Parenting in the Digital World

In Defense of No Homework

More discussion about homework today. John Spencer linked to a blog post (by an educational psychologist, not a teacher) called, “In Defense of Homework.”

I won’t recap her points her – please read them yourself.

I truly appreciate John Spencer’s rebuttal to the post:

  • after school time should be used at the parent’s discretion. Spencer argues that sports, music and other non-school activities can also teach time management.
  • kids already spend 6+ hours in school. That can be enough. (It certainly was for both my kids.)
  • let kids pursue their passion afterschool. Incredible learning can come from that. (Again, this has definitely been the case for both my kids. I truly believe they’ve learned far more from being involved in a theater production than from doing yet another math worksheet. And for different reasons – my son could fly through them, it was pointless. He already knew it. My daughter just doesn’t think this way. It’s excruciating and she’s not going to learn it no matter how many worksheets she gets.)
  • authentic assessments can show better true results than “drill and kill” tests. (e.g. a History Day video v. a multiple choice Scantron test)

I really wish I had seen these discussions when my daughter was in elementary school. I was just going through some files from when she was in 3rd grade, and has an assessment. We were interviewed, and we talked at great length about her struggles – our struggles – with her homework in 1st and 2nd grade. SERIOUSLY – why did I ever let that happen? Why didn’t I tell her teachers that this homework was ridiculous? Even then, I knew she was getting far more from her other outside-of-school activities (choir, theater, swimming, etc.)

She is now in high school. It’s harder to make the case against homework, I suppose. But it shouldn’t be hard to make the case that homework should be purposeful and meaningful – not just homework for homework’s sake. I still see too many pointless worksheets and busy work coming home. So far this year, I have yet to see a project where she’s required to interpret content, create something new, or do anything she’s even proud of doing. It’s all taking in vast amounts of information and spitting it back out on a test. While I’m sure I can’t make the argument that there shouldn’t be homework in high school, I’d like to see it purposeful, more than worksheets.

Visual Expression v. Words

I keep a couple of blogs, partly to test different online tools, partly to track different parts of my life.

This blog obviously logs my thoughts about technology, education and the mix of the two. It’s full of words – lots of words. Occasionally, I toss in a picture or two. I try to do more, but I am wired as a wordy person.

I do have a Tumblr blog that I use for photos. I’m trying to teach myself to take more interesting pictures with my phone. Obviously, I don’t post much, and I tend to post mostly garden photos. It’s fun, but it’s mostly an exercise to push myself in a different direction.

My daughter also has a Tumblr blog. It’s quite different from mine. It’s her way of expressing thoughts, ideas, feelings, likes, dislikes, frustrations, passions and more. She’s quite active on the blog – finding visuals that express how she’s feeling, creating some herself, and even her words have a visual feel to them. It’s a completely different experience than looking at my blog of words, yet you can easily get a good sense of who she is as a person.

Yet, she’s trapped in a school system that forces her to read pages and pages of dense text, with hardly a visual present. Her homework: all words. While she is actually developing into quite a good writer, I often wonder what she could do if she were allowed to express her learning and understanding using visuals.

Fortunately, she was able to add an art class to her course load this year. We let her do Physical Education this summer (online) because the class at school was a total waste of her time and bordered on abusive. Art = way better option.

It’s Not Just Me!

Wow – I’m not alone in my dislike for AP History courses. As I was doing some research to submit a proposal to an education technology conference, I ran across an interesting “Roundtable” on teachinghistory.org about AP history courses.

Seems even AP History teachers aren’t always fond of AP courses. Their reasons sound quite similar to mine:

  • too much content too fast
  • teaching to multiple choice tests doesn’t teach anything
  • survey course doesn’t allow deep, meaningful work
  • etc. There are many more good reasons.

As a professional historian, I find these broad survey courses to be worthless. Does a student need to have a general sense of history? Of course. Do they need to learn this much this quickly? No way.

I’d much rather see students learn to understand the present through the past. Select a current event. Find the relevant history that brought us to where we are today. Dig deep. Find primary sources that build an argument and explain a situation. Give me a History Day project over an AP test any day.

I will be bringing this up at a curriculum night at the school. I fear I will be hooted out of there for daring to question their precious AP classes. I just find it interesting that 5 of the 6 teachers presented in that roundtable dislike the AP classes.

