Could we have a discussion about output?

[KeriJ]

I've been involved in a few of these discussions here in the past. But since some time has gone by, I would love to revisit the topic of how much output is necessary. What do you consider meaningless busywork? What is the balance between killing the love of learning and learning to do hard things? Is "just reading" sufficient much of the time?

 

I'd love to hear thoughts.

[HomeAgain]

Bear in mind the only one I'm schooling is 7yo.  I require different levels of output:

 

Daily:
math

handwriting

copywork

 

Weekly:
Poetry memorization

Telling me about the book he's reading on his own, or one of them.

Monthly/per unit:

history recitation (what was learned this unit, plus a recap of previous ones)

Science notebook (drawing of what he is learning along with a narration I write on the back.  Usually diagrams, magnification pictures, or charts)
Free writing (anything he wants, kept in a notebook and dated.)

[Mrs Twain]

I require output in almost every subject.

The only subject that we oral discussion for is reading/literature.

 

I care a lot about making sure my kids are learning and (hopefully) retaining knowledge which is why I require output. I also value teaching them to get used to working hard and developing endurance in their school work. I see my kids experiencing joy in school through their achievements after they put in the hard work.

 

There are a couple of subjects that my kids genuinely love/enjoy (which differ by child). For those I take care not to quash that natural enjoyment with too much output, particularly since they easily learn a great deal in those subjects because of their natural interest.

[SebastianCat]

For what age(s)?   My requirements for output look much different now for my 9th grader than they did when he was in elementary school.   

[Mrs Twain]

Discussion can be rigorous and require hard work. Just saying! :)

Yes, I agree. I am sure a lot of you are good at leading those kinds of discussions. However, my kids often tune out when we do discussion, so I am not convinced that it works very well in our house. :)

[Mrs Twain]

I think it was 8filltheheart who said she expected about an hour of work per grade level. So a first grader would work for an hour total per school day, and a fourth grader would work about four hours total. I have found that to be a useful guide.

[birchbark]

I have this post on output by JennW bookmarked.

 

I've learned two things about output. One, if I inserted output-y, busywork-y assignments in every subject in school, my boys will hate school. I eventually learned to isolate writing to one block in the day. They still didn't like writing, but the arch-enemy was contained and he didn't contaminate every subject!

 

Secondly, I learned that Busywork is not the Mother of Learning. I used a Certain Curriculum years ago that had brilliantly-planned output assignments for every single aspect of every single subject. Retention? Zip! Nada!

 

I now rely on repetition rather than busywork to cement learning. 

[KeriJ]

I have this post on output by JennW bookmarked.

 

I've learned two things about output. One, if I inserted output-y, busywork-y assignments in every subject in school, my boys will hate school. I eventually learned to isolate writing to one block in the day. They still didn't like writing, but the arch-enemy was contained and he didn't contaminate every subject!

 

Secondly, I learned that Busywork is not the Mother of Learning. I used a Certain Curriculum years ago that had brilliantly-planned output assignments for every single aspect of every single subject. Retention? Zip! Nada!

 

I now rely on repetition rather than busywork to cement learning.

It's funny that you mentioned that Certain Curriculum, because that's usually in the back of my mind when I ask this question. I couldn't find the thread you linked earlier, so I look forward to reading it again. I'm guessing that was one of the conversations I was referring to, because I always remember JennW inspiring me in this area. :)

 

Mrs. Twain (at least I think it was you...maybe it was someone else), I seem to remember discussing a book by Willingham about what helps people remember things. I'll have to look that up again. But one thing I remember is the concept that if you plan an elaborate project to go with your history studies, they will most likely remember the project, but not the history lesson. I got tickled having a conversation with a family member about the same thing. She was telling me about the amazing history class she had as a child and how much she learned about history that year. When I asked her about it, all she could remember was that they made candles. :) nothing about the actual history. She also asked me at another time what we "did" for history. When I mentioned that sometimes we just read, she expressed that she felt it was important to study for tests and quizzes so that they really learned the material the way she did in school. I asked her what she remembered: she gave me one date....that was it. Whereas my dd last year was really enjoying a certain history book and would frequently tell me what she was reading. I had required oral and written narrations through most of the book, but eventually let her just read the rest of it. She still brings up things she remembers and occasionally pops out an answer to a question on Jeopardy. :)

 

Basically I've gotten confident in choosing a CM type book list on my own, but struggle with how much output to require. Or if I use a pre-written curriculum, I struggle with which parts to leave out.

