpful in improving student achievement if implemented
correctly (Cooper, 2008). Practice is
important, but not without first developing student understanding in class.
Matt Larson, a national mathematics expert and lead author on our 2012 Common Core Mathematics in a PLC at Work series and our new 2014 handbook series on Beyond the Common Core in a PLC, suggests that student practice
without understanding may be detrimental to students’ development of fluency,
and in many cases avoiding this danger means that instruction should place
greater emphasis on guided practice in
class – practice that is supported
by monitoring and feedback – prior to independent practice outside of class
Research also supports the idea of spaced (sometimes called distributed or
spiral) vs. massed homework practice
during the unit of study (Hattie, 2012) as having a
significant impact on student learning. That is, provide homework assignment
(practice) tasks that are spaced throughout the unit, allowing your students to
cycle back and perform distributed practice on prior learning standards, including
those learned earlier in the unit, previous units, or possibly the previous
grade level.
As each teacher on your team begins
to honor teaching to the same set of essential learning standards and designing
high quality common assessments for your grade level or course, then it is a
natural outcome that the nature of independent
practice for student learning outside
of class (homework) would be designed from the same core set of problems
for each student, no matter the assignment of teacher for the grade level or course.
Understanding
the purpose of homework
This spring you can and should use
the questions in the Collaborative
Homework Assignment Protocol Discussion tool to help you and your team
develops a better understanding of the purpose, the content and the expected
protocols for the units’ homework assignments. Think of it as a sort of spring-cleaning
of your current homework habits.
Collaborative
Homework Assignment Protocol Discussion Tool
Directions: Work with your course level collaborative team to
develop unit by-unit homework protocols for your course level.
Purpose of Homework:
1.
Why do we assign homework for the lessons of each unit?
What is the fundamental purpose of homework?
Nature of Homework
2.
What is the proper number of practice problems
(mathematical tasks) for daily homework assigned during the unit?
3.
What is the proper rigor (cognitive demand
expectations) of the practice problems (mathematical tasks) for homework
assigned during the unit?
4.
What is the proper distribution of practice problems or
tasks for homework to ensure spaced
practice for our students?
5.
How do our daily homework assignments align to the expectations
of the essential learning standards for the unit? How do the students know this
to be true?
6.
What steps shall we take to identify the homework
(independent practice to be assigned and how will we communicate the
assignments to students/parents/support staff?
How will we reach consensus on all unit homework assignments? How do we
ensure coherence across the team to the student learning and practice
expectations?
Use of Homework:
7.
How should we grade or score homework assignments
during the unit? (What percent of a student’s total grade should be based on
homework?)
8.
How will we “go over”, in class, the homework practice
that is assigned to our students during the unit?
9. How will we communicate
the Common Unit Homework Assignments
to the students, parents and support staff, before
the unit begins?
Mathematics homework should be a formative learning activity, i.e. an
opportunity to obtain independent feedback and improve learning. Think: Primary purpose of mathematics homework is independent
practice. More importantly, successful independent practice. That is,
students must understand and use homework as an opportunity for formative
assessment learning – while you are not in the room (Hattie, 2012).
Perhaps
the homework paradigm shift for you and your colleagues is to stop calling it
“homework”. Certainly “Independent Practice” can be done at the coffee shop, or
after school in a classroom at school, or on the bus, or sitting in a hallway,
or in the car on the way to practice or a game, or with friends at the library,
or at the neighbors house. Independent
practice does not have to be done at a specific location… it just has to be
done.
The
work of your collaborative team is to decide, before the unit begins, what and
how much homework to provide for additional student independent practice. Your
team must decide how you will communicate the homework assignments to students
and parents. And your team must decide the role homework plays as part of your
classroom protocols.
Using effective homework protocols
1. Homework purpose: The primary purpose of homework is to allow the
student the opportunity for independent practice on essential learning
standards mastered in class. Homework can also provide a chance for the student
to practice mathematical tasks that relate to previous learning standards or
tasks that reflect prerequisites learning standards for the next unit.
2. Homework length of time: How much time should daily homework take
students to complete? How many problems should it entail? Homework should not
be lengthy (Cooper, 2008) so care should be given in what is assigned. Take
into account the cognitive demand level of the tasks or problems assigned. Think
no more than 25-30 minutes K-5 and 35-45 minutes grades 6-12 of student time
outside of class each day.
3. Homework problem set/task selection: Homework that provides review
of previous work and helps to prepare for work to come has been linked to improved
student achievement as well (Cooper, 2008). Make sure that all tasks/problems
assigned are necessary as part of independent practice, ensure there is spaced
practice and not massed practice, and make sure that the tasks assigned for
homework actually align to the essential learning standards of the unit.
4. Providing Homework answers: When
Students are provided answers to the homework problems they can check their
solutions against the answers, and if their end result does not match the provided
answer, they to rework the problem to find their error. In other words,
students receive immediate and formative self-assessed feedback of their work (similar to what happens when playing an
electronic game). Moreover, a compelling reason to provide students the answers
to the homework in advance of the assignment is the time saved not giving out answers during the class
period.
5. The role of homework in class: Once the homework to be assigned is
determined (before the unit begins), your collaborative team’s discussion
should focus on how the homework will be addressed in class, the type of
feedback that will be given to students, and what will occur if students do not
complete the homework. If most of the class time the next day is spent going
over the homework then you lose the impact of successful independent practice
on student learning. Your students may be choosing to wait to do homework
problems, precisely because they know
you will go over the problems the next day. Since the purpose of homework is
independent practice, limit the amount of time given in class to grade, score,
or go over the practice problems. These daily and unit processes and procedures
should be consistent from teacher to teacher within your collaborative team.
Final Thoughts: Why are students expected to do homework? Not
because they will receive a grade, not
because they hope you will “go over” the problems in class the next day (which
makes homework no longer an independent
practice exercise), not because
they are being punished.
Only because your students understand the importance
of “formative assessment” and successful practice as a critical aspect of their
long term memory learning process.
In
class students do need your teacher modeling and lots of peer-to-peer guided practice, then out of class, and in a timely fashion,
they need to do accurate independent
practice with feedback (self-feedback and action or with peers) – well
before they are back in your class the next day.
I wish you the best in your
homework, oops, independent practice, journey. I hope these protocols and
guidelines help as you think through this often-difficult aspect of your
teaching and leading students!
Independent practice- operative word there is practice. Practicing to be better at something. But if homework becomes a major factor in grades, then that practice becomes an obligation.- Layce of Homework-desk.com
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your thoughts about independent practice! I've found it to be a difficult task to help all my students understand why they do homework. For now, the punishment piece is still a part of my system, but I've been working to make the punishment fit the crime. Here's a summary: http://demetriusolsen.blogspot.com/2014/04/does-requiring-homework-produce-results.html
ReplyDeleteYour blog is by invitation only. How am I supposed to read it?
DeleteI tried to get to the blog, too, also to hit the 'invitation only' wall.
DeleteI tried to get to the blog, too, also to hit the 'invitation only' wall.
DeleteSo sorry! Last year, someone at my school threatened to harm me if I didn't take the blog down. It's back and I have a new video about posting homework and making sure there are no excuses for not knowing what to do: http://millsroom30.blogspot.com/2015/10/ideas-for-posting-homework.html
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