Irakasleak eta familiak etxerako lanetan: TIPSen estrategia

Abstract

This piece of research tries to answer to a need issued by the parents and the teachers of a small rural school considering homework given to children. Realizing failure of traditional homework activity, they aimed to build up an approach that would improve the relationship between the school and its families and be coherent with their educational methodology. Consequently, Epstein's homework related interactive process called TIPS (Teachers Involve Parents in Schoolwork) has been initiated. This approach gives the opportunity that children could share with their families all those interesting aspects they have worked on and learned at school. Together with the support of an external researcher, two participant teachers created and went through a 3 cycles of a TIPS designed process aimed to Primary Education students of the following years: Y8, Y9, Y10 and Y11. Qualitative data was gathered through observation and interviews carried out with two tutors. Quantitative information came from 24 participant family members through survey that was filled at home. Taking into account the family diversity, results of the evaluation of TIPS process have been positive as the three groups involved express a higher satisfaction level concerning: the availability of relevant information for tutors; school and family relationship; interactions among children and their families and students' motivation with this type of homework.