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Ep 37. Homework that works with Jo Castelino

This transcript was created with speech-to-text software.  It was reviewed before posting but may contain errors. Credit to Deepika Tung.

  

You can listen to the episode here: Chalk & Talk Podcast. 

  

Ep 37. Homework that works with Jo Castelino 

[00:00:05] Anna Stokke: Welcome to Chalk and Talk, a podcast about education and math. I'm Anna Stokke, a math professor, and your host. 

 

You are listening to episode 37 of Chalk and Talk. My guest in this episode is Dr. Jo Castelino, who is a teacher and curriculum leader in the UK. A lot of people have asked me to discuss homework on the podcast, and I was pretty excited when I heard about Jo's new book, The Homework Conundrum, so I reached out to her and asked her to come on to talk about it. 

 

This episode is all about homework. We discuss why homework is important. How much homework to assign and what type of homework to assign. We also discussed some of the criticisms of homework, how schools can create a culture that supports homework, rewarding and consequence mechanisms, leveraging feedback, and handling issues like cheating. 

 

Jo was a great guest, and I hope you find our discussion informative. By the time this episode is released, you will be able to order her book, which has even more information. Now, without further ado, let's get started. 

 

[00:01:25] Anna Stokke: I am thrilled to be joined today by Dr. Jo Castelino, and she is joining me from Leeds. She is a secondary school science teacher in West Yorkshire in the UK. She's a curriculum leader for science. She has a doctorate in genetics. She has a special interest in applying cognitive science principles to teaching to maximize student learning. 

 

And she's an expert on homework. She's written articles and blog posts all about homework, and she has an upcoming book that will be released on November 29th that's all about homework. It's called The Homework Conundrum, and I was lucky enough to have read an advanced copy. I highly recommend it, and we're going to talk a lot about some of the things that are in your book today. 

So welcome, Jo. Welcome to my podcast.  

 

[00:02:15] Jo Castelino: Thank you so much, Anna. I am so honoured to be here.  

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[00:02:18] Anna Stokke:  Let's start with a bit about your background. So, you have a doctorate in genetics. Did you always work as a teacher or what made you decide to join the teaching profession? 

 

[00:02:30] Jo Castelino: When I was a kid, I used to play teachers, like I'm sure lots of children do. I just took it a little bit further, where I used to wake my sister up in the middle of the night and teach her, and she hated me for it. But that's why she became clever, you see. She did really well at school because of me. She won't acknowledge that. 

 

But I also wanted to study, and I've always been very academic, and I wanted to do a PhD, to be honest, to be the first person in the family. We have a very big family. And I just wanted to do that for the ego and the arrogance of it. So, I did. And nobody cared. So, then I thought I might as well go into what I really want to do, and that's teaching. 

 

So, I got into it a bit later than the other people in my cohort, during my placement, but I've really always wanted to teach, to be honest. 

 

[00:03:18] Anna Stokke: First of all, congratulations on being the first person in your family to get a PhD and also congratulations on finding your passion and, and becoming a teacher, which you clearly love to do. So why did you start writing about homework? 

 

[00:03:33] Jo Castelino: Yeah, that's interesting as well. I used to absolutely hate it at the start. I used to hate it when I was a student because Indian schools give you a lot of homework and there is never any follow up on it. So, it was a lot of work for nothing, really. So, I used to hate it. And then when I started to teach, no one really spoke about it. There was no training on it. We were just expected to set it. Sometimes this is also the case now, I think.  

 

So, I used to not really get on with it. I used to set it without really understanding it. But then, I started to look into it a little bit because I thought in the lesson, in the classroom, we're talking a lot about how we should teach and how we should reduce cognitive load and how we should do lots of retrieval practice. 

 

And we started talking about that stuff for the classroom and I started to think, why aren't we talking about this for other stuff then, like homework? And then we had the pandemic. During the pandemic here in England, we set work online for our students and they weren't doing it. No one really was doing it. And I just sat back, and I thought, what if I had been setting them homework? Would that have changed anything? Would they have built some habits of independent study that I have missed out on now, because I, I failed my students in a way and very few of them are actually engaging with the work or even doing it. 

