On a warm summer evening, watching the crowd at a street festival, I was fascinated by a toddler who was learning to walk. He was moving enthusiastically and enjoying his progress. His method was quite comical, more arms than legs, propelling himself along as if he were rowing a boat. His parents watched with delight, realizing that form and grace didn’t matter, but mastery did. They were beaming with pride. No one said, ‘Bad Baby, you’re not doing it right!”
No one tells a baby how to walk. No one moves his legs for him. We encourage him to stand, applaud his first step, and tell him it’s OK when he falls.
So starts the “members-only” article about “Student-Owned Homework,” by Cathy Vatterott, in the March 2014 issue of Educational Leadership (theme: Using Assessments Thoughtfully). It has the tagline: “By using homework for practice in self-assessment and complex thinking skills, we can put students in charge of the learning process.”
After elaborating a little more in a few paragraphs (“We fully understand the freedom that is necessary for children to take ownership of their accomplishments”), Vatterott segues to a contrast with schooling:
“Yet when it comes to academic learning, we seem to discount the importance of that freedom for learners to design their own methods, that forgiveness of form and grace, and that acceptance of failure. We often forget to appreciate the inborn desire for mastery or to trust a child’s self-knowledge of how to get there. And so we prescribe one method of learning, assign one task as homework, and simply require students to comply.”
Let me borrow these two paragraphs from EL’s abstract to summarize the rest of the article:
This traditional approach doesn’t encourage persistence or feelings of ownership–and it’s not adequate to foster the deep thinking and application of complex knowledge that the Common Core State Standards are now demanding.
Vatterott describes how we need to “overhaul” homework practices. The new purposes of homework, she writes, are checking for understanding and practicing the application of complex skills. She provides classroom examples of how teachers build self-assessment into homework and give students ownership of learning.
Vatterott doesn’t advocate an “anything goes” routine – she is a clear advocate for teacher feedback and student self-assessment. Does this strategy make sense, as we are preparing students to apply what they’ve learned to novel experiences?
If so, you might want to track down a copy of Educational Leadership (many schools subscribe), find an ASCD member who will share, or buy the March issue ($8.95) to read on your tablet or computer. It’s packed full of great articles.
