CCHS Homework Committee Essential Practices & Recommendations - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

CCHS Homework Committee Essential Practices & Recommendations

School Committee Meeting January 26, 2016

Homework Committee: Purpose

• Determine what the best balance is, regarding

homework, to promote both well-being and high levels of achievement for students and teachers

• Conduct a program review of homework

practices and make recommendations

Homework Committee - Rationale

• CCHS School Improvement Plan 2015-2016

– “Engage in action-research on best practices

for homework.”

• 56% of our students experience somewhat or

very high stress as a result of academic workload

(Youth Risk Behavior Survey 2014)

• Longitudinal anecdotal reports to educators

from parents & students about academic stress

YRBS Data

Process

• Homework Committee

– Group comprised of admin, guidance, SPED, members of all large departments and students – Met 5 ½ days to review research-based practices, CCHS’s & sister schools’ practices, generated recommendations

• DCG: Received updates after Homework Group

multiple meetings

• Teacher Input: Fluid process

– Faculty Meetings – “DCG loop”

• Principal implemented recommendations
• DCG (June): Evaluate implemented items to-

date; make suggestions for refinements, with faculty input.

Process (cont.)

The Basis for the Homework Committee’s Recommendations:

• Data from student and parent surveys
• Teacher/committee member input
• Research on homework practices

Student and Parent Survey Results

• 1072 students and 544 parents took the surveys
• Data was analyzed and used by the Homework

Committee to inform formulation of recommendations

Summary of Key Findings from Student and Parent Survey

• When asked to rank their #1 top source of stress,

“Tests” and “Balancing it All” were the categories most often selected by students.

• “Tests” and “Homework” were the two categories

that were most often selected as one of the top four sources of stress.

Summary of Key Findings from Student and Parent Survey

Reported Time Spent on Nightly Homework: Students: 52%- 3 or more hours per night 19%- 4 or more hours per night Parents: 51%- 3 or more hours per night 19%- 4 or more hours per night *Time reported was CONSISTENT across all grades.

Summary of Key Findings from Student and Parent Survey

• Time spent on homework was slightly lower for

students taking 0 or 1 Honors/AP classes

• Time spent on homework was the same for

students taking 2, 3, 4 + Honors/AP classes

• A high homework load (4 hours or more) is not

unique to students taking 6 or more classes

Summary of Key Findings from Student and Parent Survey

• Parents indicated that 1-2 hours per night is the

appropriate amount of homework

• Support for greater amounts of homework

increases with students’ honors/AP Load, but generally peaks at 2 hours

Sources of Student Stress

51% of our Students Report Having Three or More Hours of Homework Per Night (CCHS Homework Survey)

The Amount of Time Spent on Homework is Similar Across All Grades

Most Parents Consider 1-2 Hours the Appropriate Amount of HW

Parental Support for More HW Increases Slightly with Students AP/Honors Load

Common Themes from Parent Survey (Open Response Comments)

Does your child struggle to complete HW? If yes, why?

• 33 exhaustion/ lack of sleep
• 24 extracurricular conflicts
• 20 volume (simply too much)
• 14 child not engaged by “busywork”

Common Themes from Parent Survey (Open Response Comments)

47 Too much homework 41 My child is too tired/ doesn’t get enough sleep 26 Child is overloaded because of school obligations and extracurriculars 22 Too much of the assigned homework is “busywork”/ not purposeful 10 Assignment postings are too difficult to find 10 There is a lack of coordination across disciplines (many large assignments are due at once) 9 Everything is fine as is

Key Findings from Research

• Benefits of homework diminish after 2-2.5 hours

for high school students

• Removal of all homework decreases student

performance

Key Findings

• Teachers clearly stating the purpose of

homework increases its value

• To ensure that students understand homework,

start and/or preview it in class when possible

• It is important to communicate with parents

regarding effective ways to help their students with homework

Recommendations

The Homework Committee broke down their recommendations into three categories:

• 1. Essential School-Wide Practices
• 2. Recommended Practices
• 3. For the Future/Next Steps

Essential School-Wide Practices

• Homework is announced before the end of block
• Homework is written/displayed on the board in

class

• Homework is posted online in a single common

place and platform for all courses, using Google Calendar (Projected Implementation: 04/04/16)