 

When we all returned back to school in the classroom, I started to really think, how can I make my homework effective? And I think it's evolved from there. Then I was lucky enough at my school, my previous school that I was working at, where they gave me the chance to lead on homework throughout the school. 

 

That gave me a bigger insight into it. It wasn't just about my classroom anymore. It was about the children. It was about the students in my school. And it was so fascinating hearing from different subject teams as well. I teach science, as you mentioned, but in art, it's completely different. In English, it's different. 

 

And it was nice, really, eye opening, I think, for me, discussing homework with these different teams and trying to build a culture throughout the school. So, it's evolved over time. And I understand people's concerns with homework as well, which you know, I am, I am happy to elaborate on later, but I, I get that because I've gone through that myself. 

 

And I've got to the stage where I truly believe that if we make it effective and set it right, the benefits are incredible. 

 

[00:06:05] Anna Stokke: And I was mentioning to you before we started recording that, a lot of people actually ask me to talk about homework on the podcast. And I always kind of say, well, you know, I don't really know much about the research on homework. I have opinions, my own opinions on homework, which I am sure will come out in this episode. 

 

But so, I have heard from both parents and teachers about it. And in your book, you actually talk about the research on homework. So, it's my understanding, in fact, that the majority of studies on homework are based on math homework, which is great from my point of view, because I love to talk about math, but can you talk a bit about the research on homework? 

 

[00:06:44] Jo Castelino: Yeah, absolutely. You are right. I read so many papers and studies here in the UK. We have something called the Education Endowment Foundation, and it's really useful for us when we are researching anything, when we want to implement something in schools. So, for example, if you are thinking of metacognition or feedback, Or assessment for learning or anything. 

 

They have done a bit of research for us, looked at the studies and summarized it. And they give us some kind of like, numbers that we can use. For example, they tell you how many months of progress a student might make if this strategy has been implemented. So, they have this for homework as well. 

 

And that tends to be the first port of call for most of us here in the UK who are interested in looking at homework. Now, when you go on there and look at their summary on homework, it's really fascinating because it tells you that at the secondary level, I teach secondary, so they are older students.  

 

They can make, on average, five months of additional progress if they do homework regularly, compared to others. When I first saw that, I thought, whoa, we should all be talking about homework, we should all be setting it. But, as part of the research into my book, and actually even before that, I looked a little bit more into detail into the studies that they used. 

 

And It's, it's so hard, to be honest because the studies on homework aren't inconsistent. They are very different. They vary quite a lot. But if you look at the studies they have included, some of them are master's dissertations. Some of them are based not in the UK at all.  

And then some are based on maths. So, it's really difficult to extrapolate what they are saying there. and think that this applies to my classroom here. So that, figure, as impressive as it is, and the EEF, the Education Endowment Foundation, acknowledge this. They say that the evidence strength is quite weak, and they say that there is hardly any implementation cost, and now that's the fascinating aspect as well. 

 

If the implementation cost is low, there are researchers that argue that even if you're not quite sure about the evidence strength, it's still worth trying because it doesn't cost a lot to implement. And that's where I think lots of schools think about homework. They still set it, and they expect it to be set because it doesn't cost much to implement, even though we're not quite sure about the evidence. 

So, in my book, I, I liked to, I mean, I summarized all of this and a bit more as well, but then I look at what we do know about learning and what we do know works in the classroom and how that might relate to homework.  

 

[00:09:28] Anna Stokke: I always kind of wondered about some of the studies I had seen on homework and actually I haven't looked into it that closely, I will say, but I would often hear things like, Students who had more homework do worse in school. 

 

And to me, I thought, is that right? Because it's probably also the case that students who were doing more poorly in school ended up with more homework. I always kind of wonder how they separate those things out. So, those are some of the confounding factors that you're talking about, right? 

 

[00:09:58] Jo Castelino: Yeah, absolutely. There are quite a few, really, because all these different studies, we don't know what type of homework was set. A lot of it is based on self-report, so students or teachers reporting what they perceive to be true. But whether that's actually true or not, we don't know. 

