Naimish Gohil, Founder and CEO, Show My Homework, writes…
Our aims as educators are simple: we want to ensure that our students receive the best possible learning outcomes; to work at raising standards in our schools to ensure success both personally as educators and for our pupils; and to achieve all this without burning out.
It is no secret that today, teaching is in crisis – through lack of budget, shortages of teachers and lack of recognition for the workload our teachers are undertaking.
But we are lucky enough to live in a world where we not only have dedicated educators, committed to their profession and their students; also, through new technologies and processes we have the means to support and manage the sheer amount of work that teachers have.
However, there seems to be a stark divide in teachers’ reactions to the introduction of new technologies in schools that are aimed at helping to resolve these issues. From first-hand experience, I know that new software can be thrust upon schools without proper thought and can in fact add to teachers’ workloads, and become a burden to their overall goal of maintaining and raising standards. On the other hand, I have also experienced that lightbulb moment when software has effectively reduced workloads and helped the overall improvement of student learning outcomes.
The two things schools need to look for when purchasing new technologies to counteract their difficulties are: to ensure that the software fits their needs; and, even more importantly, that it is easy to use.
I created Show My Homework in response to my own struggles as a teacher and member of SLT. I had found that homework could have a direct and positive impact on students’ academic performance, but its management was adding to my workload and ought to be streamlined.
It appeared to me that with most VLEs I’d encountered, homework was an afterthought and not enough was being done to tackle the problems schools faced with it. Even with homework modules designed to ease the process quality assurance, tracking output and grading were too time-consuming. Not to mention the time spent handling calls from parents who were upset with the way homework was handled.
I created Show My Homework in response to my own struggles as a teacher and member of SLT. I had found that homework could have a direct and positive impact on students’ academic performance, but its management was adding to my workload and ought to be streamlined
By focusing on one issue, I was able to create a powerfully simple solution that tackles these pain points head-on. Show My Homework has now been on the market for five years and we work with over 1500 schools in 23 countries, helping to reduce their workload and raise students’ learning outcomes.
With Show My Homework, teachers are able to set, reuse and edit homework in seconds. Students and parents are notified instantly when homework has been set, reclaiming time usually spent setting and copying down instructions in class as well as reducing the amount of time teachers spend going back and forth with parents through miscommunicated homework.
Another onerous task that teachers and senior leaders face with homework is tracking quality and quantity, which includes grading and monitoring student progression. Our automated reports feature means that teachers no longer need to manually track homework, and with the addition of auto-graded quizzes and spelling tests the amount of time spent marking work is reduced. Furthermore, the addition of our Insights feature means that teachers can see in an instant just how well students are performing and how they’re engaging with homework.
These features have saved schools a lot of time and trouble. For example, Sir Frederic Osborn School was able to reduce the time spent tracking homework by up to 95%; and Chelsea Academy reduced admin in lesson times by five minutes thanks to the time saved setting homework in class. Schools have also seen submission rates improve by up to 93% and parental engagement increase from 69%-92%, both of which help in increasing students’ learning outcomes.
Sir Frederic Osborn School was able to reduce the time spent tracking homework by up to 95% [when using Show My Homework software]
We are committed to providing teachers with the tools they need not only to help reduce their workload and streamline processes, but to help them better support students so they can achieve their best. We’re keen advocates for technology; when done right, it can have a huge impact in schools to help better the education system.
Alongside what we’re doing, a number of organisations are effectively working at helping schools to reduce workloads and raise students’ academic achievements. This is why we partner with the likes of SSAT, BESA and Edtech UK, to help to spread the best of edtech throughout the UK.
Show My Homework are SSAT’s Official Online Learning Partner – find out more about them here.
Follow Show My Homework on Twitter.
Check out Show My Homework’s YouTube channel.
