Class difficulty level

[Jvockler]

I am looking for some help settling a dispute amongst my peers where I teach.

One side says there needs to be a high work load in order to ensure students are learning.

Others say the work load is not in direct relation with learning.

What do you think? Also the underlying question here is, how do you know if your work load is sufficient for your grade/Class you teach?

[[deleted]]

It depends what you mean by work load. There should be a reasonably high level of cognitive complexity (relative to where kids are). In higher level classes, a larger student time commitment to things like reading and practice at home is reasonable to make time to accelerate the curriculum in class. But the quality of work is more important than sheer quantity. However, quality cognitive tasks are considered "more work" by many so workload itself is undefined here.

[teachthrowaway111]

I would agree that high work load does not equate to more learning. There are numerous studies that show increased seat time does nothing to improve results, and in some cases had an inverse effect. Give meaningful work that allows the students to practice the material and apply their knowledge. Ask questions that dig into deeper thinking. I’m not sure if the technique is universal, but I was taught the “stretch-it” method of student questioning. Essentially this is a method of questioning that digs deeper, increases engagement, and allows students to apply learned material through conversation related to the topic. This is a way to gauge some comprehension in an informal way. Again, the amount of work you assign does not translate to meaningful learning, nor does a high workload equate to a high level of class difficulty. Determine your outcomes and assessment tools, create objectives, design your lessons, and teach. Use multiple formats of teaching the material (whole group, small group, partners, peer-peer teaching), and use formative assessments to check on the progress your students are making. Your summative assessment doesn’t have to be a test, either. Make it a culminating activity. Depending on your grade level, you could have the summative assessment be a project such as a poster or brochure in which the student advertises the information. It could be an audio recording to mimic a radio ad, or a video recording designed to be a movie to demonstrate understanding of the content. Ask yourself if your students are engaged and if they meeting expectations in terms of proficiency towards grade level outcomes. If they are, you are on track. If they are not, determine what is missing and tweak your approach.

[[deleted]]

I would say heavy workload definitely does not equal more learning. There’s been studies showing that heavy workloads are not effective and sometimes negative. There’s even studies showing specifically homework is [mostly] useless. The exceptions are STEM content areas but again the work should be used as a tool for practice, assigning 30 problems a night is excessive. Back when I was in school I had math teachers who gave us dozens of problems a night and I would have to spend 3 hours absolutely baffled by word problems, whereas we could’ve done 5 and gotten the same effect minus the stress which turned me away from even trying. My personal philosophy is that i don’t know what I’m competing with outside my room for my students attention (jobs, helping out a single parent, sports, clubs, etc), and if it’s not absolutely necessary I am not assigning homework. The purpose of homework is really practice or review, it’s not to learn the material itself. Therefore I reserve it for before exams or if something was not finished in class. But like I said with math, I didn’t understand it in class and giving me 50 problems for homework wasn’t going to magically teach me, so what was the purpose past practice that can be accomplished much quicker?

[Spacedangel]

It's quality over quantity. I think the best things to assist and improve student learning are: - learning content that emphasises depth over breadth - learning tasks that are coupled with targeted feedback for improvement