Making it Fun (I thought I already had...)

As I prepare new and improved questions for my group interviews next week I can't help but address the common theme that keeps emerging... fun!  Some of my students say that it is fun, others say that ONLY spelling is fun.  The point of my new reading choice board was to make reading just as fun as spelling was.  I realized that I wasn't hitting that target a few weeks back when I had a student suggest to do reading homework on a TV show.  (I hope you're laughing at that one!)  I set out to find help on the topic of fun homework and see if anyone else had found anything out.

In my search, I found Bailey et al. (2011) who stated that they sent homework activity choices home in their weekly newsletter.  They offered leveled option in efforts to differentiate the activities and it involved choice as well (so the parents chose the level/activity to complete with their child).  After this was implemented, they sent surveys home to parents.  Bailey et al. (2011) reported three themes that were found from the parent surveys "parents and students enjoyed being given choices in homework.  Second, half of the surveys reflected that they were very satisfied with the homework.  Third, half of the surveys reflected a desire to have traditional worksheet-based homework" (p. 42).

What the research tells me though, is that it might be more beneficial to supply such a list for my families, of suggested activity choices.  This study was done with kindergartners so it would  look quite different in a third grade class, but I think there is something to be said for homework bringing families together.  That was actually one of my questions on my parent questionnaire.  I gave the statement "Due to the change in the homework policy, I have had more quality time with my child after school."  67% of the parents either strongly agreed or agreed with that statement.  I also commented in my last post about a student who stated that he did not like doing homework because he would like to spend more time with his dad.  This could be another avenue to explore in my future homework endevours?!

Bailey, J.P., Godbey, R., & Pertl-Clark, A. (2011). Hooray for homework: Making homework fun!. The California Reader, 44(3), 38-45.

Defeated...

As I approach the last week of my study I have an overwhelming feeling of being defeated.  Last week I attended a math conference with the other third grade teachers on Monday and Tuesday.  I'm not sure if my being out Monday and Tuesday has anything to do with the low request for homework or not.  I only had ten students take homework.  Then... I only had five students return any homework.  That is an all time low for my records.  To add insult to injury... I also handed out the Parent Questionnaires on Wednesday.  I have 21 students who have parents/guardians who signed the consent forms, so out of 21 students only 15 brought them back in.  There are absent students in there, which is part of it but I offered 3 gumballs AND a sucker to anyone who brought it in by Friday and I still only had 15 return. =(

I finally had a chance to break apart the responses of the parent survey and I would never have imagined the results that I got.  Before I get into that, I have three papers that I am unsure on how to document the responses for.  Below, is one of the surveys.  Question 6 states I would like my child to have homework  and question 8 says homework is helpful to my child.  This parent responded to both of these with a question mark between agree and disagree.  The parent also wrote "Only if he needs practice on a particular skill."  How should I code that?  Would you put that as a agree or disagree or just leave it out?

Another example of a survey where the parent put conditions instead of circling one way or another was on the survey below.  This parent (for the same two questions) wrote that they were indifferent to having homework for their child.  The parent also commented on question 8 that it depends on level of understanding.

The last survey that I have addresses question number 6 again.  This parent comments that she would like her child to have homework "sometime not daily".  As well as homework being "sometime" helpful to her child.  This survey can be seen below.

Now that I have discussed my difficulties with these surveys, I will report (as promised) the outcome of them.  Keep in mind that my research question is how does student choice and rewards in homework impact student attitudes towards homework.  Of the 15 parents who responded to the survey, only 3 said that they agreed that their child's attitude towards homework has improved with the change in homework.  That means that 80% of parents say that their child's attitude towards homework has not improved.  

After reading through the student surveys I handed out to my kids at the beginning of the study I was struck by one student who responded that he wished he had less homework so that he could have more time to spend with his dad.  That prompted me to ask question 3 on the parent survey, which was "due to the change in the homework policy, have you had more quality time with your child?"  I was shocked to see that 67% of parents said that due to the change in the homework policy, they have had more quality time with their child after school.

Family Dynamics

In my recent coding endeavors I have realized that many students have very busy lives.  One of my group members posted a set of questions she asked her parents (thanks Amy!) and it got me thinking.  I sent my parent questionnaire home today.  I modified it after coding my data when I found that many students lead quite busy lives.  It is not at all what I thought.  I had in my mind that students were just playing outside instead of working.  Granted, I have those as well, but I also have students whose lives are filled with practices, classes and they also attend the classes of their siblings!  All of these things go on during the week.  I have always made it a practice to hand out homework on a nightly basis and it is supposed to be returned the next day with the exception of spelling.  To my surprise, students have responded with the difficulty they have in completing assignments on some nights.  I spoke on another blog entry about a mother who said she liked the way the previous years teacher had homework due.  It was sent home on Monday and Collected on Friday.  I am very interested in what my parents will have to say on the questionnaire that went home today.  That can be viewed here.  I wanted to see what else parents had to say about homework, not just the parents in my classroom.  I will share a quote from one article I found.  This mother is also a clinical child psychologist who teaches psychology.  McReynolds (2005) states "I remember what my children and I used to do before homework took over our lives.  We ate dinner together, telling stories about our days.  We read together.  Sometimes we played cards or Monopoly.  Once we made an entire gingerbread town.  The children had time to themselves too.  Time to play, time to go outside, time to do nothing." (p. 10).  I think this encompass what I have been hearing from my students through my data.  Looking back, I wish I would have sent home questionnaires at the beginning of my study to reflect a before and after of my students and their relationship with homework.  Better yet, it would have been very beneficial to send a survey home where parents could share with me what it is like for them at home.  I am curious whether or not the parents in my classroom would agree with McReynolds (2005) and what she describes as her relationship with her children "before homework took over [their] lives" (p. 10).  

