Problem of Practice

A specific instance came to mind. When I was teaching last year we had an issue surface in which parents voiced concern over how long it was taking their children to complete their homework. The school was in its first year of a 1:1 chrome book integration. Students had access to homework assignments via an online agenda tool, through chrome book, and through teacher posts. Often our transition from paper and pencil to online homework assignments fell between augmentation and modification (SMAR model).  In response to this innovation, parents reported it was taking up to 3 hours a night for students to complete these assignments. We were shocked!  Among the four of us we were giving about 15-20 minutes each of work - not anywhere near the 3 hours parents presented. It just did not make sense! In response we decided to distribute a parent survey to get to the bottom of the problem. My general memory of the results indicated there was more of a time management and appropriate resource seeking / digital literacy issue among students than the actual quantity of work we were giving. Meaning, our sense was students set off on a task using their chrome books, fell down a rabbit whole while researching their work and did not have the time management / goal-orientated strategies to pull themselves back to center. Parents were frustrated as well. I think it may be challenging for parents to teach students how to grow and develop as students in digital environments because they themselves did not have those specific digital experiences when they were in middle school. When they learned to use technology smartly, they were already fully regulated adults (we hope!). Teaching academic self-regulation skills while using online tools takes a maturation that is developed over time. It does not happen over night.  There is a process there that is iterative and life long. Helping parents navigate that process is a worthy goal, in my opinion.

So in conclusion, here is my problem statement / question:

How can we best coach parents to support student use of self-regulated learning strategies (goal set, strategically plan, time-manage, self-evaluate, self-reflect, adapt, and revise) while completing their homework?

Oh, and lastly. Dr. Patterson asked a great question on the phone. How do I define 21st Century Schools? I developed a model while at the University of Houston I would love to use as a jumping point (see below). I thought maybe this specific audience might have feedback for me :-)

Components of 21^st Century Schools Source: (Thorpe, 2016)