Why Do We Give Homework?

by Kirsten Fletcher

As a project for the District 214 Mentor Program, I recently sent out a survey to my school to find out what teachers really think about homework. The process alone of writing this survey was an educational one. I had the chance to collaborate with Rebecca Castro, a colleague at Wheeling who was doing a similar project. I also got feedback from several peers and administrators before sending out the questions. Their comments and corrections were incredibly helpful as I approached this touchy subject.

My goal in conducting this survey was to see if there was a general consensus about homework in our building. The following are some of the questions I asked:

• What is the main purpose of your homework?
• What type of homework do you usually give?
• What percentage does homework occupy in your overall grade?
• How often do you give homework?
• How much time should it take students to complete your homework?
• What percentage actually complete it on time?
• Why do you think some students do not complete homework?
• What are the consequences in your class for not completing homework?

As teachers, we all believe that what we do in the classroom is worthwhile and beneficial to learning. If not, we wouldn't be doing it. However, it seems that just within our building there is a wide range of perceptions about the benefits of homework. I received 78 responses from EGHS staff which were fairly evenly divided among divisions. Forty-eight percent of responses were from teachers of Honors or AP courses. Here are some of the results of my survey:

How long should it take students to complete your homework?

Most teachers reported that they offer students opportunities to earn credit for late work. When asked about the reason that most students do not complete homework, the most popular response was that our school culture makes it acceptable not to turn work in on time. Teachers also recognized that students' time constraints and lack of interest contribute to low completion rates. Some teachers (almost 20%) say that their colleagues assign too much homework and that this impacts students' ability to complete work for other classes.

The final question of the survey was an open-ended one. I wanted to know if teachers had any suggestions for improving the homework completion rate at our school. I was surprised at how many people took the time to give thoughtful responses. Some expressed frustration. Others talked about all the time commitments and other challenges that our students face outside of class. Many talked about the idea that students often don't do homework when they don't see the reason or purpose behind it. There seemed to be two major fields of thought. A significant group of teachers say that we need to assign credit (points) to homework and enforce strict deadlines in order for students to take it seriously. Another group of teachers say that homework must be clearly linked to assessments and that students will complete it (even without earning credit for it) if they see the purpose / value in it.

While this was only an informal survey, I hope that this exercise can be used to spark some meaningful discussions in the future about the purpose and relevance of homework to our students' learning. As I move into Summer, I am carefully reconsidering the role of homework in my own classes for the 2016-17 school year.

It's Yearbook Distribution Day!

Written by Linda Ashida

Finally the day has come!  After a full year of hard work--decision-making (on design, theme, layout), collaboration, interviewing, taking photos, managing deadlines, writing copy, designing, problem-solving--it is Yearbook Distribution Day! It is a day that Lisa Martineau and her Flashmob, along with all of the EG staff and students, have been eagerly awaiting! 

In anticipation of this exciting day, I had the chance to visit Lisa Martineau's Yearbook class and talk her students to learn more about what really goes into creating the final product.  There is so much more that goes into creating a yearbook than meets the eye.


I enjoyed learning how students take such care to plan a book that will really capture the essence of our school.  So much goes into creating and publishing a yearbook that several students told me that the class has been one of their best and most challenging.

Michella told me that Yearbook is one of her most challenging classes.  She said that is such an awesome class because:  "It has a little bit of everything. You learn social skills, interviewing, writing, computer skills, photography and technical skills. It's like a bunch of components of all the classes in school combined into one class. You learn stress management, time management, people skills."  Mariana concurred with her thoughts, as did all of the students with whom I spoke.





I enjoyed chatting with Denise and Pedro to learn how they decide the theme, layout, colors, and all the elements that will unify the entire theme of the book

Amairani and Ayleen shared how they use Photoshop to work on the graphic design.

Each member takes ownership of certain pages, but all must collaborate as a team to make the final product come together and capture the year at Elk Grove High School.


Students are excited to get their first look at the 2015-2016 EGHS Yearbook!

   

Executive Functioning Skills

Executive Functioning Skills
by: Katie Winstead

A couple years ago I participated in an Executive Functioning Skills workshop that discussed interventions and tips that can be done at home and at school to help students. In this workshop we discussed some essential things that I think could benefit us all to know.

What are executive functioning skills? To put it simply, executive functioning skills are things like organization, time management, etc. It is the ability to manage what is around you in order to achieve a goal.

Examples:

• Managing time in the morning to brush your teeth, get dressed, eat breakfast and get school things ready in order to make the bus on time.
• Planning out what you need to do a research project and how it will look before you start.
• Planning what to pack before going on a trip.

How it affects learning and daily life:

• Initiating tasks
• Keeping track of time
• Finishing work on time
• Asking for help
• Being organized

When you think about it, we use skills like these every day in our lives: as learners, workers and members of the community. The skill of keeping track of time is necessary in school when you have 10 minutes to finish an activity before lunch, at a job when your boss says something is due by the end of the day, or in daily life when you only have so much time to run an errand.

As a special education teacher, I work with students on these skills when students have major deficits that impact their learning and future goals. At Elk Grove High School, we even have an Executive Functioning class for our students in special education to help prepare them for life and what's to come. But is it just those students who really need the help?

This past Monday at our Elk Grove Lead Learners meeting, the English department started to talk about a variety of students who were struggling to organize and time-manage their school work and lives. We realized that from instructional to AP classrooms, students across the board were not being explicitly taught these executive functioning skills which was greatly impacting their academics as well as their ability to manage activities outside of school (jobs, clubs, activities, sports, relationships).

