Teaching and Homework Effectiveness
Student learning improves when homework serves a clear purpose and is matched to both the skills of each individual student and to the current topics being taught in class. Feedback improves the effectiveness of homework, especially when given in a timely manner (within 24 hours). Effective feedback improves student learning by correcting misunderstanding, validating process, and highlighting errors in thinking. Embedded comments provide much better feedback than a mere grade at the top of the paper. Homework must be concentrated to be effective: mastering takes days or weeks of practice. Fifty-percent mastery may be achieved after 4 practice sessions, but it takes 28 practice sessions to achieve approximately the eighty-percent mastery level.
Another way teachers can be more effective is by alerting parents to their students' homework, giving parents a chance to become familiar with the material and their child's progress. This also encourages parents to become involved in the homework process. Messages tend to get lost in transit or even altered when using "pupil post" (passing verbal messages or written notes back and forth using the student as courier), and therefore direct communication is much more effective and prevents frustration all around. Methods available for directly reporting homework assignments (to both students and their parents) include the phone, email, and centralized web-pages.
Read more about this topic: Homework
Famous quotes containing the words teaching and/or homework:
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