Practice Makes Perfect !?!

Our school had curriculum night last night. I met many of the parents and shared my beliefs and theories in education and my expectations of their children for the year. HOMEWORK was a huge part of that discussion. As you know I teach math to sixth graders and nightly homework is a requirement in my courses. Although I share answers the next day and have active discussions regarding the homework I do not individually check homework for my students, I require they put in their effort to correct and understand their homework.

As I discussed this with the parents last night I could not help but think of these theories and strategies that we are studying and how I can just fit right into parts of all of these beliefs. I want to share with you my comments and ask you, am I actually seeing myself in all of these theories just as I can identify with all of the symptoms of any disease I read about on line. Am I a “theoretical hypochondriac” or do I truly follow the theories of many of these theorists and possibly fall rather heavy on the behaviorists side?

Homework is for practice and preparation. My students practice the skills introduced that day and then read and outline the next section to prepare for the following day’s lesson. I ask that parents stop children when the child hits 40 minutes or any tears and report this to me. I anticipate the practice exercises to average 20 minutes a night and 5-10 minutes reading and outlining. If the children require more time than that I do not want them going on because chances are they are not understanding and I do not want them practicing the wrong way. My students know this and understand their goal is to practice, and because the text I am reading states, “homework should be identified and articulated”(Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn & Malenoski, 2007, p.187), I discuss this often with the children.

My policy states that students bring homework in and check their answers with those on board, anything wrong is first discussed with classmates and then brought up to teacher in a whole group setting if the problem can not be resolved. This procedure clearly shows the students that they are responsible for their homework. Ultimately they will see that their effort during homework time should directly correlate to their success in my class. Although the idea of keeping a spreadsheet recording effort to success, which is also listed in our text (Pitler et al., 2007), is a wonderful visual to provide the children providing the immediate feedback they need to believe the theory. Mastering any skill requires practice and that is what homework provides in mathematics… practice, practice, practice! After the initial skill is mastered then it can be presented in applications and bring the information into the brain through networks and strengthen any necessary connections so the concept can become a memory (Laureate Education Inc., 2008)

Behaviorists believe in the idea that practice makes perfect! Memory can be built, behaviors can be improved and the world can be a better place if we all included a little bit of the behaviorist theory of practice makes perfect and reinforcement and punishment can produce amazing results. Now there is always a skeptic that will yell out an exception but I dare you to sit back and truly think how you learned and are as successful as you are. If you hung out with my Dad you would have no option but to listen, if he did something wrong he was beat, if he did n't do his homework he was beat, if he didn’t eat all his dinner he was beat … eventually he learned to do all those things without a battle and has become a success today! Mind you, he also had to walk up hill, both ways in the snow with holes in his shoe. Isn’t that how it goes? Seriously, reward and punishment works, the affects do not have to be that extreme and in all honesty I am sure my father was not beat for everything but that is what he remembers, punishment for not doing something right. Behaviorist techniques of reward and punishment have been used for centuries before it was even named actually, so it can not be that bad!

Therefore I feel a sense of peace as I assign my homework and require my students follow through on their activities or suffer the consequences of bad grades or home time restrictions. All I am doing is what generations before me have been doing, the only difference for my students is today I incorporate some technology with their assignments. Their stories of struggle will be telling of how they had to wait for the dial up connection to load their online textbook to be able to do their homework or how a virus wiped out their whole paper just as they were about to save it.

The resources we are using are changing but the ideas behind education does not have to totally change with it! Use the technology to make skill and drill and the record keeping of these skills more efficient. Find ways to incorporate these stimuli and response programs into your classroom to help with the basic concepts that do have to be memorized. The children will find them interesting, challenging and rewarding and will be pleading to “play it again” and I promise that is not the response when you hand out a worksheet or try to do flashcards.


Here are a few of my students’ favorite behaviorist style websites for mathematics:

Place value : http://www.mrnussbaum.com/placevaluepirates1.htm

Coordinate graphing: http://www.mathplayground.com/Locate_Aliens.html

Fraction addition: http://fen.com/studentactivities/MathSplat/mathsplat.htm




RESOURCES:

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2008b). Program two. Brain Research and Learning [Motion picture]. Bridging learning theory, instruction and technology. Baltimore: Author.


Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD