The personal learning network for educators

Of what use is homework?

I just participated in a conversation in Elluminate with Alfie Kohn. This was organised by Steven Anderson of The Educator's PLN.
This was an exciting talk with over 100 people in attendance, including
a classroom or 7th graders in their computer class.

During the talk, Alfie Kohn made point
that there is no study published in any peer-reviewed
journal that demonstrates that homework adds value to learning. This is
timely and valuable information as I struggle to defend my no homework
policy. I am forced to give grades, so we have participation points,
quickwrite points, as well as engagement points. The class average is
over 100% as we pass the half way mark in marking period 3.
Alfie Kohn has written 11 books, one of which, The Schools Our Children
Deserve he talks about in a CNN Video Library video stream --> Here. This
recording of Alfie Kohn is about 80 minutes and well worth a listen.
I enjoyed this talk during my lunch today. A wonderful President's Day! I
hope the Educator's PLN soon
hosts more events!

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Comment by Charles C Baker on February 23, 2010 at 1:36pm: Joe,
Where's the other side of your argument? This is just a review of what Kohn's already written.

Comment by Joe Bower on February 23, 2010 at 11:33am: I bloggeda about the myth of non-academic benefits for Homework at: http://www.joebower.org/2010/02/myth-of-non-academic-benefits-of.html

If you haven't read The Homework Myth by Kohn, you should. It's so good!

Comment by Charles C Baker on February 15, 2010 at 5:48pm: Those 3 categories all sound like the same participation/behavior points. How do you know what your students have learned? There can be a wide gap between giving no homework and participation being the only class requirement.

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