Homework

I just read a brief article in Educational Leadership about a school in New Zealand that is encouraging students to include household chores as part of their homework alloted time. Part of the reasoning is that it teaches children about the importance of participating and contributing (part of the NZ National Curriculum) rather than isolating children from their family life as they work on their assigned homework.

The idea prompted me to think that there are elements of the PYP curriculum that we often neglect when we send out homework, but if we really believe in the philosophy and IB mission, we maybe should be looking at how we can balance homework in terms of the essential elements.

Following that line of thinking, we expect student input into the units of inquiry, we want students to be engaged, active participants in the unit. Do we contradict ourselves when we then assign homework without student input?

Educational Leadership included another excellent piece on homework. See the link:

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Five Hallmarks of Good Homework

or here:
http://www.educationalleadership-digital.com/educationalleadership/201009/?pg=12&pm=2&u1=friend