Making Homework Assignments Smarter for your Students and their Brains

One of my favorite bloggers, Annie Murphie Paul, has written a post about homework that every educator should consider as a guideline for better learning opportunities. Her claim, based on Neuroscience and Psychology research, entails making better use of strategies that are effectively proven to have an impact on learning.

Annie mentions three strategies that could be used by educators when they are considering the kind of extra-class activities they will assign:

- Spaced Repetition - instead of assigning units of content and then "getting over" them and moving to the next topic, make sure you come back to the content students have explored last week or in the past month over and over in different ways.

As the blogger puts it,

"Exposing ourselves to information repeatedly over time fixes it more permanently in our minds, by strengthening the representation of the information that is embedded in our neural networks."

- Retrieval Practice - In the beginning of the year, I explored the topic in a post about "learning by retrieval", which evokes the power of using testing/assessment tools more often to constantly retrieve information in a more active processing of the brain, instead of just studying content or taking notes. By working on the output of the language, learners are able to strengthen the brain connections for the content they are learning. This requires more of a study-test-study-test-study-test perspective rather than just study-study-study-test approach that we generally have. And by testing, we're not talking just about standardized tests, but self-assessments, quizzes, every kind of assessment that challenges the mind and retrieves information over and over again.

- Interleaving - Consider our homework assignments. Make an auditing of what you've asked your students to do in the past month. I bet that we have generally asked them to focus on the content they're studying right now in class and with types of problems and situations that are similar to each other to "make sense" for the students. In fact, what Annie Paul suggests based on recent studies and even sports training is that we mix up the types of problems and situations students will have to deal with for homework in a way that the sequence is not really predictable. By doing that, we force the brain to "work harder" to try to figure out the solution.

I think that the best chance we have to reconsider our homework practices is to audit what we've been doing and strategically plan ahead. Here's an initial list that might help:

- Have I used any of those three strategies - spaces repetition, retrieval practice, interleaving - in any of my past month assignments? If so, how?
- Have I varied the types of homework I assign to students or do they all follow a regular pattern?
- How challenging and motivating those homework assignments seem to be to my students? Have I ever asked them which types do they prefer, which are more challenging and which they feel are more effective for them in retrieving what they've learned?

Thinking strategically:

- How can I make homework assignments a more meaningful part of my teaching?
- How can I intertwine those 3 strategies to compare learning results?
- How can I check the effectiveness of the new strategies I try to use?
- How can I make homework a more challenging and engaging part of my classes?

I'd love to hear your views and findings about homework in the classroom and how they can be transformed to make it a relevant learning tool for our students.

Learning is About Understanding Relationships

The power of Rita Pierson's words still echo in my mind. What a wonderful, powerful, inspiring talk in which she pours her heart in a call for educators to make a difference, to connect and to be part of their learners' worlds. I can't think of anything more brain-friendly than that.




Are you doing your share to make a difference? How?

A Brain-Friendly Activity - Instructions for a Bad Day

I've been teaching teens this semester. And I can feel their different states of mind, the introvert struggling, the extroverted always trying to shine, the quiet with so much to say, the lost with so many words to shout...There is so much going on with every single one of them that we, educators, have different reactions to it. Some do their best in trying to reach the learners in very unique ways, others just keep going with content, and there are those who just ignore the collective state of mind, telling themselves that students' personal lives are none of their business. They are there to teach, not to learn about students' lives, anxieties, or personal imbalances. Such a twisted approach to teaching... In fact, we all know that the brain learns and retains through positive emotional connections. If we, teachers, establish a pleasurable learning environment for our learners in which we talk about things that really matter to them, that touch them, that is related to what they are going through, chances are that we'll be nudging students toward their learning, helping them engage with English, you, and their own learning processes.

