Claire Wang Annotated Bibliography Working Theory of Practice Overview In my WTOP, I want to explore my use of homework in the classroom.

Currently, I do not think students are learning from their homework, which in my opinion indicates that homework is not beneficial to students. I want to analyze if homework can be beneficial to students with the use of peer and self assessment. Before I do that I first need to better understand the mindsets and views my students have on homework. This will provide me with a better understanding of why so many of my students are not completing their assignments so that I am not making assumptions about why students do not do their work. With this knowledge I can determine whether there are factors that affect student decisions to do work that I can influence or change. Additionally, I need to read more literature on the use of peer and selfassessment so I can pull from the sources to implement practices in my own classroom. Black et al. (2003). Putting the ideas into practice. Assessment for learning: putting it into practice, 30-57. In this reading the authors focus on four specific practices related to formative assessment: questioning, feedback, sharing criteria, and self-assessment. The goal for questioning is to make discourse in the classroom meaningful. Feedback was considered with the use of marking, and three types of marking were compared. These included marks, comments, and a combination of marks and comments. It was found that the use of only comments led to the greatest learning in comparison to using marks or a combination of comments and marks. Oftentimes, students do not read comments or the comments are not specific enough to provide students with any meaningful feedback. Black et al. (2003) argue that feedback is not useful if it does not indicate what had been achieved nor what steps to take next (p. 44). The authors also state that self-assessment is an essential component of formative assessment, or homework in this case, in order for students to understand the main purposes of their learning and thereby grasp what they need to do to achieve (Black & Wiliam, 2003, p. 8). Additionally, peer assessment is also suggested because it helps keep students motivated and it allows students to communicate with each other using language that is natural to them. Another advantage of peer assessment is that it can create stronger communication between students and the teacher because a group of voices may be stronger than an individual voice. I am interested in using the feedback by marking (specifically comments) strategy by taking the time to write specific comments to students and providing students with time in class to review the feedback and discuss any questions or ideas they have. Comments such as well done, please elaborate, and why? will most likely mean nothing to students without specific feedback about how students can improve their work. It will take time and practice for me to provide students with meaningful and useful feedback so they know how to improve their work. I have also been considering using homework as an opportunity for peer and self-assessment, which will require proper scaffolding on my part. I believe that self-assessment would be easier to enact initially than peer-assessment so I would start with that. Black, P., & Wiliam, D. (1998). Inside the black box: Raising standards through classroom assessment. Phi Delta Kappan, 80, 113.

This article centers on the use of assessment in the classroom. The authors proposition is that teaching and learning must be interactive. Teachers must be cognizant of student progress and difficulties with learning so that class materials can be adapted to meet student needs. Black et al. conducted a research review focused on the following questions: Is there evidence that improving formative assessment raises standards? Is there evidence that there is room for improvement? Is there evidence about how to improve formative assessment? The authors conclusion for the response to the preceding questions is yes to all. A suggestion for improving formative assessment is to consider student self-esteem and self-assessment. Student self-assessment provides feedback on 3 elements: recognition of the desired goal, evidence about present position, and some understanding of a way to close the gap between the two (8). This suggestion really stuck out to me because teachers can evaluate student understanding through formative assessments. I am wondering how teachers can facilitate student self-assessment since only a student can really know what is troubling them. As I had read in other literature studying the use of homework in the classroom, a United Kingdom inspection report on secondary education remarked that marking is usually conscientious but it often fails to offer guidance [to students] on how work can be improved. The report further claims that in a significant minority of cases, marking reinforces underachievement and under expectation by being too generous of unfocused. In conclusion, my main take away from this article is that the main problem is that pupils can assess themselves only when they have a sufficiently clear picture of the targets that their learning is meant to attain (p. 7). This ties back into the explicit use of learning objectives to inform students of my expectations in order for them to be successful. For my own practice, I need to consider the purpose of grading student work as well as how I grade. I want the focus to be on learning not on the grades that come with completing assignments. Cooper, H. (Spring 2006) Does homework improve academic achievement? A synthesis of research, 19872003. Review of Educational Research, 76: 1-62. Homework has been researched for over 80 years, and educators have suggested a long list of both positive and negative consequences of homework. The positive effects of homework can be categorized as immediate achievement and learning, long-term academic, nonacademic, and parental and family benefits. According to Harris Cooper (2006), homework has a positive influence on achievement, and there are stronger correlations for grades 7-12 than for K-6 (p. 3). There are multiple variations of homework incorporating factors such as amount, purpose, frequency, degree of choice, degree of individualization, and social context. Cooper has done a lot of research on homework, but the existence of new research techniques and new literature can update the evidence and improve past research conclusions. There are a lot of quantitative analyses discussed in this reading using past and current studies. One important question is whether or not there is a causal link between homework and academic achievement. There have been many studies done that try to establish a relationship between the two. Findings have revealed a positive relationship between homework and achievement. A line that caught my attention was The long-term academic benefits of homework are not necessarily enhancements to achievement in particular academic areas, but rather the establishment of general practices that facilitate learning (Cooper, 2006, p. 6). This is something that I had not considered yet, but I am interested in ways that I can explore this in my own classroom. I suspect that it will be difficult to measure how the use of homework is helping to establish or not establish general practices.