 

Not Yet

If you’ve read my posts about our disruptive innovation project, the iPad Project, where we purchased an iPad for our 7th grade son to take to school, you’ll know that we met resistance, yet have worked with the school so that he’s allowed to have it.

Being the fair parents we are, we asked our 10th grade daughter if she wanted one. Her school is working towards a BYOT policy, but as the previous post stated, the mindset at her school is far from ready for this.

I have to say I was impressed with her response. While of course she’d love her own iPad, she said there’s no way she could have it at school yet. Teachers weren’t ready, wouldn’t let her use it. Kids would make a big deal out of it. She’d never really get to use it.

I guess that disruptive innovation project will have to wait. In the meantime, my daughter misses out on all the great things that can happen with approriate use of learning technology.

Bring Your Own Learning Technology – or Pencil

Bring Your Own Learning Technology

I saw that phrase in an article from the Columbus, Ohio paper about schools using cell phones in class. It’s a great way to set an atmosphere in a school about cell phone use.

I’m sure not seeing this in my kids’ schools yet. One district is moving in that direction – they have a draft of a BYOT policy, and plans to move that way. However, in talking to my daughters 5 teachers this trimester, it is very obvious that the mindshift that has to happen has not.

There are signs posted in each classroom about no cell phones. Teachers talk about how they confiscate phones that are out. When asked, teachers only talk about the distraction factor. (hmmm – maybe their class is boring?)

I also asked if they post class materials and schedules online. Wow. One teacher said he didn’t know how to, he’d never been trained. (Failure on the school’s part.) Another teacher told me – brace yourself – that it was important for students to learn to WRITE DOWN the assignments to get ready for college.

That shocked me to say the least. So, I got online and messaged a couple of friends who are professors. Yes, real professors at real community colleges, small liberal arts schools, and major universities. Guess what. ALL OF THEM use online course management tools. Every one of them posts class information, resources, schedules and more online. It is expected. Students manage to manage their learning – even with the horrible crutch of having the material online. I guess this high school teaching students to write things down – as opposed to teaching them to manage their learning online – is really getting them ready for college (uh, sarcasm mine.)  

 

 

Homework?

I think John Spencer has many great things to say, but this blog post is incredible: “A Week without Homework Challenge.”

In this, he proposes teachers take a week where they assign no homework. Tweet about it at #weekwithouthomework, check out the Facebook group, and see the Google doc he started.

I wish we could get back all the time we’ve struggled with my daughter, in particular, over homework. She has hated homework since 1st grade. Spelling practice, math drills, worksheets. I totally agree with the premise of this concept that learning at home or working at home is fine. It all depends on who is initiating the work.

For example, I’ve never seen her work harder than she did doing a History Day project. She had a topic that fascinated her. She was able to demonstrate her knowledge in a medium that works for her (she made a 10-minute documentary, as opposed to another multiple choice test.) She loved doing that project, and it showed in the outcome. The multiple choice tests? math tests? spelling tests? not so much.

They mention the parent struggles. We’ve fought with her, we’ve accused her of being lazy, unfocused, and more. I’m not proud of that.It’s been an issue in our family for years. Yet, I watch her doing the things she loves- she’s incredibly focused, works very hard. We always joked that my kids learned more in the summer camps where they were allowed to explore their passions.

Tomorrow, Sunday, she will probably spend 8-10 hours doing homework. We’ll argue, I’ll feel stressed because she’s not done. And what does it get her? another multiple choice test. What does it keep her from? It keeps her from focusing on her music, it keeps her from spending time with family, from getting outside to ride her bike and help with the yard. In the end, it defeats her spirit. And why? “To be ready for college” is what all her teachers would say.

So, please keep up this no homework movement. As a parent, I thank you. I wish my kids were in your classes!

Personalized

Ran across this blog post this morning, In BYOT it’s the Y and O That Matters, by Peter DeWitt. Wow. It rang true for us. I just have to share a couple of quotes:

I feel that it is our job as educators to teach students how to use something properly rather than ban it because it makes us uncomfortable.

He quotes from a report by Karen Greenwood-Henke, “BYOT: How Personal Technology is Transforming the Classroom.” (MDR EdNET Insight.) I must get my hands on this report. These quotes are powerful, and this is where the Y and O part come from — Your Own.

