As I am preparing for this week's Pedagogy and Technology chat (#patue) I am thinking a great deal about homework in my own life as a student and as a teacher.
Before I engage in a narrative ramble here is the official promo info for Tuesday:
#PATUE Chat April 2 @ 5PST/ 8est topic Homework 2.0 with @Drjolly @Wikibrains and @RickWormeli
I should invite my parents onto this chat as they would have some great insights on how quickly homework can become "the homework fight. "
As a student I typically refused to do homework I already understood. This was frustrating to everyone in my life as it created a large disparity between ability and grades. In my middle school years I would fail the first part of each school year because I would not engage in the review work. Once I joined the ranks of teachers my attitude about homework didn't change, but I found myself feeling pushed around by expectations of HWK from students, admin and parents.
In my school I have 150 minutes a week of classtime with my students, assuming there isn't a special schedule. This means I can feel the pressure of "not enough time" pretty quickly.
I have worked to innovate the roll of homework in my class and some weeks it works and others, well not as much. English teachers typically give reading homework, and then have to figure out how to run the class in a way that accounts for those that did not read. This creates frustration. Going into this week's #patue chat I hope we can uncover some good guiding principles for the best use of out of class time.
Honestly my interest in "flipping" my classroom is about finding the tools to create critical change in how my instructional time is used. I am not an all or nothing flipper; I am a teacher shopping for tools to keep my students engaged and learning.
What do I want from my Homework? (a rough list)
1. I want it to be paperless, filed in the RIGHT spot in the cloud before class begins.
2. I want it to support and extend student learning
3. I don't want it to need "correcting and scoring"
The conversation is already going
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| Join us Tuesday 5pst/8est for #patue chat |
I hope you will join the discussion on Tuesday. Everything you do as a teacher has the potential to change the world. Everything.
POSTSCRIPT: the chat was awesome here is a link to the storify
POSTSCRIPT: the chat was awesome here is a link to the storify
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