muddling about

I recently found a back issue of Educational Leadership in my “to do” pile. It was titled “If They’d Only Do Their Work!” and examined how to help students complete their homework. Here were their findings on how to help students engage in their schoolwork:

• Assign work that is worthy of effort. Make sure it is engaging and relevant – that kids have a reason to actually do the work other than avoiding a zero. Above all ask the questions – does is make sense? Is it necessary? Is it useful to what we are studying?
• Make the work doable. Design homework to require little assistance as it may not be available to them at home. It also helps to get homework started at school before taking it home.
• Find out what students need. Take time to help kids find out what they need to get the the homework done.
• Create a space and time for homework. This refers to systematic ways of helping students comlpete work. For example, several teachers in our school work before school and at lunch provding “structured support” for students who are struggling with homework. This has been a raging success for us.
• Make work public. Share your work with others. This is a very exciting thought given our abilities with online publishing…hmmm….web2.0…
• Collaborate! Ned to work with others to find solutions.

At first I felt quite guilty reading the article and thinking back to my beginning teaching days. I recall assigning many math questions for rote learning and giving little perspective to why and how they were to be completed. My frustration when few students completed the work was clearly a product of my poor preparation.

I’m excited to start my new computer science 30 course next semester as students will be making 90% of their work public via the Net.  One of my primary objectives for the course, outside of content, is to increase student engagement.  I’m glad I found this article.

One of the great things about having a lengthy holidays is you get a chance to do the things you have been meaning to do for a while but never found the time. Well, this holiday I decided to continue reading Covey’s 8th Habit book. I was initially reluctant to read it as his work seems overly commercialized. However, after reading a few chapters I can tell it is a worthwhile read. I have been a Covey fan since I read the 7 Habits book ten years ago.

 Anyhow, chapter 2 deals with what Covey identifies as “the problem” with organizations and I assume is the motivation behind the book. His fundamental claim is that organizational problems are problems of paradigms of human nature . In particular, the fact that many employers treat people as objects, similar to an industrial model of management. Therefore, in order to succeed in the modern era, organizations must rethink  how they treat “Knowledge Workers”.

 For me there are three key things to take away from this part of the book:

1) People in organizations characterized by the problems Covey outlines create codependency between workers and management. In the end, workers stop believed leadership is a choice, instead believing it is part of a position.

2) Organizations must change from viewing people in a “thing” paradigm and instead view them in a “Whole Person” paradigm. Otherwise we are leading blindly.  It is interesting to see how Covey’s principle of “seek first to understand” is really manifested in this new principle of the Whole Person paradigm.

I have always held to a belief that at the root – leadership is about relationships…I think I’m really going to enjoy this book.

I’ve had a blog that I used rarely on blogspot for the last year. I wouldn’t say I’m a “blogger” but I certainly understand the incredible impact blogging can have on teaching practices and necessarily student learning. Also, after seeing the utility of Wordpress and watching edublogs grow I have decided to jump aboard – hooray. The fact my admistrative partner Trevor has started a professional blog has also been an inspiration. Anyhow, the primary purpose for this blog is to use it with my students and to reflect on my own learning at work and in my university classes. Feel free to stop by anytime.