Essential Practices

• No practices begin before 2:45 pm. to allow time for

academic support (Projected Implementation: 03/28/16)

• Pilot school-wide coordination of major

assignments/assessments in weeks prior to vacations/end of quarter/exams

(Projected Implementation: 03/28/16)

• Homework-free vacations are observed both in

practice and spirit / no major assignments due until Thursday after a vacation

Recommended Best Practices for Individual Teachers

• Differentiated homework practices (e.g. volume,

reading levels, selected questions)

• Teachers communicate expected time estimates

for homework/projects and what to do if a student is having difficulties or taking more time than expected. Teachers are encouraged to consider 30 minutes per course per night as a guideline.

Recommended Best Practices for Individual Teachers

• Explain purpose of homework in both the course

expectations and for specific projects or assignments

• Provide students more than one day to complete

longer assignments (and check on incremental progress)

Recommended Best Practices for Individual Teachers

• Teachers frontload the teaching of skills

necessary to complete assignments

• Communicate to parents that moderating co-

curriculars to balance student workload and stress is important

Next Steps

• Professional Development Day - 01/25/16

– Google Calendar training – Group work: Differentiation of HW practices

• 8th to 9th grade transition

– Meeting held with Middle Schools (Concord & Carlisle) 1/12/16 – More this spring

• Review homework practices for consistency on a

departmental level (teacher to teacher, and subdepartment by subdepartment)

Next Steps

• Follow up on specific survey results
• Seek feedback from faculty and students about

the implementation of essential practices and recommended best practices

• Pursue Challenge Success grant to explore the

bigger issue of student stress

Challenge Success Program

Rationale

• Our work in the Homework Committee

uncovered that student stress is a multifaceted issue, with homework playing one part

• The Committee felt strongly that a more in-

depth review of student wellbeing is essential to creating a more supportive school community

Challenge Success Program

• Working on Concord Ed Fund grant in

conjunction with Middle Schools – School-wide professional development – Coaching for CCHS as well as professional development for faculty members – Presentation by the Challenge Success faculty, tailored for parents

• While the committee has recommended a

variety of changes to CCHS’s current homework practice, the committee believes strongly that more work is needed in the area

• f student well-being and stress reduction.
• This work will require “buy-in” from several

constituencies within the community.

Summary

Questions?

Appendix: Parent and Student Survey Results

Links to PDF of Parent and Student Survey Results & Article

Surveys https://drive.google.com/a/concordps.

• rg/file/d/0B2uWXM_ZDRfhMG5yd3NvaWRiUjlGQUV0TW5rX1Npc0s4SXYw/view

Article http://www.challengesuccess.org/blog/what-teaching-8th-graders-has-taught-me- about-homework-and-stress-by-paul-franz/

What Teaching 8th Graders Has Taught Me About Homework and Stress

This is my first year as a full time teacher, after working for many years in education as a part-time teacher, researcher, and coach with Challenge Success. Throughout the year I’ve seen the complexities and nuances of how student stress works up close. Stress doesn’t just come from one place. It’s not only teachers assigning too much homework, or a hectic school schedule, or one too many extracurricular activities. It’s deeper than any

• ne of those things. It’s cultural, and it’s something we not only feel, but also go in

search of. In an odd way, I feel like we take a certain pride in being busy. Hard work, it goes without saying, is admirable, and it’s far better to work too hard than not work hard enough. For example, as a teacher I rarely feel compelled to say to a student, “Hey Hector, you worked too hard on this. Try taking it easier next time.” The implication of this would be, “this assignment is too well done, too thorough, too neat.” On the other hand it’s not uncommon to say, “Jacob, this feels rushed. Did you put in enough effort? Did you save it for the last minute?” Students pick up on this distinction, which comes not only from feedback on turned-in work, but from their parents, their peers, television shows they watch, books they read, and even video games they play (populated as they are with tireless heroes and villains who are sometimes evil, sometimes admirable, but never lazy). Stress itself is not admirable, per se, but busy-ness is, and busy-ness turns into stress easily. So there is no simple origin for stress, and hence there is no one panacea, one thing I can do, as a teacher, to reduce the stress of my students when they secretly want to be able to say how busy they are, when their parents want them to do well in school, and when students themselves make choices – like saving work for the last minute – which unduly increase stress. What’s more, 8th graders live intensely dramatic social lives, where friendships rise and fall in days, crushes are not-always-closely-guarded secrets, and the adolescent germs of independence-seeking youthful rebellion are starting to grow. In

short, it’s hard being 14 even without school. This year my 8th graders have taught me how complicated their stress is, and they’ve also shown me that there are little things I can do to improve their experience. The following are three big ideas that I had considered in the abstract before – as a coach with Challenge Success, and as a student and researcher – but which now carry the weight of

