I am inspired to write this blog due to the recent flurry of activity at my school to differentiate homework. Based on research, differentiation is essential to the success of all learners at all levels, and I completely support doing that in my classroom. From the articles we read about grouping strategies it left me with many questions, but an overall consensus that I needed to do more to differentiate ability levels in my classroom.
Teaching in a charter school in Baltimore City, I have students who can barely read an A level book, all the way to kids reading at a Level N. Sometimes I feel I am chasing myself around all day trying to accomodate the vast ability levels, but I have found that as my classroom management has gotten better, with the help of classdojo.com, an AMAZING resource where you give positive and negative behavior points, and behaviors are broken down in graphs for parents to see in weekly reports, I can differentiate even more. I can pull kids to work with them in writing, and they love coming to meet with me. During reader's workshop it is quiet now without heistation so I can read with more students and see if they can move up a reading level or not. I have one parent though that has a child reading at a level N, and is absolutely brilliant at language (her mom is a French professor). She wanted to do more for the gifted and talented students, those that scored above a 100% on the sight word assessment given at the start of the year. I completely supported her, and began to pull chapter books and do more of a literature circle for my advanced readers. Once I felt I was differentiating that enough, the issue of homework came up. Some parents were saying the homework was too easy, and not enough for their child. I had mixed feelings about this because they are only in first grade, and homework is not meant to be a teaching tool, it should reinforce concepts, but I still understood where the mom with the child on a Level N reading level was coming from. Due to meetings with adminstration and push from this parent, we are now differentiating homework so much that each reading level is getting a baggie of worksheets each week which contain leveled readers, KWL charts and other various graphic organizers, and advanced math. It has been very difficult to organize all of this, and has left me questioning how effective this will be. Should homework be differentiated? Is it necessary to student success and how much of an impact will it have on student success? I am hopeful for the future, but am eager to hear responses to this situation.
Laura –
ReplyDeleteI agree that differentiation is vital to the success of every student. I also agree that it is challenging to accommodate the needs of students with such varying ability levels… especially when students’ needs and abilities are constantly changing. I try to differentiate as much as possible in my teaching. I differentiate in reading by using flexible grouping and open-ended literacy centers. I think that it is very beneficial to your students that you are differentiating their homework every week. It sounds like a lot of work! Planning for small group instruction, follow-up activities, and learning centers takes a huge amount of planning and preparation for me. Planning different homework for every small group and some individuals would be even more time-consuming. Fortunately for me, homework is not a big emphasis in my school this year. We are not allowed to grade homework assignments and we are not collecting it. (I am worried that many students are not doing the homework!) This year in kindergarten, we have a monthly homework calendar with a variety of activities in reading, math, writing, and content areas. There is no differentiation on the calendar! I think that for some subject areas, such as math, there should be two different activities, one grade-level assignment and an above-grade level assignment. I think that reading and writing homework can be naturally differentiated by having students reread guided reading books and by drawing and/or writing about the book. Maybe, you could try to have students do some generic reading homework assignments such as reading the books and summarizing the story or main points. Good luck! I know it is a lot of work!
- Dorothy
Thanks Dorothy! I am excited to see how the data reflects this change. We do the same type of thing keeping track of homework. We give a bonus point for every five homeworks, and they seem to be motivated just by the sticker they get and the sticker that also goes on the chart.
ReplyDeleteThe curriculum we use at my school (also in Baltimore City) is very structured and rigid, so differentiation is something I've struggled with in my three and a half years teaching. While I have been able to implement more differentiation practices as my skills have gotten sharper and I've become more confident in my teaching, differentiating homework is not something I've done. I agree with the comments above- it's quite time consuming and not every parent is going to be satisfied! Because not all of my students have involved parents, I only give something for homework that has already been done several times in school, so I know that the students can complete it on their own. I would like to be able to challenge them a bit more or perhaps give them more extension activities to do at home, but it's really hard to accomplish that when the parents are not on board (or they're busy in the evenings and can't help their child with homework). While I think homework is important to reinforce skills and teach responsibility, I think overloading children with homework (especially when they're in first grade!) does not necessarily help them to achieve greater success in the classroom. While I'm sure those parents mean well, I think kids deserve a break and shouldn't be bogged down with homework every night (especially after they've been working all day in school). Some educators even think that homework should be done away with all together! This article discusses the debate:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.education.com/magazine/article/The_Homework_Debate/