Reflecting on the chapter pertaining to effort I find myself thinking about the discussions that my fellow coaches and I have relating success in sports to time practicing their craft. We know it is also true for school, but don’t emphasize it as much as we should. I do like using technology in my classes and with access to 10 computers they would have to stagger their time, but using some of it to track the “on task" time might help them to see why they are struggling while others are not. The quote “success comes in cans; failure comes in can’ts” is a play on the terms I give my athletes all the time. If they don’t believe they can accomplish the task, there is no reason for us to waste our time trying.
Homework has always been a sore spot for me as a science teacher. Even in my freshman classes (which I think are fairly basic) I find that most parents in my community don’t have the ability to help students if they get stuck. Many of my students have the ability to look up information online but like the book says, they can get caught in a myriad of problems from ad distractions to incorrect information on a non credible website. For this reason my homework policy has been that there is minimal homework assigned. When an assignment is given I almost always give at least 10 minutes to work on the task so that kids can at least get started and ask questions before they go home and try it on their own. A vast majority of the time they have enough time that if they work hard they can get it all done in class. As I look at many ways to change the instruction in my class, one of them is how to best use online opportunities to enhance the instruction in my room. I am encouraged by the websites that are listed as I have worn out my energy to look for things that are useful on my own. Some of the more valuable things that I have taken from this course involve the use of online resources to help track students progress, communicate collaboratively with each other, and look at new ways of presenting new information. I look forward to the opportunity to change how my class looks so that hopefully I can more positively impact my students education.
I really enjoyed reading your post. I think you touched on a topic that frustrated many teachers. I am a physical education and health teacher. There are not many instances I give my health students homework but when I do I run into some of the same frustrations you do. My students are only in middle school but seem to have problems finding credible information and begin to take information from sites that are incorrect. Many of the topics we cover focus on drug use and the students waste much of their time looking on sites with incorrect information. I am now trying to integrate more technology into my classroom by having the students work together. I have my students’ complete research in class so I am there to guide them but assign them homework that is forcing them to collaborate with each other through the use of blogs, email and my teacher created website. So far it has gone well but I do agree with you that while homework does make “perfect “ there are many bumps along the road the students come across that frustrate us as educators.
ReplyDeleteI also enjoyed your post. I can relate to the homework assignments and your thoughts on why you do not have assignments all of the time. If students cannot get accurate information it could harm the learning process. I also like that even with limited resources you are trying to incorporate more technology into your classroom. As a teacher it makes it more difficult at times to split your class up, but I am sure that there are times when it is nice to do that as well.
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