Intrinsically Motivating Homework

For many children, the worst part of school is not being in school itself, it is having to lug home a backpack full of worksheets, textbooks, reading books, and notebooks to complete homework. For children, it often seems like they never get away from the grip of their teacher and the endless process of learning. As an educator, I have come to embrace this reality, as I too once felt the same way.

Think about this for a moment, imagine yourself back in school. The teacher has just assigned three math book pages on fractions for homework. Begrudgingly you carry your notebook and textbook home and after a quick snack, sit down to tackle what seems like an endless mountain of math problems. After a while, the problems blend together, you lose focus, and become frustrated, eventually racing through the last page, regardless of whether it is right or not, at least you can tell your parents it is done and hope they don't check it.

Now, think about an alternative. The teacher completes a math lesson on fractions, and you feel confident in the material and are actually happy because you get it. Now, the teacher poses a challenge to you. Handing you a small ziplock baggie with a number, an index card, and a paper attached to it that says “Fraction Exhibition” at the top, he places you in charge. He explains that each student will be challenged with coming up with an exhibition for a fraction museum to be held tomorrow, and then tells you that several other grades in the school will be visiting. Can you feel the adrenaline and excitement already? But beyond that, he tells you that you have to come up with a fraction problem to add to the exhibition. He projects onto the whiteboard at the front of the room a picture of an “award winning exhibition” from last year, an ice cream sundae stand, with six different flavors of ice cream. The teacher then explains that this student, number 5, decided to ask students to create a fraction to show how many possibilities of ice cream there were compared to their favorite or top selections. A group of third grade students held up their fractions in the picture, all with the same denominator and varying numbers for the numerator. The clincher – students got a sampling of their fraction creations afterward. Suddenly, your student brain is racing with possible ways to top this winner from last year, thinking about how to make it better. Suddenly, without realizing it, you are home shuffling through closets, drawers, cabinets, looking for items. Your mother all but has to force you to sit at the table for dinner, where you complain and whine that you have homework to do.

Seem impossible to envision a student or any child doing this? Welcome to the world of intrinsically motivating homework. Developed from an excellent book that should be in every teacher's arsenal, Rethinking Homework: Best Practices That Support Diverse Needs,  I devised this "out of the box" approach to homework by saying enough of the textbooks and dittos and worksheets. Did we as an adult population learn this way? Yes. Was it effective? Yes... for us. Brain-based research currently suggests that student brains are not processing information on the same plane as they once were. An overexposure to media, the Internet, video games, and television is thought by many to be rewiring the way some children actually think. Children are born and raised to think critically, to problem solve. Look at any video game on the market today, and you will see what I mean. When a child is given a rote memorization worksheet or review sheet, their brain becomes bored. But, give them a chance to let them problem solve and work through their learning... that is a whole different ball game.Today's children thrive on continued novelty exposure, as pointed out in an article by Dr. Kathie Nunley entitled Keeping Pace With Today's Quick Brains.

As an educator and master teacher, I have continually veered away from the book and found new and creative ways for students to show me their learning. Textbooks and workbooks will always be required and necessary to build foundational skills, but once skills are mastered, this is the time to begin letting students think outside the box and apply their learning. In my own classroom, I have seen intrinsically motivating homework assignments appeal to not only my gifted students, but also to those with severe cognitive impairments. One year, while doing this Fraction Museum assignment, a gifted student came in with a very elaborate PowerPoint presentation that allowed students to use her laptop to manipulate shapes and colors to represent fractional parts. That same year, a student classified with severe emotional disturbances and learning deficits, requiring the assistance of two classroom aides, came in with a guitar and had students create fractions by listening carefully to the pitch or note he played and its frequency. For example, how many times out of 10 did students hear the same note played. I was happily astounded and taken back. His passion in life was music, and as a teacher this sudden revelation to me resulted in a much better relationship with the student, as it allowed me to appeal lessons to him through song or rhythm.

In addition to the sense of autonomy that students develop from intrinsically motivation homework it also allows the teacher to naturally, and with minimal effort, differentiate. Allowing students the opportunity to take the upper hand and experiment in their personal learning styles and comfort zones of expression, lends itself to differentiated instruction at its best. Gifted students will naturally develop wonderfully insightful and creative projects, while struggling students will often flourish under the feelings of confidence they develop through successful projects they have control over. It is an example of not only differentiating the product, but also the process.

In the end, students also see the multitude of approaches to learning exhibited by each student. One area of struggle for many teacher, both veteran and novice, is how to provide students a rich sense of understanding and novelty with problem solving across the curriculum. Think of the type of project discussed here in this article, and the results. Now, instead of three or four teacher-generated novelties, a student is exposed to twenty novelties and is allowed to process and apply their skills to those twenty unique situations.

Intrinsically motivation homework is not something that need be done every night. As already stated, workbook and review sheets are still necessary parts of a classroom curriculum to build success. However, allowing students to engage at least once weekly or even biweekly in an intrinsically motivating homework assignment in each subject will allow students to cognitively develop a more flexible and creative mind and experience learning for what it truly is, an experience of active engagement between the subject and the person. Just like reading specialists will point out that reading is a process in which they book being read brings something to the reader and the reader brings something to the book, so it is with any learning.

Want to learn more about how to nurture and feed the brain of today's generation?
Consider visiting http://www.brains.org/. Teachers, click HERE to learn more about nurturing your students in the classroom with brain-based research . Parents, click HERE to learn more about nurturing your child at home with brain-based research.