Strategies To Improve Homework

Think About Your Homework Does it serve a purpose? Is it relevant to student learning? Is it used when appropriate rather than routinely. Myths Hard work is good for you regardless of the pointlessness of the task. Some of my examples If a teaching/learning experience is too enjoyable it is somehow academically suspect. My examples—word finds, mazes (Jared’s battleship), division of 3 digit into 5 digit, connect the dots,

Students (and parents) should have no trouble connecting homework to classroom learning. Identify the purpose for students Have them state what the goal of the homework is for them.

Quality Homework task promote ownership when they: Allow for choices. Offer students an opportunity to personalize their work. Allow students to share information about themselves or their lives. Tap emotions, feeling, or opinions about a subject. Allow students to create products or presentations. Cathy Vatterott, page 104 Rethinking Homework

Massed vs. Distributed Practice 24 focused practices to achieve 80% competency (Marzano et.al., p. 67) Distributed Practice Massed Practice

Massed & Distributed Practice Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5 Important Assumption: “Learning” implies that students can recall, understand, and use information for the long term.

Definitions Same-day content homework is problems similar to what was covered that day. Distributed Content can include material from previous lessons (practice content) or content for future reference (preparation content) Interspersal is embedding brief problems in longer sets of more challenging problems.

Research Says Distributed content homework is more effective than same-day content. Distributed content homework was even greater when more time was allowed to pass before the material was tested. Students prefer interspersed assignments Homework accuracy and completion improve with interspersed assignments

Completion Contract From Ken O’Connor page 52 Missed Work—The following work has not been handed in… Original Due Date… Reason—please indicate why the work is late. Next steps—What will you now do to get this work completed? New Due Date… Student, parent and teacher signature

Homework Suggestions Do as many of these problems as you can in 15 minutes. Bring those you were able to complete. Find out why students’ work is late or incomplete and assist them. Is there something that I should know that I don’t know? Establish consequences (not penalties) for late work such as After school follow up Documentation

Due Date Considerations Work is sometimes part of a sequence and must be submitted before marked work is returned - if this is formative it should not be included in the grade Teachers have to have a reasonable workload - the best approach is to record an incomplete Due dates are often arbitrary - keep any penalty to a minimum - provide information separately about when work is submitted. “He scored a 95%, but turns in work late”. This provides good information

Choice Board Create a Tic-Tack-Toe board with assignments in each box. Students are able to choose which assignments they want to complete to make Tic-Tack-Toe or other variations allowed by the teacher. This allows student choice which increases student motivation.

Choice Boards Enables students to choose tasks, practice a skill and demonstrate and depth of knowledge. Allows for differentiation of instruction related to interest or readiness level. Teachers need to carefully design the boards to ensure a good experience regardless of which “path” is chosen.

Collect Teach Draw Judge Photograph Demonstrate Graph Create Dramatize Survey Forecast Build Memorize Write Compare

Interdisciplinary Assignment Provides students an opportunity to create an assignment to meet requirement in 2 or more classes. Form includes Proposed new assignment Assignments that are being combined Signatures of cooperating teachers New dew date

Choice Ask kids, “What can I do to help you complete more homework?” Get input and ideas from your students. Have students create the homework assignment. “Your mission is to design a homework activity, task, or assignment that will improve your understanding of the concept.”

Other Homework Help Older students tutoring younger students more advanced students tutoring less advanced students Internet resources Worked Out Examples--Research shows that providing worked examples for actual assigned homework problems is beneficial. Decrease in “wrong learning” Instead of “How do I start?” students ask “Why did they take that step?”

Math Strategies Instead of Sudoku do a Ken-Ken. Instead of 10 problems do a couple and write an explanation of what was done.

Lotus Chart Fill in the squares around Feedback and Homework Choice boards