Philippine Basic Education

I was looking at the recent activity on my blog this morning and noticed that a post I made more than two years ago was suddenly receiving quite a number of views. The post was " No Homework Policy " And browsing through a Philippines' news site explained why there was an increase in interest on this topic. Bills have been filed in the House of Representatives in the Philippines. One of the bills would even impose  a fine of P50,000 or imprisonment of one to two years on teachers who would violate the no-homework condition. I did not know that giving homework to one's students could be considered a crime. Giving homework might not be doing good in basic education but it should never be regarded as a felony. Above copied from The Manila Bulletin As noted in the previous post years ago, research is quite clear with regard to homework. Homework has modest effect on the academic achievement of older students (grades 7-12) and has no effect on younger students (Ki...

"The Cult(ure) of Homework" is the title of the first chapter in Cathy A. Vatterott's " Rethinking Homework ". In this chapter, Vatterott highlights the following widely held but unexamined preconceptions:  (1) We must extend learning beyond the classroom; (2) Activities that are intellectual are more valuable; (3) Children learn responsibility through homework; (4) More homework means greater rigor; and (5) Homework means better teachers and students. These preconceptions are really nonsense. One thing, however, is certainly true: Homework can increase inequity in education. Vatterott correctly states, "Despite there being more diversity among learners in our schools than ever, many teachers continue to assign the same homework to all students in the class and continue to disproportionately fail students from lower-income households for not doing homework, in essence punishing them for lack of an adequate environment in which to do homework." I had to...

Seeking means engagement. When we are looking for something, chances are very high that we will notice what we seek when it comes. It is a technique that I have used when taking reading comprehension exams. I read the questions first before the reading passage. I probably miss details that are not asked but the point is I am able to focus on what is being asked. This happens in reading as I have full control on both pace and effort in reading. Attending a lecture, however, maybe different as a student does not really determine how fast the lecture goes. In addition, unlike reading, a student cannot really rewind a lecture. That is why I often tell my students to look at problems beforehand on topics I am about to discuss during lecture. Without questions, it is more likely that what I share with them in class will go through one ear and exit the other. On the other hand, with questions seeking is more likely to happen. Seeking is a matter of paying attention with engagement and awarene...

For the past school year 2015-2016, the Philippines' DepEd reported the following enrollment numbers in public schools for the following levels: Grade 6 (2.0 million), Grade 7 (1.7 million), Grade 8 (1.6 million), Grade 9 (1.4 million), and Grade 10 (1.3 million). The number of students enrolled in tenth grade reflects a 35 % decrease in enrollment from seventh grade. With the new grade 11 of DepEd's K to 12, 0.4 million are estimated not to enroll.  Four hundred thousand, by the way, is the difference between Grade 7 and 10 enrollments in 2015. Incoming secretary Briones must be having great difficulty in dealing with these numbers when she was quoted recently : "With or without K-to-12, you will have just 50 percent, perhaps, of those who graduate from elementary to proceed [to high school]," Briones said. "DepEd Secretary Armin Luistro said that, every year, there are about 1.2 million graduates in elementary, and roughly 50% of them drop out. That is in th...

How homework affects learning outcomes is not that easy to study. Learning hinges on so many factors and homework comes with its own sets of variables. Thus, it is not surprising to see conflicting results from research studies on homework. It is therefore important to use more sophisticated statistical models to unravel the variables involved in the relationship between homework and learning. A recent study soon to be published in the Journal of Educational Psychology   attempts to determine analytically how homework correlates with learning outcomes. The study involves more than 7,000 students in their second year of obligatory secondary education in the principality of Asturias in Spain. The subjects examined in this work are mathematics and science. Data on homework are collected and scores from standardized tests in mathematics and science are used as measures for learning outcomes. Teachers in these schools generally assign homework that is about 70 minutes long per day. Th...

A child's success in education is every parent's dream. Parents are often willing to do as much as they can to help prepare their children for the future. In India, where stakes in standardized tests are so high, some parents apparently go as far as handing out answer sheets to their children during the exam. Above copied from Quartz India These are definitely extreme cases of parental involvement in a child's education but there is one aspect of basic education in which parental involvement is expected and normal: Homework. But even with homework, it is only logical to assume that there is a range in the quality of parental involvement. Dumont and coworkers in a study published in the Journal of Educational Psychology   have used the following criteria to assess parental involvement in their child's homework. Above copied from Quality of parental homework involvement: Predictors and reciprocal relations with academic functioning in the reading domain. ...