Around the Blogosphere - 7/28

A couple of quick jabs from the internet for your perusal:

Shelly Blake-Plock over at TeachPaperless responded to the same question about whether educational games suck that I took on recently.

What I came away with was a feeling that we're approaching this whole matter of gaming and education from the wrong direction. As a longtime educator and gamer, I'm thinking we should go at this from a different angle.

Instead of trying to make better 'educational' games, why not take an educational approach to the classics of gaming as it exists today?

Think about it: we don't ask authors to write 'educational' books so that we have something to teach in school. Rather, we choose books to read and use in teaching. Likewise, we should choose games to 'read' and use in teaching.

In the same way that you can learn about American history from reading Huckleberry Finn, you can learn about economics and cooperative activity by 'reading' World of Warcraft. In fact, gaming -- especially that of the MMOG variety -- has come so far, we really shouldn't have much of a problem teaching all sorts of logic, learning, and abstract thinking via playing and analyzing games that were never originally meant to be 'educational'.

In all honesty, I really like this perspective of basically adding metacognition and reflection to the playing of industry games, and his analogy to novels is very poignant. Still, it doesn't address what Mark Prensky would advocate, that being to take all your learning objectives and deliver them through gaming instead of traditional instruction, because "gaming is where students learn best." It brings up an interesting way to frame the question; should games be used in school as textbooks are or novels are?

Also, (hat tip to Matt Townsley) Rick DuFour of PLC fame has weighed in on the issue of grading and homework in a well-written piece. He starts by pointing out the various definitions teachers have of what a grade represents, and even if teachers agree a grade represents the level of mastery of a student, often their grading practices don't follow their beliefs. Here are his suggestions:

Therefore, I submit the following propositions:

1. Homework should be given only when the instructor feels it is essential to student learning. If, for example, the teacher believes that by practicing a skill and receiving prompt and specific feedback students will learn at higher levels, homework is very appropriate and should be assigned.
2. The teacher then has an obligation to monitor the homework carefully and provide individual students with precise feedback based on their specific needs.
3. If the work is deemed essential to a student’s learning, that student should not have the option of taking a zero but instead should be required to complete the work. This necessitates a coordinated, schoolwide approach to responding when students do not complete their work because there are limits as to what an individual teacher can require. The schoolwide response should be timely, directive (non-invitational), systematic (not left to the discretion of individual teachers), and should never require the student to be removed from new direct instruction.

Which I couldn't agree more with. And for kicks, he adds this anecdote:

My friend and colleague Bob Eaker elected to stop having all fifth graders in the school he was leading complete the annual homework project of building a replica of a frontier fort because, as he put it, “We discovered some Dads just built better forts than others.”

Correct Use of Zeros

Cathy Vatterott has an excellent article at the ASCD blog on the grading practice of giving zeros. She highlights a proposal by the Houston Independent School District to eliminate the practice of giving zeros (a good thing) with giving unearned 50% marks (a not-so-good thing).

First, an excellent analysis of the power of zeros:

Why do students get zeros on homework? Because we allow students not to complete work. Zeros are an easy way out—simply label students lazy for not completing homework (without trying to figure out why), and the teacher is absolved of all responsibility. Zeros punish the vice of laziness, but is laziness the reason most students don't complete assignments, especially homework? I don't think so.

I'd add two things; good teaching is not predicated on punishment, but rather of learning. So, we shouldn't be in the business of "punishing for the vice of laziness". Regardless, a zero really isn't punishment. You want to punish a student who is lazy? Make them turn in the assignment!

Which, Vatterott is already ahead of me:

I think the better solution is a "Zeros Aren't Permitted" (ZAP) program, an increasingly popular idea where zeros are used merely as placeholders until work is made up or excused.

My own grading practices as a teacher eventually evolved into that practice, and it was one of the best classroom management practices I could have. Students, knowing that they couldn't pass the class unless all assignments were handed in and done well were more likely to do them well the first time. And even if they did procrastinate and turn them in late, at least I had something to assess their knowledge for the different course outcomes.

Vatterott puts this in perspective:

ZAP makes more work for the teacher and administrators, but it puts the emphasis back on learning. As we continue to move toward more standards-based grading and the argument rages about how to "hold students accountable," are we all asking the same question? Is it "How many assignments have the students completed?" instead of "How much have the students learned?" Grades should reflect what a student knows or can do, not what work he or she has completed.

