Skip to main content

Home/ Middle School Matters/ Group items tagged relationships

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Filter: All | Bookmarks | Topics Simple Middle
Troy Patterson

Homework: An unnecessary evil? … Surprising findings from new research - The ... - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...ing-findings-from-new-research

msm286 homework

shared by Troy Patterson on 04 Oct 14 - No Cached
  •  A brand-new study on the academic effects of homework offers not only some intriguing results but also a lesson on how to read a study — and a reminder of the importance of doing just that:  reading studies (carefully) rather than relying on summaries by journalists or even by the researchers themselves.
  • First, no research has ever found a benefit to assigning homework (of any kind or in any amount) in elementary school.  In fact, there isn’t even a positive correlation between, on the one hand, having younger children do some homework (vs. none), or more (vs. less), and, on the other hand, any measure of achievement.  If we’re making 12-year-olds, much less five-year-olds, do homework, it’s either because we’re misinformed about what the evidence says or because we think kids ought to have to do homework despite what the evidence says.
  • Second, even at the high school level, the research supporting homework hasn’t been particularly persuasive.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • It’s easy to miss one interesting result in this study that appears in a one-sentence aside.  When kids in these two similar datasets were asked how much time they spent on math homework each day, those in the NELS study said 37 minutes, whereas those in the ELS study said 60 minutes. 
  • it was statistically significant but “very modest”:  Even assuming the existence of a causal relationship, which is by no means clear, one or two hours’ worth of homework every day buys you two or three points on a test.
  • There was no relationship whatsoever between time spent on homework and course grade, and “no substantive difference in grades between students who complete homework and those who do not.”
  • The better the research, the less likely one is to find any benefits from homework.
  • you’ll find that there’s not much to prop up the belief that students must be made to work a second shift after they get home from school.  The assumption that teachers are just assigning homework badly, that we’d start to see meaningful results if only it were improved, is harder and harder to justify with each study that’s published.
  • many people will respond to these results by repeating platitudes about the importance of practice[8], or by complaining that anyone who doesn’t think kids need homework is coddling them and failing to prepare them for the “real world” (read:  the pointless tasks they’ll be forced to do after they leave school).
Troy Patterson

What poor children need in school - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...t-poor-children-need-in-school

msm259

shared by Troy Patterson on 19 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • Most educational policy elites, whether in government or in the nonprofit sector, mean well.
  • Yet policymakers tend to come from a relatively privileged slice of American society.  And they tend to possess a set of beliefs and assumptions distinct to their background. 
  • But in most cases, the fact that decision-makers inhabit a different world from students—and particularly, poor students—is a matter of great significance.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Poverty limits opportunity in all senses.  It restricts career paths, as policymakers recognize.  But it also denies young people equal time, resources, and exposure to discover their interests and foster their passions.  It constrains lives.
  • Schools, of course, did not create this problem.  But they do exacerbate it.  Over the past decade, well-intended policymakers concerned with closing the achievement gap have promoted policies and practices that reduce learning to something easily quantified.
  • Reformers need to understand that their narrow efforts to close the quantifiable “achievement gap” are creating another kind of educational inequity.  In other words, as they seek to close one gap they are opening up another.
  • Concerned only with the cultivation of ostensibly job-oriented knowledge and skills, they have neglected everything else that makes schools great. 
  • Our best schools are places where children gain confidence in themselves, build healthy relationships, and develop values congruent with their own self-interest.  They are places of play and laughter and discovery.
  • For contemporary education reformers, improving test scores is the only measure of school quality that matters.  And they have had some modest successes in this regard.  Yet they have merely reshuffled the deck. 
Troy Patterson

More Than Half of Students 'Engaged' in School, Says Poll - Education Week - 1 views

www.edweek.org/...28gallup.h33.html

msm272

shared by Troy Patterson on 09 Apr 14 - No Cached
  • Students who strongly agree that they have at least one teacher who makes them "feel excited about the future" and that their school is "committed to building the strengths of each student" are 30 times more likely than students who strongly disagree with those statements to show other signs of engagement in the classroom—a key predictor of academic success, according to a report released Wednesday by Gallup Education.
  • "Many, many, many teachers, principals and superintendents have known for literally decades that if we don't engage students to care about being in school, that's going to get in the way of learning," he said.
  • "One of the big problems with No Child Left Behind and even [the Common Core State Standards] is that we are only focused on students' cognitive learning,"
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • A broad focus on testing and new standards can lead schools to neglect the individualized social and emotional needs of students, the report’s authors say.
  • researchers classified 55 percent of students as “engaged,” 28 percent as “not engaged,” and 17 percent as “actively disengaged.”
  • students surveyed in 2013 who said they strongly agreed with two statements—“My school is committed to building the strengths of each student,” and “I have at least one teacher who makes me excited about the future”—were 30 times more likely to be classified as “engaged”
  • Gallup recommends that principals address teacher engagement to help students succeed.
  • The share of workers described as "not engaged" among teachers, however, was slightly larger than it was for the general workforce—56 percent versus 52 percent.
  • To build engagement among teachers, the report recommends that principals ask them questions about curriculum, pedagogy, and scheduling, and incorporate their feedback into decisionmaking. School leaders should also pair engaged administrators and teachers to collaborate and generate enthusiasm for student-centered projects, the report says.
  • Gallup report validates that a "highly skilled principal is the linchpin to schoolwide success."
  • Principal behaviors that encourage collaboration and meaningful relationships "don't happen by chance," Ms. Bartoletti said in a written statement. "They emerge from a defined set of knowledge, skills, and attitudes, which requires dedicated and ongoing development."
1 - 9 of 9
Showing 20▼ items per page