Ethan
Reese-White
T O P I C :
Parents' Help with Homework
Ethan Poses the Question. . . .
October 25, 2007
Recently I conducted a lab where part of the focus was to introduce students to writing a lab report, including putting down the purpose, materials, procedure, observations, and conclusions. We actually spent an entire class discussing it, guiding the students in brainstorming the components of each part (i.e., creating the list of materials, steps of the procedure, etc. themselves). For the most part, the work the students produced was pretty good. Some even went the extra mile and typed it up on the computer.
One student, however, turned in a report that was clearly written by her parents. By the look of it, the student conferred with the parents to produce the details for the report. However, the language in the report is definitely not that of your average seventh grader, let alone this particular student. I'm guessing that the parent or parents basically typed the report for this student in a well-meaning attempt to help him/her do well. You've probably seen this kind of thing before — rather than letting the student produce work appropriate to that of a seventh-grader, a well meaning parent goes all Type A and can't leave well enough alone.
The problem this creates, of course, is it makes it impossible to assess the student's understanding. Even with their input, the tweaks and rewrites the parents produce obscure any real sense of the student's understanding. So, what are some ideas on how to address this situation? Naturally, one doesn't want to squelch the parents' interest in helping their child, but if their helping is so heavy-handed that you can't assess the student's understanding, it becomes more of a problem than a help. You also create the possibility of a parent becoming defensive ("Well, I was only trying to help!") if you discuss it with them or even have the child produce the report again on their own. So, what are some thoughts on how address the situation? I talked it over with my mentor, but I'm interested in different perspectives.
Jane Keen answers....
November 16, 2007
This is a complicated question. However, I feel that if I was in this situation, I wouldn't confront the parents about it. You NEVER want to accuse the parents of anything like that, just in case they had nothing to do with it. I would probably give the students a short quiz at the beginning of class over the lab. This will give you an idea of what the student actually does know. Then, you can compare the quiz results of this student to the lab they turned in. If they are drastically different, talk to the student about how you really thought they understood the lesson, and were wondering what confused them. Talk to them about the lesson. If they do really well on the quiz, then you can feel more confident that they did understand the content.
A short quiz wouldn't be too overwhelming for the students, and it would give you an idea of retained information so you could better assess their knowledge.
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