Pro-(student)Choice

After each unit in my class, I assign a culminating project that requires students to use, present, or, defend the historical content we have explored and examined. Some of the culminating projects are artistic-based, some are writing-based, some are persuasive, etc. These projects include tasks like creating a scrapbook about the Constitution, reworking the Declaration of Independence into a Children’s Book, and creating a historical fiction journal about the Civil War.

There was only just one option for each unit; I decided what my students would create. Over the course of the nine unit projects, I sought to incorporate elements and requirements that would highlight my students’ multiple intelligences and natural strengths/interests. Now I want to take this differentiation further, and build more opportunities for student choice in my assignments. It has been one of my instructional goals for this school year.

A few weeks ago, I gave it a shot. Instead of assigning one culminating unit project, I gave students the choice to pick one option from three possibilities. The students seemed to enjoy being given the option to choose their project. It helped to motivate students to complete the projects. Most students said that none of their other teachers had ever given the opportunity to choose a project design before.

This project ended my unit on California Standard 8.9, or in my curriculum, The Road to the Civil War.Traditionally, the project I assigned for this unit was to create a poster where students had to graphically display and present the five reasons why the Civil War started or five specific events (out of a choice of 13) that lead to the war. In order to build choice in this project, I supplemented the visual poster option with two others. The students could write a 5-paragraph persuasive essay (they had already completed two persuasive essays so the students understood how to structure their argument), or create a Keynote/PowerPoint (all students had created one Keynote on the previous project, so they already knew how to use the program).

The basic purpose of the project remained the same, no matter which option a student selected. The student had to present the reasons they felt were most significant in bringing America to civil war in 1861. My visual, artistic, arts and craftsy students mainly chose the poster option (some students even created their own fourth option by turning the poster into a book). My verbal, linguistic, writerly students chose the persuasive essay option. My students who are more techy, and that love doing anything involved with computers, created Keynotes.

Here are three reasons why I loved how this all turned out:

1. I could see the gears turning in my students’ brains as I went over the options for the projects. You give the students choice, they have to make a decision, they are engaged in the process. It creates more student buy-in when the teacher shares some curricular power with the students.

2. It was such a teacherly joy to watch my students begin working on this project in class. The students were excited to work on their own, personalized presentations. I sat back and just watched them go! Students using the tables along the side of the classroom to design their posters, sharing markers, scissors, rulers, and glue. The writers gathering together to help each other craft the perfect title and the perfect thesis. The digital learners, fixed behind the school’s laptop screens, teaching themselves more than I could ever show them about the program.

3. Grading the projects was something I looked forward to – more than usual. Rather than having to review 120 essays, or 120 posters, I was given the opportunity to assess an interesting variety of projects.

The Eternal Question of Homework

As teachers, we are supposed to assign our students homework. Right? Every night? How long should a homework assignment take? Some teachers might have answered questions like these, to themselves. Most probably have not. We assign homework because we are “supposed to.” We assign homework because we were assigned homework when we were students. We assign homework because, if we do not, there are some parents who will question why their child has no school work to complete. We, teachers need to form a common understanding of why homework is necessary, and what it should look like. We must assign homework, if it is to be assigned at all, that motivates and guides students to critical thinking about their own understanding of content, and to their education in total.

In my History classes, in the first years of my teaching, I believed that homework must be assigned four nights a week, and each assignment was to take between fifteen and thirty minutes to complete, I would compile various photocopied handouts or short readings of the lowest order. I told my students that these assignments would help them understand better what we are learning class (hopefully they did). Each day at the end of class the work was assigned, and the next day collected, from those who completed the work. I would get to grade pile after pile of boring handouts with answers regurgitated directly from bland readings.

I began to reflect. I enjoyed grading these papers just as much as my students enjoyed completing them. Very, very little. So why did I need to keep assigning the dreaded homework?

Teachers often argue that students must complete homework to fully grasp what is being taught in class. Now I say to that – Why? Shouldn’t the activities and strategies done in class lead to the deepest understanding of content? Why rely on homework? Of course, time in class can be painfully short for certain assignments. Let the homework then be the continuation of the valued class activity.

Ask teachers what is a major cause of their heading to the staff cafeteria to grumble and complain, and undoubtedly you will hear about students “who will just not do the homework.” It should come as no shock to us as teachers, or as former students ourselves, that kids would rather be doing just about anything else in the world possible, than boring homework. Yet we continue to assign it. And bitch and moan when it does not get completed. What if we began assigning homework students actually wanted to do? An assignment students look forward to investigating. What might that look like? How excited will we as teachers be to grade this?

I am continually challenging myself. I am still striving to create a new type of homework. I will use this blog as a way to describe these different types of new homework assignments. I believe this new homework must be guided by certain principles:

1. Work must be rigorous. No more photocopied question and answer recall worksheets.    The assignment must be based around a critical reading of a source, or high level thinking, writing, artistic expression, etc.
2. Work must be meaningful. Students need to be shown the value of each assignment. We cannot rely on old standby expressions like “The homework will help you understand the topic.” We must show, not tell our students this.
3. Choice must be incorporated. To increase student buy-in, homework should involve some sense of choice for the students. Options that can be selected. Different ways to demonstrate understanding.
4. When possible, homework needs to value technology. Our students, each year, are increasingly digital, at younger and younger ages. As teachers, we too must develop our technological literacy and invite technology both into our classes and our homework assignments.
5. Assignments must be relevant. In order to change the perception of homework, students need to see that the work does matter, to them, to their education, and to their life beyond the walls of the classroom.

Do you have any other suggestions for principles to guide our new homework assignment?