Hands Free Homework

Last week I on the blog spoke about some of the frustrations of homework and some of the concerns I had as a parent.

In it, I suggested that we "attempt to make it [homework] the kind of work that suits children and families during busy afternoons and evenings".

After a week or so of conversation in the Cornwall household, I've come to the conclusion that I would like to launch the following campaign!

What is hands free homework? It is a movement toward a student centered homework model that requires little or no additional parent intervention.


Focus on... Home-work 
All parents do things with their children at home. These things are often educational and informative and compliment the activities of school. However, we are often asked in homework to undertake activities that are in addition or replace these household activities.

For example, the school supplied homework might ask a student  to observe a local park or sporting facility and how it is used and who uses it (Stage 1 Science ST1-14BE I am guessing). Meanwhile in our household we might be working on designs for a new chicken coop and considering the needs of the chickens, building materials, etc.

There is really no need for the first homework, because there is work being done at home that mirrors it. And this happens all the time. What if we recorded this work and backward mapped it to the syllabus, rather than attempting to do the homework?

The home-work model, therefore, is about taking those natural learning activities at home at giving them a link to the syllabus. This requires parents to be more informative regarding their children's curriculum. This could be done by supplying the syllabus documentation for that Term/unit to parents and let them consider how the homework best suits what is happening at home.

If I could find activities that involved Lego of Minecraft we'd be set!

Focus on ... KISS
The 'keep it simple silly' model is widely known but poorly employed. I am very lucky that one of my children's teachers works from this model. My daughter is expected to read daily and watch a once-a-week flipped video. This still requires intervention very minimal intervention.

Similarly, too often homework involves fifteen disparate tasks, even in the early years. This is somewhat hard to change in high school, but it can be done. Trying to get homework down to 1-2 focused and important tasks makes life far easier for students and parents.

Focus on... DIY
As per my previous blog post, homework needs to be as DIY as possible. The less I, as the parent, have to be directly hands on the more it supports working parents, the busy-ness of home life, single parents and students living away from home. For this reason I loved flipped learning. If a child's homework involved watching some short videos and reading, it is effectively hands-free even from an early age. Where possible, all homework should be DIY by the student.


In summary
So what does the confluence of these three focus areas look like?

• Simple, easy to access and complete tasks
• 1-2 tasks per night maximum
• Activities that require little or no parent intervention
• Ideally, the ability for families to substitute or come up with their one home-work that fits in with the curriculum

I've got to say, I cannot wait until ST1-5WT gets started on building that chicken coop!

I'd love to hear how you (teacher) simplify homework - especially if it uses technology - or how you (parents) try to keep homework simple!