Precise Supervision and Guidance to Boost Operation Management to Improve Quality and Efficiency
Sun Hong, Duty Inspector, Daowai District, Harbin City, Heilongjiang Province
[Case background]
In 2021, the Notice of the General Office of the Ministry of Education on Strengthening the Management of Homework in Compulsory Education Schools put forward the requirements of "grasping the educational function of homework, strictly controlling the total amount of written homework, innovating the types and methods of homework, and improving the quality of homework design". When I went deep into the school supervision in the responsibility area, I found that the principals and teachers were very confused about "total control of homework": Can you leave less homework? With this problem, I try to make a fuss from the perspective of scientific "homework design and management", and strive to "supervise, inspect" and "guide and serve" the schools in the responsibility area by means of "supervision" and "guidance", so as to help improve the level of homework management and the overall quality of running schools in the responsibility area.
[Case description]
First, the investigation and study, found that the misunderstanding
Although the schools in the process of my supervision have also issued documents and systems around "homework management", teachers have consciously followed the requirements in actual teaching, but the effect is not ideal. To this end, since September last year, I have made an all-round understanding of the schools in the responsibility area by attending classes, participating in teaching and research, discussing with teachers and students, consulting materials, and conducting questionnaires, in an effort to find out the reasons why schools and teachers are unwilling and afraid to implement the "double reduction". After investigation, I found that the school has the following misunderstandings about "homework design and management":
First, the homework design is narrow. Some teachers say that except Chinese, mathematics, English, physics and chemistry, other subjects do not need homework design and management, because these subjects are not examination subjects and do not need to be assigned homework.
The second is to strictly control the superficiality of time. Some teachers say that in order to ensure that they don’t cross the red line, they rarely leave homework or not at all.
The third is the formalization of hierarchical operations. Some teachers say that hierarchical homework is to divide the homework to be left into two or three pieces, corresponding to different students respectively.
The fourth is the simplification of practical work. When asked how to arrange practical homework, teachers’ first reaction is often a single form of practical homework such as knowledge map and handwritten newspaper.
The fifth is the simplification of homework management. Some schools blindly ask for the length of homework, but they lack management in coordinating the time arrangement of various subjects and giving feedback to students’ completion. Teachers lack trace sorting, analysis and feedback on students’ homework.
Second, analyze the reasons and make suggestions.
The root cause of the above problems is that after the implementation of the "double reduction" policy, although teachers have made corresponding changes, the traditional concept of homework still affects teachers and lacks experience in homework design and management.
Therefore, I will start with Harbin A Middle School in the responsibility area. This school is a famous school in Daowai District, with high-quality teachers and students and well-organized school management. Through discussion with teachers, study the principles and methods of homework design with them, and recommend advanced homework concepts and forms from other provinces for everyone to learn. I suggested to the headmaster to issue a questionnaire on the completion of students’ homework to improve the homework design. I put forward three suggestions according to the actual situation of investigation in Harbin A Middle School:
The first is to set up a special project for homework design research. Combined with the characteristics of the school, the school takes the lead in applying for special homework management topics, and decomposes the research topics into various disciplines, taking the dominant disciplines of the school as the starting point to drive the weak disciplines to conduct homework research, leading everyone to think about homework design and management from the perspective of combining theory with practice, and fundamentally changing the old concept of homework.
The second is to establish an evaluation system for homework design. I help the school to formulate the basic standards of homework management from the aspects of homework design form, homework duration, homework correction, statistical analysis, evaluation and guidance, and play a guiding role by evaluating homework, leading teachers to do a good job in normal homework design.
The third is to set up an excellent homework design resource library. The school displays and exchanges excellent assignments of different types, such as basic assignments, practical assignments and hierarchical assignments. Teachers of each subject assemble their own homework designs into a part of the resource pool, which realizes the sharing of high-quality resources and lays a solid foundation for the optimization and innovation of homework designs in the future.
Through many supervision visits and focusing on the breakthrough point of "homework design and management", the school I supervised has achieved gratifying results. At present, A school in Harbin has formed a good atmosphere in which everyone pays attention to homework and everyone studies homework. Every subject in the school has established a school-level homework design research topic and actively carried out research. The school has selected the basic homework from the sea of questions and screened out the mechanical repetition; Hierarchical homework is accurate to every student, and students are given an accurate diagnosis by using knowledge curves and so on, and then layered homework is arranged; Exquisite design of practical work, closely combined with in-class knowledge, can expand and improve ability; The exhibition assignments are carefully arranged, and the exhibition hall and WeChat official account have become platforms for students to show their elegance, forming paper-based, practical, hierarchical and characteristic assignments, so that students can experience the sense of accomplishment in completing their assignments; The school’s evaluation of homework is fine and scientific, and the school has established a series of complete evaluation systems, such as homework form, homework duration and homework correction. The school has also established an excellent homework resource pool, which shares resources, forming a virtuous circle of spiraling homework design quality and scientific and reasonable homework evaluation. The students’ academic burden is lighter, and their academic performance is rising instead of falling, and their parents are satisfied.
Accordingly, I also take "homework design and management" as a breakthrough for schools with weak teaching foundation in the responsibility area. After a period of "supervision" and "guidance", each school has also formed its own homework design characteristics. For example, the rural labor practice homework in School B was displayed in a concentrated way through photos and videos, which enhanced students’ labor consciousness and exercised children’s practical ability, and was praised by the Daowai District Education Bureau.
[Case Reflection]
The special supervision of "homework design and management" under the background of "double reduction" has made me have a deeper understanding of "supervision" and made me more clear about the three-step supervision strategy of "seeking truth is the basis of supervision, seeking truth is the core of supervision, and promotion is the goal of supervision"
Seeking truth is the basis of supervision. Responsible inspectors need to fully investigate and understand the advantages and disadvantages of each school, focus on the problems in combination with the actual situation, conduct targeted supervision, and form a feasible supervision plan. Without full and detailed investigation, it is impossible to produce a "guide" with practical application value. Inspectors can only put forward grounded opinions on the basis of full investigation, blindly accusing the criticism of being ineffective, and the suggestions on paper are like castles in the air. Without practicality, the purpose of "guiding" cannot be achieved.
Seeking truth is the core of supervision. The responsibility and mission of the responsible inspector is not simply to "supervise"-check and evaluate, but to "guide"-to help schools find and solve problems and improve the level of running schools. The responsible inspector must bend down with a pragmatic attitude, find the real problem with sincerity, give the real diagnosis, come up with the real method and formulate the real strategy. Only in this way can the school not engage in ostentation, sincerely accept supervision, make real improvements and achieve real development. As an inspector, it is the unchangeable purpose of a qualified inspector to turn his usual work experience into the help of school development, really help schools in the area of responsibility of foreign inspectors to improve the quality of education and teaching, and run a satisfactory education for the people.
Promotion is the goal of supervision. Every supervision is a diagnosis of the quality of running a school. Therefore, the supervision of each school should not take the task completion as the node to do subtraction, but think about the future direction with the school from a development perspective, and really improve the quality of running schools in the responsible area. On the one hand, the supervision of "homework management" has promoted the professional development of teachers and improved the level of education and teaching; On the other hand, it promotes the improvement of the overall quality of education and teaching in schools and even in the region. This kind of promotion requires every inspector to constantly update his knowledge, improve the professional level of supervision, constantly study problems and improve his ability to solve problems. The ultimate goal of supervision is to improve the quality of each school and better contribute to the development of education, which is also the pursuit of every inspector.