 

I'm enjoying the conversation....carry on. :)

[Syllieann]

I'm very interested in this right now. Math and language arts generally have output built in. For science I do require a variety of output. DS has a notebook in which he writes the key points for bfsu lessons. His astronomy has a workbook and recitation. I have been really astonished by how much he has learned about astronomy this year. The book looks so boring and basic, but he has a really deep understanding and can apply it in real life as well as teach it to others. We also do lots of discussion for bfsu. We do memory work using ccm and ANKI.

 

I think my oldest would be happiest if I'd hand him a huge stack of books and leave him alone for the day. On Friday he used what he had learned about covalent bonding to build a huge ethanol molecule. It seemed like something most kids would prefer to a worksheet, but he said he'd rather just read it and tell me about it. Dd, on the other hand, would rather bash her head against the wall than tell me what she read about. For her I use more hands on methods. She does a lot of matching with printables (Montessori style), drawing, and arranging real physical objects into groups based on what she has learned.

 

I am reading Make it Stick right now and have previously read quite a bit on spaced retrieval. I'm convinced that just reading is inadequate. The narration method is powerful, but I think many people do the narration after reading and then never return to it. I really like the cornell note taking method and I notice that the stuff in mbtp that many boardies would consider mindless busywork is really helping to cement learning. These are things like generating questions about what was read, comparing/contrasting with Venn diagrams, making predictions, and answering simple comprehension questions. Though the comprehension questions don't necessarily involve higher order skills, the simple act of retrieving the information from memory makes it more likely to be remembered later when it is needed for higher order thinking.

 

I guess my answer is kind of rambling. That's because I'm still in the process of figuring out what I think about it. I do think output is required if there is specific content that you want the child to be able to recall. Not everything necessarily needs to be available for recall though. For next year I am planning world cultures and geography. I think my happy place is going to be having a really pared down list of things I want to be truly learned and include spaced practice on those. The rest will be more interest driven without output requirements. If they are really interested in something, they are likely to recall the information themselves as they incorporate it into play or tell someone else about the amazing thing they learned.

[Dramorellis]

For something like math or spelling I think the output is built in. For content subjects I do see a lot of value in discussion. For our home I see the most retention through the combination of discussion, narration and then original output. We don't use worksheets or "comprehension" questions but they do notebook. Notebooking for us is a blank "Waldorf" Lesson book and written narrations at their level. When they flip through it at the end of the year they are really proud of their own progress and they do remember things. We also play a game-show type discussion game we call History/Science showdown. 

[Mrs Twain]

Willingham's book is called Why Don't Students Like School? IMO everyone should read that one!

 

I agree with many of the comments above. About a year or two ago I decided to get rid of everything that was redundant, busywork, or just didn't accomplish the purposes I was aiming at. This simplified our school quite a bit.

 

I have my kids do some workbook-type of things for certain subjects, mainly because it forces them to pay attention to the reading.

 

For history, we did three lapbooks per year which included a multi-paragraph report. After some time the kids were sick of lapbooks, so now I have them doing different programs. One of my kids does notebooking instead of lapbooks, and that is working out well.

 

One of my kids writes a "journal" every week after her Mystery Science lesson. She draws a picture about the science lesson in the blank top-half of the journal page and writes a summary of what she learned on the lined bottom half. That has made a nice keepsake, but more importantly it has helped her to remember science principles and be able to explain them to me each week.

 

Output can be in various forms, whatever is successful. I learned somewhere about highest retention occurring when students do all three of these: read it, hear it, and write it. I have found this to be true in general, and so I try to plan our school that way.

[Farrar]

I like the discussion above about output =/= retention or rigor and how scaling back to the things that really accomplish your goals is a positive thing. And how discussion is a type of output - certainly the ability to sit down with peers or adults and really discuss something can be pretty rigorous.

 

One of the ways I tend to think about our learning that is a little different, but related is process vs. product. A test, a performance, a polished paper, a science fair project, a piece of artwork, a lapbook - those are products. A math drill worksheet, a discussion, a look at something under the microscope, a field trip, a set of notes, a doodle - those are process. So I try to think about how product is important - it helps kids feel accomplished, it gives them something to present to others, it involves lots of layers and organization and so forth which are real world skills, it can help with retention and memory - but also how too much product and it becomes overwhelming, can induce stress, and can reduce the good elements of products in general. I think schools in general tend to be focused on products - not just tests but also things like little projects that look good but don't necessarily have depth. And products are easy to evaluate and measure. Process is harder. And sometimes it has output - practicing math, a workbook grammar page, a free write, a recording of piano scales practice, a set of lecture notes, a sketch book page, a field trip scavenger hunt, etc. - but that output is rough and unpolished and messy and much harder to measure by anything but quantity. They're things created incidentally as part of the process, not things that are a goal in and of themselves. But they're usually where the real learning happens.

