So just how should homework be so that it might be successful learning tool for my students in the classroom?
This is the question I found myself asking while I was reading, how can this article impact my students?
I found that this article was easy to read and very clear. (Thanks Al!)
Impact to my teaching?
Yes, how?
1. Remember to keep my homework assignments PURPOSE DRIVEN if I can continue to individualize and differentiate my homework for specific needs of my students, target their areas of weakness and push them to get better, this will motivate! I can do this by keeping in mind to personalize the work, purposeful work, with a real life practical approach.
2. Remember ALLOWED VARIETY IN LEARNING to continue to touch on multiple intelligences like art, poetry, etc.
3. Immediate FEED BACK to focus on the part of a lesson that my students did not quite understand so that they can fix what part they did not get and show growth from there assignment
4. NO GRADING OF HOMEWORK inorder for my students to not feel threatened about the homework I must implement a not marking this for points approach, keeping the purpose in mind this homework will be a time to show me that they can practice the specific area of weakness and require less time for the drill and kill of repetitive homework which eats up so much time.
5. BETTER USE OF TIME is therefore the end of result if I can continue to implement the lessons from these aarticles. With better use of their time, my students will be able to focus on less is more as the quality of work will increase. I will be able to help them get to a deeper understanding of the lesson/critical points faster and easier with good homework. With this in mind I think that my students will then experience more personal happiness which will keep them motivated and they will continue to be willing to work hard and desire to succeed.
6. The Four R's-Readiness, Repetition, Review, Revision was suggested by students in article to facilitate homework, if the work is CONNECTED to something personal or if it is meaningful to my students I will make it easier for my students to learn. In the article the students stated that the homework the wanted to do involved collaboration, reflection, personal connection, sharing to the group and immediate feedback, these qualities of good homework keep coming up in the different articles that we have been reading
7. Projects that I am going to assign will be motivating to generate a want to perform, desire to do well, and to make if FUN to learn
In my classroom I have made changes to speak to this need by no longer providing the skill and drill work for take home, we cover the essential in class, they are responsible to learn the words any way that works for them (makes it differentiated and personal responsibility to their own learning style) also by doing spelling in this way I can provide immediate feedback to the kids as to the spelling strategy we are learning. I can also provide the time that some of my students may not get at home because of their other interests and sports commitments. This also provides time for them to work together and collaborate on the answers for the activity. With just a little more tweaking I have now developed a high motivating and high interest activity just by tweaking . Oh yeah! Differentiation is much easier to do now as I can personalize the work for some to do in school using a program called Co-Writer. I have already seen significant improvement on the 3 tests that I have conducted to see if this 21stC approach impacts my class. It has!
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