Personal technology is loaded with your calendar, your contacts, your preferred applications, and organized the way that makes sense to you. Students become better organized, more productive, and have the potential to be self-directed learners when they use their personal technology. “It’s a piece of you” (Greenwood-Henke. MDR. 2012).

 

While it’s only been three weeks, we’ve really seen this with my son and the iPad we got for him at school. As I’ve said in previous posts, he’s taken true ownership over the tool – and is using it well. He’s found things that work for him. He tested and rejected a couple of planner apps, he’s set up Evernote, his apps are organized in folders in a way that I would never do, but it works for him. While I’m not sure I think BYOT is the best way, I do think a 1:1 is the only way. Shared devices don’t allow the ownership, the personalization, the 24/7 access and the immediacy that 1:1 programs promote. And these are what makes it work.

 

Tiring

On the way to school this morning (for yet another early theater rehearsal) my daughter and I were discussing being tired and getting to bed at a decent time. (To her credit, she is in bed by 10:30 usually, which is early for a high school kid.)

Her observation about being tired? “I bet I wouldn’t be so tired if I wasn’t having to sit quietly and listen all day long.”

Exactly.

Seriously. Even 15-year olds need to do something besides sit quietly and absorb information. They need to move, to create.

Without prompting from me, she brought up the art class she took last year and reflected how that was such a different experience creating things.

How do I, as a parent, reconcile the fact that I send my kid into an atmosphere in which I feel deadens the learning experience? Not every class, not every teacher, of course. But the overall model of kids sitting and taking in content delivered by a “sage on the stage” figure is outdated. Something needs to change, and I fear it won’t change soon enough.

One Vision

Stumbled across the news that my old stomping grounds school district is moving to a 1:1 iPad initiative in some grades. A little internet digging, and I found some impressive information about their program. They’ve really thought this through, they’ve articulated WHY the technology is being used, and what the learning outcomes will be.

  • My Way
    Basic information about the project
  • My Way Presentation
    PDF of what I assume is a presentation they use for parents, school board, etc.

A few quotes and thoughts from the presentation:

  • “Each student has access to digital curriciulum via essential personal mobile learning device.” (empahsis mine)
  • Strong emphasis on personalized learning:  “The paradigm shift to a personalized learning experience is the process of contouring learning to individuals, recognizing that individuals inherently have different strengths and weaknesses, interests and ways of learning.” – Sir Ken Robinson
  • “1 to 1 programs provide for digital access and learning opportunities regardless of socioeconomic status”
  • “Providing all students with 21st century skills and making education relevant to today’s world are critical to closing both the achievement gap and the global competition gap.” — Public Opinion Strategies and Peter D. Hart Research Associates (2007)
  • To be really effective, teachers need to use the technology to achieve things they could not do without it.” –Ruben R. Puentedura

Huh. Makes me even more frustrated with what I’m seeing on a daily basis from my kids’ schools, and with the pushback I get from the schools when I ask about this stuff.

Called to the Office

Well, week #1 and we’re getting called to the principal’s office.

Our disruptive technology experience (the iPad Project) has been an interesting experience. My son was really nervous about a couple of the teachers, but so far that’s been just fine. One teacher he was really nervous about was just amused when my son pulled out his iPad when they ran out of calculators. All the teachers have seen him use the iPad, no one has had a problem.

He’s exploring apps that work:

  • My Homework allows him to enter all his homework assignments, sort by due date, get notification of upcoming or late assignments. He far prefers this to the paper planners.
  • Evernote: all his notes for all his classes are right there. One spot. No forgetting notebooks.
  • Kidblog: he’s doing his journal in Kidblog.

Office

Back to why we were called to the office. Day #2 brought the technology policy home. I didn’t sign it last year, and wasn’t about to sign it this year. It’s just the first paragraph I can’t sign, as it says that all personal electronic devices must be off and put away except when instructed by a teacher.

Here’s the email I sent:

I can’t sign the Tech policy as it is. I’m fine with most of it, but I can’t accept the first point….
These devices can be incredible learning tools, and we do a disservice to our kids by refusing to allow them to use them in school. Kids need to learn how to use them, and to learn that there are appropriate times/uses and inappropriate times/uses.
Given that we’ve allowed xxx to bring his iPad to school this year, it seems hypocritical for us to sign the policy as it is written.
Will post the outcome of the meeting.