As a school, we have helped our students in special education as well as the Freshman class during Freshman First Days. Our thought: how do we continue to help students, especially those that are overbooked with classes and activities?





A little more about Executive Functioning Skills:

Student Perspective on Summer Reading

By Mark Heintz

At the beginning of May, Elk Grove kicked off summer reading with a school-wide initiative of trying to read a million minutes. You can read about the kick off here. We are nearing the end of that venture, and I asked a few of my first period freshmen on their thoughts. Here are two different student opinions on the million minutes of reading.

Summer Reading Choice: We Were Here by Matt De La Peña
By Nelson Alcantar

In my opinion, I think that reading the summer reading book is a very good thing. I like summer reading because I can start my mind for the day by slowly reading. When I say it slowly starts my mind, I mean that I usually feel sleepy and tired when I don't read. I feel that I can't focus. But by reading it starts my mind by feeding it words and thoughts slowly. Also I like reading the summer reading book at school because I don't read outside of school. I don't even know what's a book outside of school. So I think reading at school helps me finish the book and work faster.

Also, I love summer reading at school because my book is very good. I love my book because it has so much suspense and action. My book is about how a kid named Miguel took bad decisions which lead him to where he his right now. He has to go through many things in order to leave from there and he is also having many problems.

In all honesty, I think every school should start by reading a book for 10 min every day so they can learn more and get closer to books then iPods, iPhones, and other distractions.


Summer Reading Choice: The Testing by Joelle Charbonneau
By Reyna Shino 

I enjoy summer reading because it starts my day off less stressful. Knowing that I have time in the morning to just relax and read a book is great. I don't have to worry about jumping right into today's agenda. Reading is a great way to expand your vocabulary. I also enjoy the book I am currently reading called The Testing. It is a great book for students who enjoyed books such as The Hunger Games series and Divergent. I definitely encourage people to read this book.

Book Recommendation: Cultivating Social Justice Teachers

By Kim Miklusak

I recently finished reading the book Cultivating Social Justice Teachers.  The subtitle highlights the focus of the book: "How Teacher Educators Have Helped Students Overcome Cognitive Bottlenecks and Learn Critical Social Justice Concepts."  The text is a series of academic articles focusing on different "bottlenecks," which the Introduction defines as "a sort of collective comprehension backup that occurs when educators struggle to facilitate effective learning around a foundational concept or competence--what Meyer and Land (2003) have called 'threshold concepts'" (Gorski, Osei-Kofi, Zenkov, and Sapp). 

Teachers and pre-service teachers may experience any one or more of these "bottlenecks," which potentially limit their understanding, instruction, or effectiveness.  Some of the topics include heteronormativity, deficit thinking, white privilege, immigration as a humanitarian issue, and meritocracy.  Each author shares background on their topic, personal experiences in their own lives or in their teaching, examples with students, lessons and activities, and additional resources.

It is vital for each of us as educators to understand how our own backgrounds and identities affect our teaching.  While I don't think this book is the one to pick up to start this reflection in our own lives and careers, I can't stress enough that I think it's important for all teachers and pre-service teachers to read, explore, and reflect upon these topics.

Lead Learners Wrap-Up

By The Collab Lab Team

Today we had the final Lead Learners meeting of the school year.  We started off by activating prior knowledge and sharing our successes this year:

We then had a series of lesson demonstrations.  The first was from Grove Junior High teachers Tracy Groark and Kerry Frazier who shared the evolution of how they communicate learning targets with their students and new and more intentional ways they connect instruction and assessments more to those learning targets. They both included examples of how they use Google Forms, and even Kahoot to engage students and better understand gaps in their understanding.

Leslie Guimon then shared the evolution of learning targets on the Spanish team.  She shared how the courses were once aligned thematically, then grammatically, and so on.  After discussing at length and agreeing on Enduring Understandings for all levels of Spanish, they developed clear learning targets for each level.

 

The final demonstration was from Tom Boczar.   He discussed how students in Physics classes reflect on their assessments and objectives, using a rubric to determine understanding.  Was there a disconnect or misconception about what they knew?  Was there uncertainty--a lack of confidence or guessing?  Or was there mastery.  The reflection is student-directed, and Tom noticed how important it was to students when he almost skipped the process after a recent unit.  The students objected and insisted he not skip it!

      

Following the lesson demonstrations, teachers engaged in a self assessment activity.  Each participant was asked to bring an assessment they currently use.  Using the self-assessment checklist below, teachers individually assessed the method they were using, where their targets fell, and if their assessment met four conditions for a quality assessment. The group then shared out their "A-Ha" moments about their own assessments, and plans for next steps.

This final EGLLT wrapped up with a year-end evaluation and time for teachers to collaborate in course-alike teams to continue conversations about their next steps. Feedback from staff on the evaluation will be used to plan future professional learning experiences.

Inter-District Collaboration

By The Collab Lab Team:

Yesterday a team from Bremen HS came to visit the Collab Lab after participating in our webinar on "Collaborating to Learn" hosted by the Illinois Principals Association and EdLeaders Network last month.  This team of administrators and teachers is looking to expand their peer observation, professional development, and teacher leader opportunities and were interested in asking questions about how Elk Grove's Collab Lab formed and evolved.

We are thankful for the Bremen team for coming to visit us, and we look forward to the opportunity to continue to work with, visit them, and learn from them across districts as well!