[Peaceseeker]

I am struggling with this right now. I didn't require a lot of output in elementary, beyond what naturally occurred in math and language arts. We did discuss things, but not much written output and only a few projects. I loathed projects.

 

Now in middle school I am upping the output, maybe mostly out of a sense that this is what I am supposed to be doing (I think?) But I am struggling to figure out what is busy work and what is really learning. And then I am struggling with when I know they are learning but how much will they remember? How much do they need to remember? How much do I remember from middle school? (not much!)

 

I am pretty good at evaluating our input, the literature, curriculum, etc that I am feeding them is quality. But I do struggle with knowing what output is quality, and what is busy work. Even verbal and written narrations are starting to feel like busywork. Even good quality input and output can still feel like monotonous busy work if your kids are the non-academic, creative types.

 

Sometimes I wonder what would happen if I just made them do math and let them read and write whatever and whenever they felt like it. Would they be any worse off than me pouring in all this history, science, and literature if they are not seriously interested? Am I just filling a pail instead of lighting a fire? So much of my education was wasted time, and so much of what was valuable either came later in college, or through my own interests or the library when I was young.

 

Sometimes I want to go back to all my unschooler dreams of letting my kids lead the way and see what happens when I stop trying to control the output. But I am just too chicken even though the theory really resonates with me.

Edited March 26, 2017 by CaliforniaDreaming

[RoundAbout]

I absolutely agree that output does not necessarily equal learning or retention. Like a PP, I also use a lot of the recommendations from Willingham's book "Why Students Don't Like School?" We do mostly read and discuss but I try to incorporate some of the cognitive science tricks from his book. For instance in history we read Story of the World out loud but I stop in strategic places and will ask DS to do mini-summaries of previous things that are relevant or make predictions. Then I will do a mini-quiz at the end of the chapter focusing on cause-and-effect big ideas instead of names and dates. Once a week or so we do written short answers to these big questions like "How did the Black Death transform Europe?", "How did the invention of printing impact the Reformation?" or "How did the fall of Constantinople contribute to the Age of Exploration?" So there is not a ton of output, and way less than public school, but I'm pretty confidant that DS has a much better understanding of history than your average 4th grader. This kind of one-on-one discussion is the main advantage of homeschooling, particularly homeschooling an only child. 

[rutamattatt]

This is such a helpful thread for me.  I am really stressing about what counts as "output" especially now that I have a high schooler.  My guys tend to show mastery best through discussions or debates.  Connections I haven't always seen them make through quizzes, papers, or tests become clear through student led discussion.  But now I panic and think I need to have more "product" to show (Farrar - that is a terrific explanation!) for our work, which is probably just the nature of the high school beast.  

 

I wonder how much more I see progress in the "process" is really because I prefer discussions over tests/quizzes/etc...

 

 

[regentrude]

It depends entirely on the subject and the student's age and the complexity of the material.

Sometimes, just reading is enough. (Especially since there is never "just" reading - students are also thinking about what they read.)

Sometimes, the subject requires the mastery of a skill that has to be practiced through output - you cannot learn math or physics without practicing problem solving, and you cannot learn to write without writing.

Sometimes, the "output" can be talking about the subject.

 

Busywork is output for output's sake with no clear pedagogical purpose. If I cannot identify the purpose of an assignment and where it is necessary for my child within the framework of his education, the assignment is busywork.

Practicing a math concept until mastery - fine. Assigning pages of more problems for already thoroughly mastered concepts just because some curriculum has those assignments - busywork.

Taking notes from a text to learn notetaking, to help identify and remember key points, to clarify complicated concept - fine. Taking notes just because - busywork.

Drawing pictures of vocabulary words the student already knows=busywork.

Rewriting lists of spelling words the student can already spell = busywork.

Making student analyze every book to death if student already has clear grasp on literary techniques and gets it = busywork.

 

I have always preferred less, but meaningful output, and more high quality input.

 

ETA: I have certainly learned a lot of things just by reading. 

 

Edited March 26, 2017 by regentrude

[birchbark]

It's funny that you mentioned that Certain Curriculum, because that's usually in the back of my mind when I ask this question. I couldn't find the thread you linked earlier, so I look forward to reading it again. I'm guessing that was one of the conversations I was referring to, because I always remember JennW inspiring me in this area. :)

 

Mrs. Twain (at least I think it was you...maybe it was someone else), I seem to remember discussing a book by Willingham about what helps people remember things. I'll have to look that up again. 

