"I won't threaten you, but I expect much of you." How many of our students and our teachers confidently feel that this expresses the culture of their schools? I only wish that all education, at every level, really were characterized by unanxious expectations--high expectations requiring vigorous and appropriately rigorous engagement accompanied by respect, compassion, and humanity. Read Full Post >
In a Slate article, Annie Murphy Paul describes the growing concern, backed by new research, that students retain less when they engage in media multitasking during learning. Read Full Post >
In an effort to give students an edge on high stakes, teachers are assigning test prep for homework which sends a really bad message. Read Full Post >
Homework assignments that require family help can get parents more involved in middle school, a time many parents disengage, a new study finds. Read Full Post >
Schools can get better only if we first agree on what they should do. Read Full Post >
In a SmartBlog post, middle school teacher Mark Barnes argues that homework is at odds with the goals of effective instruction today: This practice of assigning homework, simply because it'[s] something that's always been done, is not only absurd and outdated, it is undermining effective 21st-cen... Read Full Post >
A new research study out of the University of California, Los Angeles, reports the "somewhat surprising" finding that spending extra time studying tends to negatively affect high school students' academic performance in school the next day. But there's also a perfectly logical explanation for this: When students study more, the researchers found, they tend to sleep less. Read Full Post >
Dominick Recckio, an accomplished high school student who blogs for Edutopia, surveyed students at his school on their homework habits and then wrote up some tips for both teachers and students on easing the nightly process. Within the post, he offers this reminder that students are often appreciati... Read Full Post >
By guest blogger Colette Marie Bennett, author of "To Pass or Not to Pass? The End-of-Year Moral Dilemma" Two weeks ago, I composed a First Person piece that questioned whether I should pass or fail a student in my English II class who could meet many of the benchmarks but had failed to complete th... Read Full Post >
A movement of individuals who protest the assigning of "too much homework" is gaining momentum with a petition that will be presented to the National PTA at its convention next week. Read Full Post >
