Monday, August 19, 2013

Homework Wars

Kids don’t want to do it.
Teachers don’t want to grade it.
Experts don’t even know if it has any true education value.
So the question is: Is homework really necessary?
No thorough answer to the homework question would be complete without the input of students.
After surveying 72 students in the south Los Angeles middle and high school, students expressed a desire to move beyond the “how many pages?” homework mentality. Many of the surveyed students preferred challenging homework assignments that “make us think” or “involves a part of our lives.”
While a handful of the students wrote that they loved to do homework, most reported negative feelings towards homework assignments that were “boring” or “too much.” A majority of the students felt that they had been inadequately prepared to successfully complete their homework assignments alone. They requested that teachers explain the homework in greater detail and “actually give homework that we have talked about in class.”
Almost 30% of the surveyed students named English essays as “the worst homework assignment of the year.” They also commented on homework often being “too hard” and advised teachers to: “Take it easy because we already get frustrated with all the assignments we do in class.”
This student poll holds an obvious bias. Common sense tells us that most students would choose to do less or easier homework, if given the choice. These survey results do stress the struggle to challenge students without frustrating them, to adequately prepare students and to ensure that homework assignments are actually valuable.
Some experts believe that homework can actually impede student learning and motivation.
According to Dr. Vicki F. Panaccione, licensed child psychologist and founder of the Better Parenting Institute, “One of the biggest detriments that I come across each and every day in my clinical practice is the absolute abhorrence that the majority of students feel toward homework. I think, in most cases, the assignments are counter-productive and create a strong dislike for learning.” For optimum benefit, Panaccione recommends assignments: “that move them beyond the facts they have learned, helping students develop their ability to think, not regurgitate.”
Alfie Kohn, education critic and author of “The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing,” recommends that homework should be assigned only when necessary, and urges teachers to organize a change in mandatory homework policies. Kohn says that teachers should reflect on one main question before assigning homework: “What will the effect of this be on kids’ interest in reading, their desire to learn, and their attitudes about school?”
While Panaccione and Kohn might prefer that homework assignments be dramatically reduced, major research studies have proven that homework can increase student achievement at the secondary school level, in addition to other benefits.
According to Harris Cooper, “Homework can foster independent learning and responsible character traits.” Cooper is a professor of psychology and Duke University’s education director, and author of “Using Research to Answer Practical Questions About Homework.”
Parents also benefit from homework. Cooper argues that homework allows parents to get involved in their children’s education and to foster an appreciation for learning at home.
Clearly, the homework debate is not as simple as “to give homework or not to give homework.” The answer may be, rather, to redefine homework and its goals.
In her extensive research, Susan Hallam determined just that. Hallam is the head of the School of Lifelong Education and International Development at the Institute of Education, University of London. She says that the most important information that she has gleaned from research is that homework must possess specific aims related to learning.
“The real question that needs to be considered is whether homework is useful,” Hallam writes. “Giving homework just for the sake of it is wasteful of children’s time. Where it can be demonstrated to contribute to their learning, then it has value.”

Friday, August 16, 2013

Teachers Must Encourage Student Creativity

In today’s Common Core dominated, test-taking, data-driven schools, creativity is often like everybody’s favorite eccentric aunt: we all say we love her just the way she is, but nobody wants to actually be responsible for taking care of and nurturing her. And she’s really inconvenient, immeasurable, erratic, irascible, and unpredictable.
So many teachers are forced to teach to state tests that, little by little, creative projects and critical thinking have been forced to the back of the educational closet.  This isn’t because teachers like it this way; they feel it’s a necessary evil given the idea that student test scores play a large role in how teachers are evaluated.

Why Fight for Creativity in the Classroom

I am here to stand proudly for creativity, in all its messy, out-of-the-lines glory.
Why? Because ultimately, creativity not only improves those pesky test scores, but it also contributes to what should be our ultimate goal as educators: inspiring students to become curious, engaged, and interested in the world around them and within them.
“The great engine that drives innovation and invention in society comes from people whose flame of creativity was kept alive in childhood. Research shows that, if not nurtured, creativity takes a nosedive by fourth grade. Young children who were awesome artists in preschool no longer color the sky orange and pink just because they love the glowing colors,” says Alice Sterling Honig, PhD, of Syracuse University.
In large part, this happens within the confines of the classroom walls. We train them to spit out the answers we want rather than find the answers themselves, because it’s quicker and gets a more consistent result. But is it the right thing to do?

The Bottom Line on Creativity

Every invention, both practical and whimsical, was the product of creativity. The car you drive, the clothes you wear, the music you hear, some television shows you watch, the books you’ve read, medicines that have cured your ills—all these came from a creative mind, someone who could take existing information and knowledge and tweak it slightly to make something totally new and original.
“Creativity has always been prized in American society,” according to author Po Bronson, “but it’s never really been understood.” Bronson and co-author Ashley Merryman wrote a cover story for July’s Newsweek Magazine titled The Creative Crisis. The writers note that “while our creativity scores decline unchecked, the current national strategy for creativity consists of little more than praying for a Greek muse to drop by our houses. The problems we face now, and in the future, simply demand that we do more than just hope for inspiration to strike.”
As teachers, it is our duty to introduce and nurture creative thought in the classroom. It’s messy and often difficult to measure, but this is the stuff that dreams are made of, and America desperately needs dreamers. Of course, they still need to be able to read, write, and do arithmetic, but emphasizing those skills at the expense of critical and divergent thinking is a mistake, not only in a practical sense, but also because we are called to inspire and ignite young imaginations, not shove them into a box with a scantron.

How to Bring Creativity into the Classroom

It really depends on your subject area and/or grade level, but all teachers can sprinkle some pixie dust on their curriculum:

Get Visual

  • Allow students to look at photos or paintings and make up stories about them.

Integrate Music

  • Play different kinds of music and ask students to visualize the scenes that might be going on while the music is playing, and have them draw or write poetry, or create a short, short story.
  • Remember the old Schoolhouse Rock? I learned more about the Constitution from those little segments with music than I did in all my high school classes.

Historical Creativity

  • English teachers really have great opportunities to infuse creativity, but other subject areas lend themselves also: in history or social science, have students write letters form the point of view of an historical character, or write a scene of dialogue between a historical character and a modern-day politician or pop star.

Math & Science

  • Math and science might be more of a challenge, but consider letting students create homes or buildings out of geometric shapes, or write a song about basic math principles.
  • There are also many resources for creative projects emerging, since the issue is gaining attention. Look for project-based instruction, or constructivist learning, and you might find some interesting ideas that may inspire creativity in you.