 

I was tired when I wrote my last post and I think I should clarify it a little bit. Maybe it was implied in JennW's quote, but I was referring mainly to pre-high-school ages. My high-schooler does do a lot more writing/projects across the curriculum. Also I do require output in the form of narrations, but only once a day. There are oral narrations too, but infrequent. Maybe once or twice a week.

 

Another clarification is I was referring to output for content subjects. Math has plenty of "busywork."

 

I do see value in hands-on projects for learning a hands-on skill (i.e, drawing, cooking, measuring, etc.) and for a hands-on child, they can provide a "break" in the schoolday. I just do not rely on them for creating retention.

 

It actually was the Willingham book that helped me understand how to achieve real learning and retention. I think the book would be very helpful in figuring out what kind/how much output to require. I read a library copy once, and it's been on my wishlist for years. I should just buy it already :)  I also recommend Chris Perrin's

.

[caedmyn]

This is something I've been contemplating too.  We lean toward CM methods, which means that my 5th grader should be doing a few narrations every day, but the reality is that they just don't happen.  She does one written narration a week, one science notebooking page a week, and that's it (aside from things that have inherent output like math, easy grammar, etc).  I've also been wanting to do some Socratic questions with her but am not sure how to start that.  Somehow she needs to do more oral narrations/discussions/notebooking or something that will help her process and retain more...without adding much more to my already-full plate.

[caedmyn]

double post

Edited March 27, 2017 by caedmyn

[2_girls_mommy]

I don't know what is typical. I just thought I could share what my middle schooler (7th grader) did today as far as output. Mondays are a "get er done" kind of day for us. We often don't get to as much written output or as much in the way of reading together or discussion. We need to just move forward and cover the major topics on Monday and get a jump start on the plans of the week. . My kids have 3 hours of out of the house dance classes, so we spend mondays just getting the main things done to get out the door after lunch. Then on Tuesdays we do everything we did on Monday in the mornings but add in more history work, lots of read alouds, any special projects we are working on or what have you. 

 

So a typical monday is like today: 

math: obvious output. We grade yesterday's lesson and do a new one. 

journal: different things each day. Today's page was creative writing about a given picture. Her was about 2 paragraphs, but well written with spelling and punctuation correct. For her, those are things we are still working on.  She had a bit of free time for coloring the picture with this. 

Spanish: one day of EasyPeasyAllinOneHomeschool. There isn't much output as far as written work with this very often. It is speaking and playing online games mostly.  This is only about 15 minutes a day. 

Latin: much more work put into this. She did a page of short translation work (not sentences, just verb phrases today.) Then she and I worked together aloud and on the board to review the endings of 3rd conjugation, 4th conjugation, and 3rd IO conjugations plus to memorize the 5 3rd IO vocab words she has this week. 

Spelling: We did some spelling word loading using a technique her teacher from vision therapy taught us on some problem words. She did a dyslexia games worksheet, and she had one definition to look up in the dictionary and to write. She did one spelling worksheet game in her thinking tree spelling book. This is one of her harder topics as she has dyslexia like symptoms, so we work intensely on this together. 

English: She is at the end of a chapter of her Rod and Staff. We did most of the review orally, but used the whiteboard to diagram sentences.  

 

In the car: listened to Spanish Immersion CDs on her way to dance class. 

PE: 3 hrs of dance classes today. 

Reading: she is to read in bed tonight before sleep and sometimes also listens to a book on CD. 

 

So that is a typical day for us. Tomorrow we will add about 30-45 min of read aloud time, some history written work and possibly a map to fill in, some history written work in the form of outlining from her encyclopedia, and some reading and answering questions about her science chapter for the week instead of the 3 hrs of dance. Sometimes we get a lot of art reading in with the read alouds and some art project time in.

 

As for the rest of the week it is 2 days a week like Monday with limited history and science work, 2 longer days with the added history and science reading, projects, or experiments, and one day at co-op which is partly academic, but also lots of hands on and social time. They do science experiments, art projects, learn about music, play outside with friends. There isn't hardly any written work on Friday. It is assigned throughout the week. 

 

Hope that helps. That is pretty typical of what my last middle schooler did too. Sometimes there is more writing some years. Some years we do a specific writing program daily or have taken writing classes at co-op that require a lot more.  This year it is R&S english comp. assignments, creative writing and copywork in her journal, summaries about history, outlines from history or science, and occasional history and reading summaries- maybe one a month on those.