 

Sometimes they report how much time they've spent on homework, but how much time was actually Spent on completing that homework, we don't actually know that. There's also varying levels of motivation, that's not included. And as teachers, we know how much motivation varies in the classroom. And even with the same student over days or within the same lesson, it's so many things. It's really hard. I, I feel for the researchers, to be honest, I am not going to sit here and say that they should have done better. 

 

No, it's hard. It's hard to research something that has so many factors that can impact and have an impact on homework. But yes, you are right. There is a lot of confounding factors. We have to take that research and think about the general evidence and what it's showing us, but not just say I'm 100 percent certain that that thing is right, because that is not how it works. 

 

[00:11:11] Anna Stokke: But in general, the research kind of tends to support using homework at the secondary level though, is what you're saying, right? 

 

[00:11:18] Jo Castelino: Yeah, definitely. So, there is some evidence to suggest there is like a modest relationship between doing homework and attainment and how well students do at school. And it is more so at the secondary level than at the primary level. Now the primary level, this is not always true, but it is true for some in some studies. 

 

So, some studies have found that even at primary, there might be a benefit, but it does again depend on what that homework is. I will bring in here not research experience, really. So, I am a secondary teacher, but my children go to a primary school, and I have two of them. And so, there is two different types of homework being said. 

 

One is much younger, so she only really gets reading. She needs to practice her reading quite often. I think that's powerful. Yes, it is homework, but we do want them to read. We want them to practice reading as often as possible. And if I don't do it because I'm busy with lots of other stuff, I notice a difference. 

Even though I know it's happening at school, and the teachers are doing amazing, but that needs to also happen at home. And with my son, who's a bit older, he gets a bit of maths, you'll be happy, some spelling, reading, and that's it, really. There's no other stuff, because these are the main skills that they need to be good at. 

 

And without them, they're going to struggle later on in life, in their career, in their education. I think that works. It's only about 10 minutes at most, you know, and it, it makes sense. So, we have to look at the research and not just say, oh yeah, it works at secondary, and it doesn't work at primary, but that's not quite true because it depends on what that homework is. 

 

[00:12:57] Anna Stokke: I gave a presentation to a group of teachers just a couple weeks ago, and they asked me about the research on homework or what I thought about homework. And the first question I asked is, okay, are we talking about high school or primary school? 

 

High school, I have strong opinions about that. students are going to end up in post-secondary if they haven't seen a lot of homework, it's going to be tough, but for primary, I said, you know, I don't really want to comment on that because I have someone coming on my podcast who knows a lot about it, but I think what I hear you saying is, definitely, it's the type of homework that goes home and maybe for primary students, we don't necessarily need to give as much as we would for secondary. That makes a lot of sense. So, on that note, you talked about something in your book called the Cooper 10-minute rule. Can you say a couple of words about that? 

 

[00:13:51] Jo Castelino: Yeah. So, this is Harris Cooper. And if you are reading any research on homework, his work is really useful. He's written so much about it. He's researched so much about homework. So, he has this 10-minute rule where it just means that per grade level. So, let's say a student is in grade nine, they need to do 10 minutes of homework per day per grade level. 

So, if they're in year nine, that would be 90 minutes of homework per day and, and so on and so forth. So, it's a general rule. He is very open about the fact that it's not a hard and fast rule, but it gives a benchmark. It gives an idea of how much homework to set depending on the grade level of the student. 

 

[00:14:31] Anna Stokke: So, it's nice to have sort of a, guideline like that, 10-minutes per year of whatever grade you are in. Now in your book, you also have an entire chapter called, how we learn. And I thought that was great. Like to me, that's a great place to start. And there you talk about things like working memory and long-term memory retrieval practice. 

 

A lot of things I have talked about with guests previously on the podcast. And, you know, I really like that's where you start before making recommendations on how to structure homework because really there are two pieces to kind of consider. The first being how students learn should perhaps guide the way we design homework, right? 

