Page 305 - Powerful Social Studies for Elementary Students 4th Edition

CHAPTER 13
How Can the Curriculum Be Expanded and Made More Powerful through Homework? 277
still another rich resource and serve to illustrate the nearness of places formerly consid- ered remote. These data then would be funneled back into the classroom to aid students in achieving the “documented” realization that there is a range of beliefs and values about globalization in the community that is directly tied to people’s life experiences.
These homework experiences can be rewarding for all of the individuals involved and the data that are “harvested” during follow-up discussions can be provocative, insightful, and rich in diverse examples. It is helpful if the teacher provides snapshots into his or her personal life as well to model sharing and add human interest elements to activities.
Personalizing the Curriculum and Reflecting on the Here and Now
Home assignments can enhance students’ awareness and understanding of the contexts of their daily lives and the lives of their families. For example, goals of a unit on money might be to develop an understanding and appreciation for budgeting as a tool for managing money, an understanding of opportunity cost, and the ability to apply these concepts to life outside of school. The teacher might use his or her own budget and a hypothetical child’s budget to illustrate major understandings and facilitate discussion. As homework, students could talk with their families about budgeting and bring to school examples of how opportunity cost plays out in their households.
In a unit on communication, a viable goal might be to develop students’ awareness of how they spend their out-of-school time, and in particular how much of it is spent with mass communication during a week. Class members, with the assistance of family members, could be asked to account for their television viewing (or Internet usage) using a standard form provided for easy recording. The data could be returned to school and used to inform construction of a graph of students’ television viewing and a subsequent discussion of the results (Alleman & Brophy, 2003b).
Another goal of the communication unit might be to develop an understanding and appreciation of the variety of ways television influences its viewers. After learning about commercials and advertising techniques, students could write letters to their families describing the important things they learned about television viewing and identify at least one recommendation they would like their families to consider during future view- ing (e.g., “Don’t believe everything the commercials tell you,” “Some sports shoes cost a lot more than other brands because the companies pay popular sports figures to adver- tise their product. Check to make sure those shoes are worth the extra dollars,” and so forth). Families could be asked to discuss how commercials have influenced them and what new questions they might want to ask before they purchase advertised products.
Considering Learning Opportunities That Are Not
Cost Effective on School Time
It is critically important that homework activities are designed well. Time (for you, for your classroom, for your students, and for their families) is valuable, and a poorly designed homework assignment is not a good use of time and can even interfere with learning. Students’ homes and the surrounding community are filled with learning resources that might not be cost effective for use during school, such as an organized field trip, but could be explored by one or more individuals who might be asked to visit a particular site and report back to the class. Suppose, for example, that an intermediate-grade class were going to the study local government. Because of the expenses of bus rental and the complications involved in rescheduling classes, it may not be feasible for the whole class to attend a city council meeting. However, a few stu- dents and their families could volunteer to attend such a meeting where they could serve
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