Learning first, ranking second.

I have addressed how teachers and students can look past grades, marks and other extrinsic motivators, however there is another group that needs to get on board and they are parents.   Some of my friends, who teach the younger grades and are trying to abolish grades and homework, have informed me there is a pushback from parents. 

First, there is not one shred of evidence that supports the idea of homework in elementary grades.  Parents need to be aware of this fact.  After watching the movie “Race to Nowhere”, and reading many research papers, it has become very evident that elementary kids should not have homework stress outside of school.   Unfortunately, homework is not the only thing adding stress; grades create stress as well.

The truth is that for most students, the above picture is actually their life outside of school.  Your high achievers are becoming stressed to maintain their high grades, while your low achievers are stressed in keeping their head above water.

How do we cut down this stress?  Parents need to stop asking the following questions:

“What did you get on your test?”

“What is your mark in the class?”

“Do you have any homework?”

“When is your next report card?”

The questions should be replaced with:

“What did you learn today?”

“Is there anything you are not understanding in class?”

“Did you have fun today?”

"Is there anything else you would like to learn about what you learnt today?

 Society needs to start focusing more on the learning occurring and less on the ranking of students.  In reality, what do marks really do? RANK students!  Do parents send their children to school, to be ranked or to learn?  I hope the latter is the answer, and if so why are the questions about school focusing on the ranking and not learning?

Learning first, achievement second, homework still dead last.

I have received many responses to my "no homework" policy, so I decided to blog more about it.  In my classes, I do not assign daily required work.  I have, however, given my students assignments to complete out of class time, but these are not the traditional math assignments.

The myth about daily repetitive work is that this actually increases student mastery of a concept.  Many people believe the saying “Practice makes perfect”.  This saying, recently, has evolved to “perfect practice makes perfect”.  I would agree to the second statement when referring to a physical skill, such as shooting a basketball.  To master a physical skill, our body needs to mimic the correct actions multiple times.  The question that homework in a classroom does not address is “How does one practice understanding?”

Psychologist, Nate Kornell, completed a study that showed that intensive immersion is not the best way to master a particular concept.  Nate found that college students and adults of retirement age were better able to distinguish the painting styles of 12 unfamiliar artists after viewing mixed collections (assortments, including works from all 12) than after viewing a dozen works from one artist, all together, then moving on to the next painter.  Nate then deduced:

“What seems to be happening in this case is that the brain is picking up deeper patterns when seeing assortments of paintings; it’s picking up what’s similar and what’s different about them,”

Unfortunately, most classes immerse students into one concept; assign them multiple questions of the same concept, then move on to the next concept.  The research states that this is not the most effective way if we want students to retain mastery.

According to Cooper, homework increases student achievement (Even a formula has been created, 10 min per grad level)  This is a self-fulfilling prophecy.  First, educators need to realize that student achievement and student learning are not the same idea.  When looking at Cooper'sstudies, he shows that test scores increase due to the homework assigned.  Unfortunately, assigning repetitive work for students, or giving them loads of questions before an exam is the equivalent of cramming for an exam.

Cognitive scientists do not deny that cramming will lead to a better grade on an exam (thus increase student achievement), however this knowledge is quickly forgotten (student learning has decreased).  We, as educators, need to realize we are here to increase student learning first and student achievement second. 

Meaning first, homework second

I have stopped assigning daily required homework to my students.  Over the last 4 years of my teaching career, I assigned daily homework, and at the start of each class I would "check", or assess, the completion of their work.  When I started to think about it, what I was doing could be considered malpractice. 

The students would open their work booklets to the assigned page and I would walk up and down the rows and either give the students a 100% or a 0%.  It is ludicrous to call this true assessment.  I was grading their work ethic more than their actual knowledge of math.  Almost every student's mark was being either inflated or deflated due to their work ethic.

I have had the discussion that daily homework teaches good work habits and/or develops positive character traits.  After reading many articles and research I have yet to find one piece of evidence that supports this claim.  Another argument is that homework "gives students more time to master a topic or skill".  I have read reports from researcher Richard C. Anderson that claims "the actual learning that is occurring depends strictly on time spent learning the concept".  However, when Anderson completed further research he found that this claim also turns out to be false.

A colleague of mine used the example of reading to illustrate the need for daily homework.  Anderson found that when children are taught to read by focusing on the meaning of the text (as opposed to strictly memorizing the phonetic sounds of the words), then the learning completed by the reader does not depend on the amount of instructional time.  His research also carried over to math, which showed that the more time spent on completing math facts only increased achievement if the achievement was based on low level thinking and strictly recall as opposed to problem solving.  The truth is that when creativity and higher level thinking is involved, the more hours spent are least likely to produce better outcomes.

Another colleague used the idea of sports to prove that homework is a necessity.  Of course it makes sense that if you practice a certain athletic skill the correct way you will improve in that area.  However, using sports to promote homework in class is using petition principii, or more commonly known as “begging the question”.  A proposition which requires proof is assumed without proof; we are assuming that an intellectual skill and an athletic skill can be classified in the same category.

The majority of people that I have encountered that are supporters of daily required homework fail to look at the tasks from the students’ point of view.  Most “drill and practice” assignments actually do the contrary to students’ learning, and actually “drill and kill” any interest in the subject area.   Also, when students are struggling with a concept, asking them to complete questions on this concept will become frustrating for them and still no actual learning will occur.  I have realized that I need to stop treating my students with the notion that “if I give them more to do, then they will know more”.

In my classes, I challenge students in meaningful contexts and provide them with questions that are similar to the ones in class.  I do not require my students to complete these questions, I do not grade these questions, and I do not force my students to do work that is not important to them.  The meaning of the math is what I put as a priority in my class, and home work as second.