• experience. They’re not panaceas or solutions, in themselves. Rather, they are all

important ideas to keep in mind when thinking about how to tackle the difficult issue of student stress. 1) Some stress can be good. Students want rigor and want to feel motivated. My students do best when they feel challenged. Reading the difference between paralyzed and overwhelmedand intimidated but up for it is not always easy, but it’s worth it to figure

• ut the markers for each and every student. A challenged student is a motivated student,

and reducing stress cannot mean reducing rigor, because that leads to disengagement and boredom, which in turn makes school more stressful. It is no accident that my students feel most stressed not when they have the most or most difficult work to do, but rather when they are not convinced that the work they have to do is worthwhile. 2) It’s not easy to tell how much homework students actually do. Make sure you find out the whole story. Anyone who has taught middle school knows that some students complain about everything, and especially how much homework they have. At one point this year I asked

• ne of my more grumpy students how much homework she has on a typical night,

worried that maybe me and my fellow 8th grade teachers were overdoing it. “Oh,” she said, “About 45 minutes.” I thought about this for a minute. Not only do we have an hour-long ‘homework period’ – a quiet time for students to work independently – at the end of our school day, but this student also spends the next hour in study hall after

• school. I responded, “So, basically you have enough time to finish it in homework period

and study hall every day, so you’re done before you go home at 4.” She said, “Yeah, that’s right,” and left it at that. “So much homework” didn’t mean “more than I can do,” or, “so much that it takes away from family time.” I was relieved. I also realized that, for a student who has been at a school where we make a point of limiting homework load and craft assignments that are never busywork and always requires thinking this was a lot of work, but totally doable. On the flip side, some students will quietly spend hours and hours on assignments that

were meant to be finished in a fraction of that time. I have another student who routinely turns in work to me, digitally, well after midnight. In speaking to him, I’ve learned that he spends hours and hours in sports practices, and is such a perfectionist about his school work that he’ll easily put in double or triple the time his classmates do on each

• assignment. Add in his serial procrastination and you have a recipe for a classic over-

stressed student: too much to do, too little sleep. Add in, in his case, the added complication that he never offers a word of complaint. Indeed, if you ask him, he’ll say that he wants to work so hard. There’s no easy solution here, as this student is a classic example of broader cultural values at work, but fact finding and recognizing that the problem exists is a key first step. 3) Giving students time to get work done is not enough; you have to teach them to use that time effectively. My school’s hour long homework period is, I think, a particularly brilliant idea, but it only works if it’s implemented properly. What does “properly” mean? Middle school students, no matter how engaged they are by their curriculum and class projects, need structure and support from teachers to work effectively. I’ve come to understand that running homework period is possibly the most important part of my job, because it’s a time when I can teach, on an individual basis, skills that go way beyond my Language Arts

• curriculum. I can teach resilience, when to ask for help (and when to figure it out

yourself), how to stay organized, and how to prioritize tasks. Being firm and consistent with expectations for student use of homework period – and following through on those expectations – makes student experience effective. Improperly implemented, homework period could simply be an hour-long socialization and decompression time for students. That would have some merits, but perhaps the best way to reduce stress is to get the stressful work done (and how much smaller does it usually seem when it’s done!). Homework period allows students to do that, as long as the atmosphere the teacher establishes is a productive one. Reducing stress and improving the student experience isn’t about making school easy. It’s about setting high expectations, providing meaningful learning opportunities, and ensuring that students can succeed at meeting real challenges. It’s about finding out the truth from students, knowing what they want, what they need, and when those things are either in concert or in contradiction. It’s about teaching students to be positive and productive, teaching them to prioritize and make effective use of their time, and teaching them to be reflective and self-aware. It’s not easy, but it’s worth the effort. Paul Franz is a middle school teacher in Southern California, and a Challenge Success coach.

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