Recently, the list of “National Excellent PhD Dissertation in the Field of Pedagogy” was announced. Among the 10 excellent dissertations that have been rigorously selected at the national level, Dr. Wang Yuefen’s dissertation Homework Design with a Curriculum Perspective, which was directed by Professor Cui Yunhuo, was selected. This is the first doctoral thesis of East China Normal University that successfully won the award.

△ Dr. Wang Yuefen

Deputy Director of Teaching and Research Office of Shanghai Municipal Education Commission

△ Supervisor: Professor Cui Yunhuo

The Director of ICI, East China Normal University

The Abstract of Dr. Wang Yuefen’s Dissertation

For a long period of time, homework has been one of the core topics of education. Homework is the task designed on the basis of certain purposes by teachers which requires students to complete during non-instructional hours. Homework is not only education's "business card" to the society, but also an important condition under which students will foster their preferences to both the courses and the teachers. In recent years, the students' homework got lots of arguments from the society It is one of the areas in which there are more practice but less research.

There's no doubt about the value of homework. The quality of homework design, and the effect of homework operation should be seemed as critical indicators of the success of curriculum reform. And between them, the quality of homework design is more important as it is the key to the operation effect. To improve the quality of homework design, we should locate the problems existing in the current situation, develop a theoretical guidance, and work on valid ways for designing homework.

Present study focuses on the problems" of homework design, and is unfolded around the core issue "How to Design Homework with A Curriculum Perspective". It contains five basic questions: (a) What are the authentic problems in current homework designs? (b) Where, according to the historical background, did the thoughts about homework design come from and is the trend about homework design theory? (c) How to design homework with a curriculum based on its authentic problems and historical background? (d) are the basic strategies and methods to design homework with a curriculum perspective? (e) How to "visualize" those strategies and methods as to offer supports to design homework with a curriculum perspective?

In present study, Chapter 1 focuses on the discussion of homework's definition, values and research backgrounds. Based on such work, it further points out that homework design is one of the most urgent problems in the field, and is also critical to both the enforcement of curriculum reform, and the alleviation of students' academic burden.

Chapter 2 discusses the authentic problems in homework design. In year 2013, through analyzed homework documents of 60 schools, and surveyed over 30,000 students, teachers and parents. The result of this study showed that there were "more experienced thoughts but less empirical studies" and "more problems but less profits". First, low quality of homework design was an important cause to the poor implementation of homework. And due to the low quality, students were less motivated, heavily burdened, and lack of obvious progress in their academic performance. Secondly, quality of most homework design didn't reach the expectation. Most design flaws were found in homework's function positioning, objective setting, time taking, difficulty, types, differentiation, and structure etc. Thirdly, several key causes to the low quality of homework including the lack of reasonable theory, short of effective strategies, and teachers' unsatisfied professional competence etc. Chapter2 clarifies the urgency of "Design Homework with A Curriculum Perspective" from the practical demands.

Chapter 3 reviews the research background of homework design theory. By analyzing some famous experts' opinions toward homework design, this chapter surmised up four typical perspectives about homework design, and they are “homework as games”, “homework as teaching consolidation”, “homework as learning activities”, and “homework as evaluation tasks”. On the basis of these four perspectives about homework design it further explains “Design Homework with A Curriculum Perspective” from a historical view.

Chapter 4 constructs the theory about "Design Homework with A Curriculum Perspective". By elaborating the relations among curriculum, instruction and homework, it distinguishes the differences between “Design Homework with A Curriculum Perspective” and “Design Homework with An Instruction Perspective”. it points out that “Design Homework with A Curriculum Perspective” represents a scientific homework design paradigm which has more emphasis on “goal orientation”, “systematical design”, “feedbacks as well as improvements” and “respect for differences” etc.

Chapter 5 discusses six strategies of designing homework with a curriculum perspective including:(a) designing homework objectives on the basis of curriculum goals; (b) keeping the consistency between homework content and objectives; (c) organizing key elements of homework into an intrinsic structure; (d) making vertical and horizontal connections between the contents and requirements of homework; (e) improving the homework design with the reflections of students' performances; (f) designing personalized homework.

Chapter 6 mainly elaborates how to "visualize" the strategies of designing homework with a curriculum perspective as to improve teachers' competence to design homework. Visualization of homework design strategies emphasizes on a thinking path from macro concepts to medium process and tools and then to microcosmic problems. Visualization of the homework design strategies include three associated phases: the "flow chart of design" in the pre-design phase; the "form of thinking process" in the design phase; and the "sheet of evaluation and reflection" in the post-design phase. Together the three phases can guarantee the quality of homework design.

Keywords: homework; homework design; the theory of homework design; text analysis; curriculum perspective; visualization