About that other book…
If you remember, Dr. Sanford Aranoff left a comment back on my post entitled “Homework and Comments”. He left a book recommendation that I looked up on Amazon but the description didn’t lend itself to the topic of “homework” in particular so I passed on buying and reading it. I did contact Dr. Aranoff and explain as much. I received the following comment on that old post, I’m putting it here because the post is so old it might be missed otherwise.
“There are several parts of Teaching and Helping Students” dealing with homework. Here are some quotes:
Feelings are very important in mathematics and science. When I go to a seminar, I often hear statements like “I do not feel good about this,” or ”I feel good about this.” You too should examine your feelings during class and when doing homework. I am really so confused about what this means, so I’m not commenting otherwise”.There are entire sections devoted to homework. E.g., classroom management has a section on homework. Here are some quotes: (Whoa, classroom management and homework are not synonyms…classroom management does not equal homework, sorry)
It is important to give homework, because then they have to review the material. (Review the material does not equal homework, review the material equals study time.)
Homework is practice in applying the math concepts and learning how to think clearly about the math. It must also be exercises in how to do math, namely, to write neatly, to clearly state the assumptions and reasoning, and to check the work. (Math exercise includes writing neatly? (I fully believe that if a child does not know how to do the math, he/she won’t know how to do it after doing 50 math problems at home at night or even 5. And, if they don’t know how to do it, then it needs to be covered at school. With that, if the child/person knows how to do the exercise, then they know how and 5 or 50 problems doesn’t make a lot of difference. Class time is best for exercising so that someone (namely a teacher) is there to assist.)
Homework can be viewed as public work. We like to keep tests private, out of respect for the students, but this is not the case for homework. The goal is the effort, the correct understanding of the mathematics, and the proper approach. The activities of one student, successes and failures, can be shown as examples to enhance the learning of all. (No, you are not using my child’s failures to teach someone, sorry.)
It is good if students collaborate (as long as they simply do not copy from each other) doing homework. It is good if they teach each other. This should be encouraged. Collaboration is not acceptable on tests, of course, most of the time, although there may be exceptions. (You say, and I quote, “it is good if they (as in students) teach each other”….whoa, it is the teacher’s responsibility to teach…not the students…who is trained to teach here????? Whoa is all I’m gonna say, just WHOA!)
The homework review in the class can be utilized as encouragement for working together, by discussing aloud with the students nearby work that was very good or contained errors.”
My dissection of this reply is in red and so I am still not convinced that he and I are working on the same page.
What do you think?
Ok, I’ve been pretty verbal this week, I’m thinking I should close my trap but I can’t wait to read your comments.
September 29th, 2008 at 4:02 am
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