Homework websites

[joh...@flash.net]

Hey all:

Spring fever is running wild here.

Nonetheless, here's the question of the day. How do you handle
homework websites at your school? Is there something that is totally
open to public? Is it password protected? Is there a requirement for
teachers to post homework assignments? Do any of your faculty post
homework?

At Fieldston, we are all over the map. Many teachers have websites,
in a variety of styles of technologies (including moodle if you are
familiar with it). We are slowly, slowly trying to standardize what
we do so that everyone has a common look and feel and similar access
process, but we have a long way to go on this.

Any thoughts, suggestions are appreciated.

Thanks,

John

[Bonanno, Pamela]

Hi John,

Riverdale Country School uses a website called "First Class" for its
email service and for all groups to communicate within the school. Yes,
it is password protected. I have a conference folder for all of my
classes. Within this program you can set up different levels of
permissions for students to access certain parts of the conference
folder. For example, you can allow students to post their homework and
only the teacher can open the file. For my middle school kids I am
required to post their assignment by 5pm each day on a calendar folder
within this site. This is not true for the upper school kids, but I do
post their assignment anyway. They are just beginning to introduce
moodle at Riverdale; teachers have been using moodle at Deerfield for a
few years. I know life is different at a boarding school, as the kids
will just email or call me on the phone if they can't find a friend who
has the assignment.

Good luck with the end of the year!

Pam

[Athena Maikish]

Yay I'm excited to hear Fieldston and Deerfield are using Moodle!
With the money those schools have, that means you have good tech folks
that know what they are doing (in my opinion!). I actually wrote an
article on Moodle a few years back. If you have good tech people, I
think this program is the way to go. It's opensource (thus, the
software is free and the updates and development are done for and by
the people). I've attached the article for anyone who wants to read
more about it.

As for a standard - I would first ask why it is that you seek a
standard? I very much like supporting teachers in using technology
how they want to use it. Is it the teachers that are seeking a
standard? Are you seeking a standard so parents have a way to check
in? What's the reason? Who cares if you are all over the map? After
all, all teachers use different textbooks, pedagogies, etc right?
Technology is a tool for learning so I think there are benefits in
teachers using it the way they wish. Standards are sometimes great
for encouraging use from the less tech savvy folks and also good for
having something to measure against for evaluations, though, as well.

NCS used Moodle and Blackboard. But, Blackboard got too expensive so
they dropped, which then turned off many people from using it since
they had spent the time and energy to learn how to use it. Some also
use the academic features on the Whipple Hill website (the backend
that manages the ncs.cathedral.org site also has course functions). I
found these course functions to be bulky and not teacher friendly.
Very few teachers had their own site - folks just weren't tech savvy
enough for this.

Regarding positing homework assignments - I think this is a waste of
the teacher's time. I tried to get teachers to use technology as a
dynamic tool - not as a static presentation of information. But, with
that said, starting with just posting homework assignments and then
growing to more is also one way to go. See the articles for ideas.

Hope that helps - good luck.
Best,
Athena

--
____________________________________________
Athena Maikish
New York University, Steinhardt
Doctoral Student, International Education Development
Teaching Assistant, Advanced Quantitative Methods I and II

[John Russell]

I'll second Pam's nod to First Class.

[susan ohara]

Hi,

We have eChalk and it has been such a disaster that we are switching to something else.

The main thing here is that kids complain about teachers posting things as late as 7 or 8 pm and still holding kids accountable.  This seems key to control.

The irony is that I am going to go back to requiring hard drafts because I grow weary of the tales about the web not working, etc.

Sue

[Sylvia Rodriguez]

Hi Guys,

We have been using MOODLE the past two years and it has worked well for
us. We used homework hero before that in the middle school before using
MOODLE schoolwide.

Best,

Sylvia Rodriguez
Director of Middle School
Columbus School for Girls

[E. Dimopoulos]

Hi John et al,

Online accessibility to middle school homework assignments was always a point of contention at Baldwin. The administration mandated that teachers across all disciplines post the subsequent week's worth of assignments on Sunday nights. We used Blackboard when I was there (though they switched to something else the year I left). Then, the administration confidently told the parents that if a student were absent, all she had to do was log in and complete whatever assignments she saw online. Both parent and child were provided the login information.

