{"id":148,"date":"2012-03-05T03:59:25","date_gmt":"2012-03-05T03:59:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/?p=148"},"modified":"2012-03-05T05:27:47","modified_gmt":"2012-03-05T05:27:47","slug":"how-important-is-homework-steven-herder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/2012\/03\/05\/how-important-is-homework-steven-herder\/","title":{"rendered":"How important is homework? – Steven Herder"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Important homework is important. \u201cMake-work\u201d homework is evil. Workbook homework is too often mind-numbingly boring, and therefore not useful. Too much homework is cruel. Assigning\u00a0the same homework for everyone makes sense for about 25% of the class, and therefore, is a waste of time for 75% of the class.<\/p>\n

I’ve been battling what to do about homework for most of my teaching career. I feel like Charlie\u00a0Brown trying to kick the football and never quite making it happen. I am very often disappointed\u00a0with homework by the end of each school year – both what they do for my classes as well as what\u00a0I see them doing for other classes. Undaunted, I am about to try another new idea from the new
\nschool year in April.<\/p>\n

Of course, the key to success is determining what is important with homework. Rather than\u00a0trying to figure that out myself, I am finally ready to hand that task over to the students. This idea\u00a0dovetails with my belief in promoting learner autonomy (learning how to learn) and it also supports\u00a0my belief that students must be engaged in their homework in order for it to have any meaning at\u00a0all. By giving them joint custody of their homework assignments, I’m hoping that will increase their\u00a0emotional commitment and their efforts.<\/p>\n

My plan is to present the idea that everyone has her own strength and weakness in English. For\u00a0some it is one of the input skills (reading and listening); for others one of the output skills of\u00a0speaking and writing might be weaker or stronger. First, they must decide their approach. Do they\u00a0want to improve a weak area, or do they want to strengthen a natural talent they possess? Both are\u00a0valid choices, and they are welcome to make changes along the way.<\/p>\n

I plan to ask for diary entries that I can confirm in less than a minute by walking around at the\u00a0beginning of class. I would also assign one student each lesson to give a one-minute report about\u00a0her homework in front of the whole class. As far as the content of the homework, there are no rules:\u00a0it can be academically oriented, focused on vocabulary, one of the 4 skills, Western music, TV\u00a0dramas, etc. I’ll accept anything if they can explain why they are investing time in it.<\/p>\n

What do you think? I would love to hear some success stories about homework.<\/p>\n

Steven Herder<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Important homework is important. \u201cMake-work\u201d homework is evil. Workbook homework is too often mind-numbingly boring, and therefore not useful. Too much homework is cruel. Assigning\u00a0the same homework for everyone makes sense for about 25% of the class, and therefore, is a waste of time for 75% of the class. I’ve been battling what to do … Continue reading How important is homework? – Steven Herder<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":70,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-homework"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}