Today, I just came across this very interesting video, which was part of a project that involved students in a school in which teenagers were struggling with friends' losses, a poet and volunteers who worked for free to put this video together: Instructions for a Bad Day




It really touched me. So, I thought that what if we used this video to talk about something that happens more often than not in our teenage years, a bad day. There are so many ways we could work with it:

• Asking students about their bad days
• Encouraging them to give advice for their friends in relation to bad days
• Asking them to watch the video and choosing the best pieces of advice
• Creating a cartoon based on the video
• Making a digital poster based on the main parts of the video

And here's the text:

More about this project, check Shayne Koyczan's page: http://www.shanekoyczan.com/2012/02/29/instructions-for-a-bad-day-pink-shirt-day-student-collaboration/

I thought this was just such an inspiring video to reach out to our students and to connect with them in a very meaningful way. Any other ideas to work with this video?

From Inertia to Editing Teaching - A Challenge

Many times we are trapped in our own routines, hectic lives and infinite tasks. It is hard sometimes even to breathe. Inertia takes over, and we see our personal and professional lives as if it were part of a film.

I know there are many challenges around for teachers, and I could name a few that you could follow for 30 days to make our lives more bearable and pleasant, but what if we set TWO WEEKS at first not to make revolutionary changes, but just small ones.

Our brains love surprises. The unexpected, unpredictable hooks us up, grabs our attention, so how about very simple changes that won't be radical at first, but could cause some tectonic shifts in the long run in terms of our pleasure in teaching our classes and our students' joy to be in class, connected, absorbed, hyped.

What if you invited your co-workers to join us for TWO WEEKS and take action, move and shake a bit? So, here I am making it public the idea of the EDIT TEACHING movement.

For the next two weeks, I'll blog every single day - which is already part of my own call for action - about a very simple idea that we can do in class to EDIT our TEACHING a bit, to make those changes that in the long run can ignite us to keep in the loop to continuously seek for the new experience, crossing the boundaries of our daily inertia, making us effervescent, upbeat, lighthearted educators.

THE FIRST #EDITTEACHING IDEA

Start your next class with a very simple question to your students, "What's in your playlist?" Give them five minutes to talk to each other about it, to see what they have in common and something new they learned about a song, singer or band. I'm sure that they will have something to say and you will connect in a more personal level with them!


Our twitter tag will be #editteaching . I'd love to hear from educators if they try this idea out for the next  TWO WEEKS! Ready to edit your teaching routine to smile and connect more often?

The Social Wild Web in 2 Minutes and Teachers' Learning Brains

I've produced this quick video as a Wrap up for the online course I am teaching, Web Tools for Educators at Casa Thomas Jefferson.

In the beginning of our online session, teachers are generally in a state of lethargy and disorientation. They are never sure if they should endure in the digital experience or quit. They sometimes have a feeling of being overwhelmed, at other times, at loss... I try to show them that this a common state when we face the new, when we leave our comfort zones, when we are learning, when we are challenged.

In neuroscience there's a common term to express the exact moment when our amygdala sense danger:

FLIGHT - FIGHT - FREEZE

We generally react in these three ways: we can just run away from the new experience as we feel threatened, we might decide to persist and move on against the initial moment of fear and helplessness, or we can just be in a lethargic state of no-action. 

My role as an online facilitator is to give participants the support they need for them to build up their self-confidence and move forward, fighting against their initial disorienting feeling of the non-linear digital world. Isn't that what we all try to do with our students, anyway? In this case, though, it is an even more important mission, for if they see the power of the Social Web in transforming their classrooms and beyond in truly student-centered learning hubs where interaction, collaboration, problem solving, creative thinking, fun-based learning is part of class routine, then my special assignment as an online facilitator is accomplished, and the impact of teachers' newly acquired digital skills is long-lasting and amplified in their local educational communities. 

That's why when they overcome the initial stage of getting their feet wet into learning how to participate in an online community, enhanced by numerous digital tools, they get into the experimentation level, evolving to many WOW moments throughout our 10-week online session and way beyond. 

Of course, there are those who always fly, and those who get stuck, freezing, no matter what you try to do  to give them the support they need. Educators must first re-learn to unlearn. Educators must be open to learning if they want to be part of education. However, what really makes a difference is letting our brains work in our favor, when we fight against the initial fear and sense of being in danger, for endangered professionals are the ones who are not open to movement, change and action.

by Fabrício Freire_WebTools4Educators

The Social Web is full of encounters, learning and networking. And every educator should be part of it in very meaningful ways, and that's why it is part of my job to introduce the educators who start the Web Tools for Educators course to get there in the SOCIAL WILD WEB!