It was a disaster for three reasons. First, some veteran and/or technophobic teachers flat out refused to post their assignments, or posted something scant and vague such as "Mayflower unit" for the entire week. Second, a student would be intimidated when she opened, say, her math textbook and saw an assignment that she couldn't possibly complete because she hadn't learned the lesson in class. She would return from her absence anxiety-ridden. Third, and this is what bothered me the most, the system didn't allow for any finessing of assignments. At the college level, a professor can perhaps plan a twelve-week course and stick to his syllabus, but in middle school, one is constantly adapting to the needs of a particular group of students and amending/postponing/expanding assignments accordingly. It's just lousy pedagogy to force teachers to stick to their best guess of what they'll cover in a week.

This is all to say that I agree with Athena; mandated homework postings are a difficult charge. As far as I know, Baldwin hasn't changed its policy.

What I did find worked was having teachers post what they were going to be doing (or thought they would be doing) in *class* that week. If a student has to miss class, it is helpful for her to see that her history class is continuing the Mayflower unit, even though she may have to pick up that old-fashioned machine, the telephone, and call a friend to find out the homework details. And some of my more conscientious students loved looking at the week's plan on Monday, so they knew what delights--or horrors--I had in store. They were also aware that the plan was always subject to change.

Again, this is all middle-school specific. The upper school teachers adhered to the homework posting mandate even less stringently than the middle school teachers. But as the kids were older, and parents weren't as involved, it didn't seem to cause as many problems.

So again, as Athena said, "all over the map," with some thoughtful recommendations from administrators--and technology education for those that want it--may be the way to go.

Elaine

Elaine Dimopoulos
94 Robbins Road
Arlington, MA 02476
h: (781) 777-2579
edimo...@hotmail.com

----------------------------------------
> Subject: RE: Homework websites
> Date: Fri, 16 May 2008 06:58:19 -0400
> From: SRodr...@columbusschoolforgirls.org
> To: klin...@googlegroups.com

_________________________________________________________________
Give to a good cause with every e-mail. Join the i’m Initiative from Microsoft.
http://im.live.com/Messenger/IM/Join/Default.aspx?souce=EML_WL_ GoodCause

[Sylvia Rodriguez]

Happy Friday!

 

Many thanks in advance for your insight and anything you can share with me regarding the topic and questions below:

 

We are hearing parent and student concerns about workload, while simultaneously receiving more and more requests to allow students into AP and honors courses for which they are not recommended (in response to colleges; demands for "the most rigorous curriculum your high school offers").  Have any of your schools responded effectively to these concerns?  If so, what steps did you take to lower the volume of complaint on this issue?

 

All my best,

Sylvia

 

[John Kurtz]

Our college guidance counselor gave a long talk on this subject at our school, in the context of college admissions, which is captured in the article attached here.  It's on page 9 of this publication.  Sorry I couldn't find it by itself.  Her main point to parents is don't try to make your kid into something that he or she isn't, just to get into a college that s/he isn't going to fit into.  

John

[Jonathan Rosenshine]

Dear All,   We are thinking here at Buckley about buying a Harkness table for our Class IX homeroom.  Do any of you have experience with them?  http://www.harknesstable.com/ If you do, would you mind answering some quick questions?  Please do not take a lot of time on this (one word answers are fine), but if you can respond by Wednesday morning (5/21), your answers will help me in a meeting I have with the Headmaster on the matter.  Sorry for the short notice, and please do not worry if you can’t get to this any time soon.   Any help at any time would be appreciated. (I thought about doing this on SurveyMonkey just for fun....)   1. Do your 9th graders have classes with Harkness tables?   2. Has the presence of Harkness tables led to any difficulties with student conduct and focus as the result of the student centered approach to discussions?   3. Do you use the Harkness tables for some academic subjects and not for others?   4. Is there any advice concerning Harkness tables that you think I ought to be aware of?   I really appreciate your time, whenever you can give it.   Best, Jon

[Jonathan Rosenshine]