Marzano on Homework

Robert Marzano is a firm advocate for the efficacy of homework in school. In chapter 3 of his book The Art & Science of Teaching, he cites several research studies that have determine homework to be one of the most effective practices for teaching.

There are some interesting criticisms of that research, as it is often difficult to determine whether "homework" means "homework assigned" or "homework completed", as well as the longitudinal length (is this an ongoing assignment stretched over many days like Grant Wiggins would suggest is most effective) and the nature of homework (is it reading? worksheets? exercises? high-order? low-order?)

Still, the research suggest that there is a positive correlation between homework and achievement at the secondary grades (0.25), but a very slight negative correlation at the elementary grades (-0.04). And, you can see that this troubles Marzano and other researchers, as they followed it up with additional studies to nuance what homework means.

Actually, Marzano and I are not that far apart on homework, even though I'm more adamant about major changes in homework policies for elementary grades and the types of homework given to secondary. What is very poignant are his list of conclusions he draws about homework.

• Homework should be structured to ensure high completion. If it's too long or difficult for students to finish, what's the point?
• While there's no magic amount, there is a law of diminishing returns with the amount of homework. Adding more will not result in more achievement. It should be limited.
• It needs to have a well-articulated legitimate purpose. As he states, "homework assigned for punishment or to demonstrate to the public that a school is a serious place of study is not very defensible".
• In the same vein, it should relate directly to learning goals.
• It should be designed so students can do it on their own. (Which reinforces the idea that homework is not for learning, it is for practice).
• This means parents shouldn't be required to do the homework for their kids. The school should have an articulated policy of parents' relationship to homework. Involved, yes. Responsible for, no.

Call For Action: No Homework

I don't think I've ever agreed with Washington Post columnist Jay Matthews on anything, but we can find common ground in his latest column:

Throw away the expensive take-home textbooks, the boring worksheets and the fiendish make-a-log-cabin-out-of-Tootsie-Rolls projects. One of the clearest (and most ignored) findings of educational research is that elementary students who do lots of homework don't learn more than students who do none. Eliminating traditional homework for this age group will save paper, reduce textbook losses and sweeten home life. Students should be asked instead to read something, maybe with their parents -- at least 10 minutes a night for first-graders, 20 minutes for second-graders and so on. Teachers can ask a few kids each day what they learned from their reading to discourage shirkers.

Matthews might not have a good idea how to structure home reading so that it actually produces learning ("maybe" you could do it this way, for no other reason than to "discourage shirkers"), but his premise that students who do lots of homework learn no more than students who do none is correct. And important.

In a cathartic moment (I will channel Alex Rodriguez here), I can say this is the area that I didn't do very well as a teacher. I did a lot in my classroom, including homework. As a language arts teacher, some of that is forgivable--the bulk of the homework was a steady reading schedule to keep a good pace, and it was emphasized to students that they were expected to come to class, ready to discuss what they have read.

But becoming a parent changes that. When my eight year-old started the school year having a couple hours of homework per night, I was in shock. I didn't see my daughter anymore. And in talking with parents from other schools in the Metro area, there is consensus much of that is due to either A) packaged curriculum, such as a math series, or B) busywork projects. This opens your eyes quickly.

It makes one challenge some of the built-in customs that have never been challenged before. What is the authentic educational value of a posterboard display? Here's stuff I copied from the internet on topic X and made pretty with markers.

What is the educational value of crossword puzzles? Or even worse, search-a-word puzzles? With no research supporting constant drill with worksheets, why do we do it?

The answers are not pretty. We do it because it is easy to give. It is easy to grade. It keeps the kids busy. It is what schools have done for years. It is what is expected if you are a "quality" school. None of which are the answers we should care about, which is to help student learn.

My call for action is a bit overstated; we can't have "no homework" in schools. I still feel (perhaps my bias as an English teacher) that reading is important, and it is well documented that reading needs to be structured for students to learn. We also aren't going to police it; if students are engaged in a project to the point they take their work home and joyfully work on it, we'd be stunting their learning to say no.

The point is we need to reconceptualize "learning" as something other than "completing work". It needs to be authentic. It needs to be collaborative. It needs to be aligned with the Core. It needs to be constructive in nature. Everything we assign has to be weighed against these criteria. We cannot settle for the past reasons. If the work does not meet the criteria, it should not be assigned as homework.

Jay Matthews gets it.