Cooper is very candid about the limitations of such a broad synthesis of the literature on homework. He recognizes that the flaws in each study differ from one another, yet Cooper is optimistic that he found 69 positive correlations between homework and achievement. This reading will serve as a guide to remind me of the wide variety of factors that affect homework. Epstein, J.L., & Van Voorhis, F.L. (2001) More Than Minutes: Teachers' Roles in Designing Homework, Educational Psychologist, 36:3, 181-193. Teachers play a significant role in student homework. They need to consider the purpose, format, and other elements of assignments as they relate to students. The authors also outline ten board purposes of homework: practice, preparation, participation, personal development, parentchild relations, parent-teacher communications, peer interactions, policy, public relations, and punishment. Based on the results of research on homework completion, time on homework, and parental involvement showed that teachers have the responsibility for carefully selecting homework. An approach to improve the design of homework is Teachers Involve Parents in Schoolwork (TIPS) interactive homework, which encourages students to share interesting things they are learning in class with family members, friends, peers, or others in the community. From the research, it was found that there is frequent involvement of parents in the schooling of elementary children, but this involvement decreases as the students move into higher levels of education. TIPS design elements do not remove any responsibility from students to complete assignments, but parents play a supportive role in working with students on homework as needed. Studies on TIPS design indicated that this type of interactive homework increased communication between parent and child in regards to what the child is learning in school. I thought this article was a great addition to my resources on homework because it emphasizes the teachers role in homework. In my experience, I have found that teachers, myself included, often view homework as an obligation of individual students. Even though there were urban schools where TIPS was implemented, I am still wary of how successful this type of homework would be in my classroom. I think a first step should be a survey that asks students to divulge their homework habits including parental involvement in order for me to assess whether this type of interactive homework might be reasonable to implement. This article also makes me reflect on how big of an impact I make on my students with homework. All assignments that I give my students reflect what I value as a teacher for the students to learn, and I need to be cognizant of the messages that I am sending to students both intentional and unintentional. Ilgar S., & Ilgar, L. (2012) An Investigation of Teachers View of Homework Partnership, Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 46, 3225-3229 The authors of this article believe that homework is an essential part of teaching and learning processes. It is essential for teachers to enhance students achievement and to establish a strong parent-child relationship. A correlational study is presented which examines teachers views of homework with respect to their year of experience, age, gender, the time their students spend on homework, and their view of their relation with students. The study found that the gender of the teacher did not have a significant impact, less experienced teachers use homework to contribute to students social development, teachers consider homework time as an opportunity to improve students interest and ability, younger teachers use homework as a tool for keeping open communication with parents, and teachers who have good relations with students can motivate the students to do their homework.

Something I am interested in knowing is how my students other teachers use homework in their classroom, and this reading made me brainstorm of ways that I might be able to collect data on the same factors (year of experience, age, gender, time students spend on homework, and teachers view of relation with students) that the authors examined. Although the reading makes generalizations from the correlational study, I would like to learn more about why certain groups of teachers (age, years of experience, etc.) tend to do certain things differently from other groups of teachers. What is creating these differences? Another aspect of this article that is important for me to consider is the grade level surveyed. The research conducted focused on 232 public primary school teachers in Istanbul, and I am teaching in a public secondary school in the United States. Thus, when I take the results into consideration for my practice, I need to be aware that these are the findings for primary school teachers. The use of homework to establish strong parent-child relationships is something that seems unrealistic in my current student teaching placement. Based on my current knowledge, many of my students are relatively independent in regards to parent involvement in their schooling. For me to set out by making homework a means for communication with parents might be impractical. Vatterott, C. (2011, November). Making homework central to learning. Educational Leadership, 60-64. Vatterott (2011) focuses on how teachers can use homework to promote student learning. She lists three reasons why teachers still grade homework: if they dont grade it then students wont do it, homework grades help students who test poorly, and hard work should be rewarded. For these three reasons Vatterott (2011) responds with three problems for the defense of grading homework. The first problem is that high scores for homework completion tend to mask poor performance on other measures, and additionally the inclusion of a homework grade muddles student progress by mixing practice with assessment. The last problem stated is the fact that there are many teachers who only know homework as a means for assessing understanding. In order to address these concerns, Vatterott (2011) uses examples from schools across the country that have different approaches to homework compared to the one described above. These practices include evaluating each assignment to determine whether to grade it, tying homework to assessments, and focusing on demonstration of learning not task completion. I agree that these practices would be beneficial to help students understand teachers value of homework assignments. One aspect I wish the authors had developed more is tying homework to assessments. Learning objectives in the form of Students will be able to .in order to are a significant component for weekly and daily lesson plans. I am interested in literature that examines the explicit use of learning objectives in the classroom as a way to help tie homework to assessments with the overarching learning objectives. In order to make homework beneficial for my students, I could try not grading homework to make it clear that the purpose is to facilitate student learning not influence their class grade. After reading this article, I really began to think even more deeply about my beliefs on homework. As I create or assign homework, I need to consider how the assignment is relevant to classwork, assessments, and student learning objectives. This is a small step to try to make homework beneficial for student learning rather than misplacing the focus on another aspect of class. !