McReynolds, K. (2005).  Homework. Encounter: Education for meaning and social justice,18(2), 9-13.

More Coding...

The second type of coding that I started to do was on the Student Surveys that I had students complete on day 1 of my action research.  I had them complete this earlier in the day before I announced that we would be changing everything around as far as homework goes.  The inductive analysis process seemed much easier in class when we were working as a group on this type of coding, but on my own I feel just as lost as I was when coding my interviews.  I decided to take it in chunks.  Then, I had to break it down even further.  I ended up writing out the answers to each question (there were 6 questions in all with an additional 2 that needed to be answered with a yes or no).  I have not finished this process yet, but I realize now that I will be typing the last two questions up instead of hand writing them on paper.  I'm not sure why I didn't do that initially?  I am still in the very beginning stages of this coding process, but I wanted to share what I have so far.  I am just at the point where I am preparing the data to be able to more easily look at it for commonalities.  I am going to find commonalities within each question.  These are the sheets that I have so far from questions 1-4.  Those are the responses from all of my students. Some of my students wrote no under the question about giving suggestions on how to change the homework and I didn't record anything for those students since there were no suggestions.  I also figured out how to upload all of the transcribed interviews that I coded, in case anyone wanted to have a look.  All 6 interviews with the level one coding can be found here.  I'll be working hard this week to complete my analysis and find themes that emerge from all of this data.  It sure is time consuming though!  =)

Coding the Data (YIKES)

Shew-we, that took forever.  I have 6 transcribed interviews and I wasn't sure if I was going to code all of them.  I just finished the first level of my grounded analysis.  Pulling out the action that was happening was difficult for me since my questions were not surrounded around actions, more feelings.  That led to many of my students just agreeing or disagreeing with the question that I had asked.  I guess those were gerunds that I could have used!  Honestly, I didn't think about that.  I realize now that I didn't do what I have been asking of my students all year long!  I asked many thin questions, for those of you out there reading this who are not in the education profession that means questions that can be answered with a yes or no.  Or at least that is one of the ways I try to get this across to my students.  Funny that I didn't create thick questions myself!  Not so funny really, I think that I could have got a lot more out of the students I interviewed if I had asked thick questions.  I plan on improving the questions that I have as well as adding some that another blogger posted in her study on homework (thanks for sharing Amy)!

In doing all of this coding, I have come to many "oh, why didn't I think of that" moments.  One such moment was when I realized that I should have had interviews before I started the change in homework, or at least day one of my study.  That way I could have seen a clear before and after picture.  I have student surveys that I will hopefully be able to judge that from and parent surveys which will go out near the end of my study which will also hopefully assist in this, but I realize that I could have got a lot more rich data from the interviews done in the same fashion.

The data so far has me wondering how some students have been able to accomplish the homework I had been giving.  After listening to students with different rates of completion for homework I see how busy my kids are after school.  This reminded me of two parents who discussed this with me at a field trip during the start of my action research.  They stated how much they liked the way that the 2nd grade teachers (last years teachers) assigned homework.  I didn't have a recorder unfortunately, but I did ask for more details.  The one mother said that her son has after school day care, sports practice and sometimes even games as well.  At the time, I thought that was an isolated case.  After coding my interviews I see that many of my kids have after school obligations.  Some of them are not even for them, but for siblings and they just attend.  These are things I had never taken into consideration as I am not a parent yet myself.

The data from my interviews did seem to answer my question about what students were enjoying.  Overall, they students that I interviewed liked the spelling tic-tac-toe choice board.  I can counter that with the fact that many students didn't mention reading unless to state their ill feelings towards it.  Here is one of my interviews that I have coded.

Depressing Realizations

As I attempt to embark on coding the masses of data that I have already taken in it is overwhelming.  I feel as though I have my head wrapped around the process involved in coding each piece of data that I have collected.  The depressing realization is that I won't be able to code everything.  I am not sure how exactly I am going to sift through all of my student journals for example.  I have been handing out a student journal to all 23 of my students EACH WEEK.  That is 115 student journals so far, and I have only just completed week 5.  I feel like I am at a cross roads, do I attempt to do it, attempt to code all 115 student journals thus far or change my plan up and work with the data from a smaller group of children?  My original idea was to work with a focus group.  I changed that original idea when I made small changes to my research question.  At this point I'm not even sure WHY I decided to change it from a small group of students to the entire class.  I realize now, that it won't be possible to sift through that many student journals.  I do think it is important to use all of the student surveys though.  There is only one set of those from the beginning of my study and if I the coding completed on that set, then the next group of student surveys at the conclusion of the study will not be so overwhelming.  Not to mention the parent surveys that I will also be collecting at the conclusion of the study.  I had all of these great ideas about what I was going to investigate and what conclusion(s) I might find.  Right now, I feel like I haven't found anything at all.  This is especially depressing as I am at the near conclusion of my action research and I should have something to show for it.  

Interviews

I interviewed six of my students.  Most of them didn't last very long at all, but one student had a lot of opinions to offer.  The interview transcription can be found here.  This is a student who always turned in her homework before we changed the homework system.  She  also always turns in her homework now.  She also saves her sticks, this week she only used 6 sticks in the stick store.  This week, it got to a point where I had to borrow sticks from her and give her an I owe you post it note to keep in her stick bag because I didn't have any more sticks to give to those who were turning in homework.  This was not because so many students were turning in homework this week.  It was because we had not had stick store in a long time.

I also interviewed another student who never did his homework before when it was required.  However, now, with the reward he has been completing spelling assignments on a regular basis.  Here is his interview.  I found it interesting that when I asked him if he has done more or less homework with the change in our homework policy he said that he does the same amount, which is not the case, he does more!