Homework+&+Practice

Read and Reflect Homework is one of those issues I see both sides of. I know that students need to practice the skills that they are learning in order to master them, there is no doubt about that. However, I also understand some of the rationale behind giving little homework, such as students not having any support/resources (like technology, etc.) at home to complete assignments. Or I have one particular student who comes to mind whose mother pleaded to get some help for her son because she does not read or write English very well. I also have heard teachers say in our school that when given homework, students just copy. Sometimes what they are turning in is a 4th or 5th generation copy (as in, they copied it from someone, who copied it from someone else, etc.). I also, at times, have struggled to provide homework assignments that were truly meaningful practice, rather than just busy work, especially keeping in consideration that many students do not have any parental involvement.

Especially in working with students who have learning disabilities, the article repored that 80 percent of teachers assigned homework to students with learning disabilities, but few matched tasks to students' skills and provided feedback. Having taught in special education classrooms, the diversity of learner skill levels varies incredibly. While it is challenging to provide differentiated instruction for all of their skill levels, providing additional individualized homework assignments is extremely time consuming. Not only are we looking at the actual tasks assigned, but also providing meaningful feedback. It becomes an overwhelming concept, yet we know that students need additional practice to master skills over time.

When considering the four different types of practice, some types of homework are simply easier to assign and provide feedback on than others. While giving students time to read to deepen their understanding of a concept is what we want for all of our students to do as homework, how do we get them to do this? If we simply tell them to read, and don't assess their performance in any way, how do we ensure they are reading? Or providing organizers for the following day's learning is an outstanding way to prepare students for what's coming, but how do we keep them from simply coping from each other? We have all seen the "homework huddle" in the hallway before class! I also question the homework time "rule of thumb" (10 minutes x grade level)... if we each give our students, say 100 minutes of homework a night on average (10th grade x 10 minutes) in each of four core subjects, we are sasking them to complete over six hours of homework every night, is this realistic? Or if it is 100 minutes per day TOTAL, there is now way to endure they aren't ending up with tons, or no, homework.

Apply and Reflect **[]** I took a slightly different approach from simply using terms and definitions and played with literary quotes from the book "To Kill A Mockingbird". I like that on the main flashcard page you can scroll through important quotes (say those students may see again on a test), and review them. The "Learn" option doesn't work out so well with quotes because it requires the user to type in the quote from only being given the name of the speaker. The same is true for the "Test" and "Space Race" game. The only option that this works well with was the "Scatter" game and I love that students can study by clicking and dragging the quotes to the speakers. Is there some way we can monitor if students access the cards? I would certainly use this tool for assisting student with learning vocabulary, and I like the "Scatter" game to review quotes.