 

And that's going to come up a lot in our conversation today. But then on the other hand, perhaps homework itself. plays an important role in how we learn, so does it, in your opinion, play an important role in how we learn? 

 

[00:15:26] Jo Castelino: Absolutely. So, I have lots of anecdotes here because, when my students do their homework, they come to the lessons feeling far more confident, but then I get lots of data from that homework as well. So, it's, it's twofold. It's not just for them. It's also for me. And then, I can then, decide how I can structure my lesson, or my questioning, or how I explain the next day. And how I link it to what they have learned before as well. And then it also informs future homework. It's, it's amazing. Once you sit down and think about what you are setting, how it actually is a part of what you do in the classroom. It's not something that is separate. And that's another thing. 

 

It's another EEF recommendation, actually. That's when homework is powerful, is when the homework is linked to classroom learning. But it's not just. a tenuous link. It's not like, oh yes, you can research this one person that we learned about in this lesson. That's, that's not how it works. It's an actual link. It, informs, it feeds into what you do in the classroom and then it feeds back into the homework as well.  

 

And it's, it's a cycle really. And it's ongoing. And it helps you learn about your students, and it helps students learn about themselves and how they learn. I think that's just mind blowing. When you think about a student on the other end who's doing their homework, and they get information about how they learn in their own time. It's independent study.  

 

When you do that in the classroom, some people might argue, you know, you could do that in the classroom. Surely, you are giving them a task and a student can decide for themselves, then, and there, how they feel. But you are right there, you are right there to guide them, to support them, and advise them. 

 

This is more powerful when you are not there. That's when the student truly sees, Ah, right, I struggle with this kind of thing, so I need more help on it, and I'm going to have to talk to Miss, Or I find this really easy, and I can do this really quickly, and that's something that you can find out when you do independent study. 

 

I think that's just powerful.  

 

[00:17:37] Anna Stokke: So, two things, well three really, it actually helps with student confidence, because that's the practice piece, as long as they can actually do the homework, that's another thing that'll come up. And then second, it guides you as a teacher. Because you can see what the students can and can't do. 

 

And then the third thing is independent study. It helps students to realize what they can do on their own and what they can't, because sometimes they do get the false impression when they are in class and they are just watching you do things, that they can do it. But watching you do something and getting your help with something is different, than being able to do it on your own. 

 

[00:18:11] Jo Castelino: Yeah, absolutely. Something else I think related to this, if the homework is retrieval practice and we talk a lot about the cues that students use to retrieve a memory perhaps, perhaps, or a bit of knowledge. Now, there has been an argument recently on X actually, not an argument, a discussion about how students might be retrieving information in the classroom, but when they actually have to retrieve it in an exam setting, it's in a completely different place. And does that impact their performance?  

 

And I think, in a way, homework gives them a chance to do this in a different setting. Now, I know, it's obviously a home setting, it's not quite the same thing as doing an exam, but we are not just teaching for an exam. We are trying to teach them to retrieve independent of every, every support that you can possibly give them. 

 

Now, I am not saying you don't give them support with homework. That is, I think, one of the key things. They need to know that the support is there, but they have to use that support independently still. It's not you, there, guiding them and you know, just, just being there all the time. So, yeah, I think, I think that is something we do need to consider when we, when we think about homework. 

 

And I think that's when you design the homework properly as well. Can that homework that you have set achieve these things? That's when it's effective, isn't it? Yeah. 

 

[00:19:34] Anna Stokke: So, the other thing, from my point of view, I see homework as a means of building good study habits and, you know, work ethic and that sort of thing as well. I think that's an important piece. And you mention in the book that homework, you know, there appears to be a cyclical relationship between self-regulatory behaviors and homework practices that leads to higher academic achievement. 

 

Can you say a bit about that? 

 

[00:19:59] Jo Castelino: Yeah, absolutely. So, when a student is sitting down to do any kind of independent work, let's say even if you've not set them any homework, there's an assessment, a test coming up, you expect them to revise. They have to find a quiet space to work in, they have to make sure they manage their distractions, they're not looking at a phone or a television or does anyone listen to the radio anymore? I do, but I don't know if kids do.  