Hey, All. We have the Buckley CourseWeb Homework Assignments Page for the Upper School only.  Feel free to peruse it: http://buckley.editme.com/HomeworkAssignmentsPage The layout is by homeroom, one day at a time.  We like this because it still forces students to keep their individual planners if they are going to plan out their assignments in a weekly/monthly basis.  Certainly, some students think that they no longer need a planner, and this is a fight we are taking on, but right now, we are not inclined to supply them with the full page calendar for the month or for the week.  We want them to keep learning how to plan. Some teachers put assignments up days/weeks in advance.  Some put assignments up day by day.  Essentially, the CourseWeb is an extra mode of communication for homework.  Teachers are still supposed to post the next night’s homework assignment on the board in the classroom, and students are supposed to write the assignments in their planners.  The CourseWeb helps make sure that students and parents know what the assignments are. If for some reason you are having trouble seeing the CourseWeb, let me know, and I will make sure you have permission (but I do not think you need special permission). Last thing: we are switching to a whole new school website sometime over the next year (Whipple Hill).  At that time, we will likely give more thought to our CourseWeb and how we want it to work. Hope this helps.  Jon

[Jonathan Rosenshine]

Hi, Sylvia. Two years ago, we were hearing constant complaints about homework load.  Last year, we conducted a study we called Operation Homework in which we did two large scale studies of student homework loads.  In the first study, we created an anonymous survey in which we asked students to keep a homework log for every assignment for a week.  While the surveys were not named, we were able to cross reference each data point with the other students in the class,so we got a picture of the general homework load for each course for that week.  Our policy is that students should have generally no more than 30 minutes of homework per subject per night (taking into account the varying working and reading speeds of individual boys).  Then we followed with the same week long study later in the year, but this time we had teachers make note of how long they expected their students (in general) to work on any given assignment.  This allowed us to compare the results of teacher expectations against student experience. Obviously, the whole study was fraught with subjectivity and ripe with the potential of dishonest answers.  We plowed ahead anyway and found pretty reasonable results.  The student workloads came out generally in line with policy and teacher expectations.  There were a few interesting details in the results, but by and large, the study suggested that things are not totally out of whack in the Upper School at Buckley (assuming that the potential for 2.5 hours of homework on a given night is not totally out of whack for 7th, 8th, and 9th graders). Out boy get home from sports every day (they all play afternoon sports) at around 5:30-6pm assuming they are not delayed coming home from a game.  Assuming that students need 8 hours of sleep per night (some studies say 9+ hours) and assuming a wake up time of 7am, this means that our boys have about 5 hours of time at home before a healthy bed time of 11am.  Now, no one works like a robot on school work for 2.5 hours.  2.5 hours of work should take a normal middle schooler, I am guessing, 3.5 to 4 hours to actually complete.  When we include what we hope is a family dinner, our own standards leave almost no downtime, time for hanging out with family, watching TV, practicing an instrument, engaging in a hobby, etc.  There is no question that even following our own policies, we are subject to the accusation that our homework expectations are problematic.  I am going to be pushing my faculty to consider carefully what they can trim from their curricula without sacrificing our mission to teach "fundamental skills."  I think that given the permission to do so, it is okay to do less.  Go deeper, but maybe do less. That said, since we did Operation Homework, complaints about homework load have dropped off almost completely.  This year, the issues of student stress and homework load are basically off the table.  Their lack of sleep, however, is very much talked about, but we are hearing more and more about boys' playing video games until all hours of the night.  The boys themselves are telling us.  We have even heard rumors that there is an all-night club dedicated to helping members get as little sleep as possible through phone calls, text messages, etc.  Bizarre. Anyway, if anyone is interested in conducting an Operation Homework, I would be glad to put you in touch with our school psychologist who conducted it for us.  She could explain how she collected, crunched, and produced the data. Hope this helps. Jon --- On Fri, 5/16/08, Sylvia Rodriguez <SRodr...@columbusschoolforgirls.org> wrote:

[Sylvia Rodriguez]

Hi Jon,

Thank you for your response! I will definitely keep you in mind should we chose to engage in this kind of study to help us manage the workload question better.

I hope that you are doing well!
All my best,
Sylvia

________________________________

[Kate Butler]

We did a similar study, but decided to give the survey each year to
gauge what student experiences were both with homework and other
activities. It has been an interesting project over the past four years
and we've learned a lot about how students spend their time. Some of it
is in our control, and we have made adjustments there. Other things
give us topics for parent education evenings and conversations with
families about stress and expectation.

--
Kate Butler
9th Grade Dean/English
Polytechnic School
1030 E. California Blvd.
Pasadena, CA 91106
626-792-2147 x. 204
kbu...@polytechnic.org
www.polytechnic.org