Reflection following my viewing of IMMOOC SEASON 3 Episode 2 with Alice Keeler
Hosts: Tara Martin, Katie Martin and Annick Rauch.
Alice Keeler is the author of ditch that homework. She taught high school math for 14 years. She teaches at the California State University and works with teachers. One of her ideas to reduce/ eliminate homework is to call it independent practice. Keller suggests we don't know what's going on in someone elses house so we need to tread carefully and can't expect too much. She also shares that research states homework doesn't add that much.
Keeler also talks about the cognitive load and that students are learning all day, so they need time to play after having worked all day. Keeler discusses John Hattie's and how he states that relationships with students is what is effective for learning and that homework is very low in term's of what is important in Hattie's research. Keller talks about reading logs being drudgery and a chore and that we would benefit more from discussing what students are reading than logging about it.
Keller suggests that our focus should be: active learning
: feedback now
: creating room for doing what matters.
It resonates with me that we need to be proactive. We need to build relationships with parents: talk to parents about why we don't need to do homework, why it's important to go to the park and embrace being a child. Advocating for intentionally addressing students achievements and next steps could be done in a digital way with the likes of google classroom. This way makes parents the audience and better communication with parents assists with to alleviating questions.
When it comes to our students our focus should be related to installing curiosity. In this episode it was suggested using the framework of 5E's to do this: Engage, Explore, Explain, Extend, and Evaluate. The facilitators discussed our need to ask kids questions about something they care about. Assuming students know nothing and teaching them everything is wrong. We need to give students time to explore and see what they know. We need to encourage them to be curious.
George Curous expresses... If Students leave school less curious than when they started we have failed them.
In this episode Technology in math is discussed. Discussions around analysing data and use of spreadsheets are suggested. When kids track their own data they learn more and have more ownership of their learning. We need to give students more choice as this helps them to sense they have more control. Recently we have completed school progressions as part of reporting to parents. We intend to use these progressions for the students to clearly view their data and so they can use it to track their learning.
Keller supports the idea that Educator's be innovator's, because in her words: " We teach the future". If we are not innovator's we are failing our students. How we access information now is different. Keller states that if we are not innovating we are obsolete.
Feedback should be actionable. Alice believes that it should be specific and that high quality feedback helps students to go far beyond our expectations. Grades can have errors and inconsistencies. There is not one right way. Keller discusses a scenario of teachers grading the exact same assignment and having an A-F range among various teachers. She discusses the margin of errors. Therefore if we are to grade in this way there is great value in moderating with our colleagues and ensuring consistency. However, learning is what is important not the collection of points.
We are here for kids to learn and not to grade...Curous highlighted that Tony Robins states " What every person craves is progress"
Technology helps us to provide choice in terms of the progress we make and how we can show it. Technology gives us direction so students can move and have choice. One suggestion from the IMMOOC was: Instead of using logs for reading simply take some time to discuss with students what they are reading.
As a result of viewing this IMMOOC I bought up my concerns about reading logs and how some students have admitted to recording a log so they don't get in trouble. I discussed how I would prefer that they read rather than completed their home reading so they were able to discuss the text. Colleagues were interested and thought discussing what students read sounded good. This year we have got rid of reading logs and have focused on weekly reading discussions of what students are reading. When we began the chats what became apparent was that it was quickly obvious who had and hadn't completed reading at home. We supported reading discussions with question prompt cards to assist students with good discussions around texts. This is only a start, and it seems to be a positive change however, it doesn't stop here.
My other thoughts/ ideas:
Increasingly communicate with parents ensuring this communication is smart to eliminate them having to ask too many questions.
Use technology to further advance practice.
Give parent homework/ education rather than student homework.
Associations we give our students with learning effects us our whole lives!
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