Monday, April 2, 2007

Test Day!

I'm going to start off by apologizing to my classmates. This post is really late, and there probably isn't a really good excuse for it. I just forgot about it entirely, and I feel bad about that. So yes, I’m sorry.

Well on the day I was supposed to scribe we wrote a test. It was a unit test on Systems of Linear Equations. As you all know on a test day you are supposed try to come up with something useful, and meaningful for our blog. In class we had a small discussion about whether or not homework over a break, such as Spring Break or Christmas Break, is worthwhile. Certain people have certain opinions about this topic. I searched the internet for some opinions, and here are some that I found.

http://www.toddseal.com/rodin/2006/01/homework-during-break/

The link above takes you to a site where a teacher has made a post about their preference not to give homework over breaks. The teacher backs this up by saying how most students do not do their work until the last minute, or even attempt their work. He also goes on to talk about how he himself doesn't like to do very much work over breaks himself, so how can he force his students too? Other teachers have commented with their opinions, along with some other interesting people who thought it was necessary to leave some pretty moot comments.

http://stophomework.com/the-case-against-homework

This second link is actually an article about a book that has been written about homework. It tells a little about the book and talks about too much homework possibly being connected to obesity, and a reason why kids are not as active anymore.

My final part of this post will be to leave you with this poll. The question is "Do you think the homework over a break is worthwhile? Please give me your input, and feel free to leave comments as you please, keeping in mind that this is a class blog and must be appropriate for school.


Homework Over A Break?
Do you think that homework over a break is worthwhile?










Yes
No




view results










Once again I would like to apologize to my classmates about this post being so late, but I hope you guys will take a look at it, and participate in the poll.

1 comment:

Ryan Maksymchuk said...

Tyler...neat stuff here. I'm happy that you created a poll, and I'm optimistic that it'll display results maybe in a day or so...Great idea!

As far as homework goes, do you have opinions about homework in general or specifically over school breaks? I'd be interested in the conversation continuting that was started in class yesterday. My own thoughts are that I assign homework to my students mostly as a means for 'skill practice' on certain things that you've just seen/learned but that you didn't have time to get better at in class yet. I think homework needs to be very specific in its intent and shouldn't take very long (Have any of you seen the 10-minute rule reference?)....but also that it is quite necessary in mathematics to actually make the effort to try and get it done.

I'm also interested in the other side of the argument, so to speak, about the positive side, and benefits of homework (if there are any...). Is there any research supporting this? Can anyone find anything that says that homework may be a good idea? Are there any of my students brave enough to actually admit that they like doing homework?

Thanks again for starting the conversation, Tyler, and I'll look forward to reading some more about this from you folks in my class....

Oh, and Tyler, on a very small technical note, please run your original post through a spelling and grammar checker...Thanks...

RM