TESOL 2010 - Howard Gardner's Five Minds For the Future

Intelligence - multiple, rather than singular
The mind is better thought of  as eight or nine different computers in your brain.

The fourth or fifth country of the world is the country of immigrants.

What kinds of minds do we need to cultivate in the 21st century?
Globalization - global brands, electronic money transfer
The biological revolution - About brains and genes. Everyday we are learning more about the creature we are. If you are going to think about learning in the future, you need to know what is learning in the biological field.
The digital revolution
Lifelong learning - If we want to continue working, we need to keep education ourselves.

The five minds of the future:

The disciplined mind - Working steadily and improving. Becoming an expert in a profession, craft, art, or end up unemployed or working for someone who is an expert (the task of work). Keeping up.Learning major way of thinking. People think discipline is just learning a lot of stuff. It is a waste of time to memorize things in a subject matter. Learning to think beyond subject matter is never substituted by an electronic device.

The Synthesizing Mind - scads of information, especially on the web; we need to develop "synthesis 101" for teachers and students;Aristotle was probably the first great synthesizer. With information overload, we have to decide what to pay attention to, what to ignore, put it together in a way that makes sense to you. You have to communicate your synthesis to other people. We need to synthesize ourselves and we need to teach our students how to do that.

The creating Mind - The mind that breaks new ground, comes up with new solutions, goes beyond the known, thinks outside the box. Creativity involves thinking outside the box, but you cannot be creative unless you have the box (the discipline and the capacity to synthesize)!The secret is to begin to mastering when you are young and the most innovation occurs when people are very young. Creators are willing to take up new things and they don't mind failing. "I regard every defeat as a new opportunity".

Discipline is going deeply into things and creativity is stretching.
The Human Sphere (beyond cognitive in usual sense)

The Respectful Mind - treating other human beings with respect. Diversity is a fact of life with mixed population. Trying to put yourself in other people's place. Not being parochial. Thinking beyond your own skin. (No Cigar category - kiss up, kick down;no bad jokes; not just mere tolerance; respect with too many conditions). Example of Nelson Mandela (watch Invictous).

The Ethical Mind - One which goes beyond a person as himself/herself. Acting appropriately in different roles.  Responsibilities as a professional and citizen. How does this plya out in a community like school?

Book: Good Work
Excellent, expert, disciplined, high quality
Ethical, socially responsible, moral
Engaging - meaningful, intrinsically, motivated
Excellence>>>>Ethics>>>Engagement (ENA instead of DNA)

Good Work with young people (Book: Making good - study of American Youth) - disturbing results:
young people know the right thing to do: they want to be good workers, but we can't affort to be ethical now because now it is very competitive with students who are not being fair, cheat...Some day they want to be good workers, not now. We want to be good workers, but don't push us now. Howard and researchers are tyring to promote good work using digital (The good play project - http://www.goodworkproject.org/research/digital.htm)

Five minds in a Digital Age
discipline - depth loses out out to breadth
synthesis - can one organize the deluge of information?
Creativity - web 2.0 is promising, but many young people are risk averse and carrerist
Respectful/Ethical - perhaps to inner circle but not necessrily to the wider community, how to become a cyber citizen (questions of digital footprint, identity).

What are our roles as educators in nurturing the five minds?

- Awareness of these five minds
- examples from history or current events
- Modeling and showing positive examples and bad examples (no cigar - calling attention to the consequences)
- the five minds don't fit together as a jigsaw. There might be conflict.

Thoughts for Language Teachers

- Keep in mind the global, connected world. Learning how to learn.
- explore the assumptions in the countries of origin of your students and have them share their views of creativity, respect, ethics...
- Use the web to provide examples from different societies
- Model the kinds of minds that you admire and that you hope your students to exhibit.

The first three minds are cognitive (disciplined, synthesize - the box - creating ming . The last two kinds of mind (respectful, ethical) - thinking about our responsibilities.

http://pzweb.harvard.edu
http://goodworktoolkit.org
http://howardgardner.com