 

Anyway, that as well. They need to make sure that they are focused on the task at hand. And, and stick to something when they're stuck. Now, these are really hard things to do. Really hard things to do for I think many adults, but more so for a student who has so many distractions around them. 

 

And in this day and age, we have a lot of distractions around us. So, it's easy to lose track and lose attention as well. Now, if we set homework, we are giving regular opportunities for students to practice those skills, to practice those, that self-regulation of, I'm going to sit down and I'm going to focus. 

 

And I'm not saying we have to set them hours of work for them to achieve this. It just needs to be regular, and it needs to be short-ish, that is, manageable, I think is the best word there. Manageable and sustainable. And if that is possible, that, that sweet spot. Oh, it's perfect. Then, you know, the student can actually do it. 

 

And I have seen this, you see, I have seen it. I teach lots of students who are not the most motivated. I mean, I teach science for crying out loud. Nobody seems to like it. They come to my lesson and they, oh, I have to do science. And it's, you know, that's the attitude they've got. And it's my job. for them, not just to appreciate science as actually the best subject in the world. 

 

I know maths is there. I know, but science is better. I am sorry. I am so sorry. But, I also want them to be able to, you know, feel like they can do it. That it's not something that is unattainable to them. And I think homework. can help them with that. So, it's not just about self-regulation. It's also a bit of that motivation because I think you can self-regulate when you are motivated, can't you? 

 

And that can be quite hard for a student, for a young person to be able to do. So that's our job. That's what we do as teachers. We support them and building these skills and we give them feedback on it, and we help them grow.  

 

[00:22:28] Anna Stokke: So, resisting the urge to argue with you about science being the best subject in the world, but you are my guest, so I will, I will leave that.  

 

[00:22:36] Jo Castelino: Okay.  

 

[00:22:37] Anna Stokke: But yeah, absolutely. Those self-regulatory behaviors, just knowing. You have got to shut your phone off, avoid the distractions and concentrate. Like if we can build as much of that in students as possible, it's really going to help them succeed. 

 

Let's talk about designing effective homework. That's important. A common theme in your book is that the type of homework, and how much homework is assigned, and how frequently it occurs matters. So, let's go through some of those things. So, the first thing, you mentioned that homework must incorporate retrieval practice. 

 

So, I take that to mean that it should involve practicing or recalling or working on things that the student has already been taught or learned in class. Have I got that right? 

 

[00:23:24] Jo Castelino: Yeah, I would say so. 

 

[00:23:25] Anna Stokke: Okay, so what about things like, pre reading type homework, you know, so you are going to be teaching something the next day and you ask the student to read something in advance to prepare. 

 

[00:23:39] Jo Castelino: Yeah. So, I think it does depend on the students that you are giving this homework to. Now, the majority of students, I would say, are what I would call novices in whatever you are teaching them, because that's why you are teaching them. They don't know it. And I think it does get to a stage where I think maybe towards once they pass high school, secondary, maybe they start to build those schemas, and they start to become more of an expert in one subject. 

 

But I'm talking about secondary, primary, secondary school students. They have not reached that level at all yet. There might be the odd student who, you know, might have read something beyond and actually has that understanding, but that is rare. The majority of our students are novices in something we are teaching them for the first time. 

 

Now eventually, yes, they might change in their expertise level, and they might build on that. But when they are novices, if we give them anything where they are pre reading or they're doing something with new content that you have not taught them, I think there is a real danger that misconceptions or errors start to seep in, and they consolidate in their memory, and then they come to your lesson, and you are trying to build on what they have read, but they've got the wrong idea. 

 

And that, then you're undoing all of that and it unravels I would say. So, it, it does really depend on the students you are setting this homework to. So, I am not saying pre reading or flipped learning, that's the other idea, is completely wrong. It, it's only because who are you setting this homework to? 

 

If you are setting it to someone who is more of an expert because they know this stuff, they know the basics, they know the main foundation of this topic, then I think that's, that's fine, it's powerful, in fact, it's better for them if they are pre reading, and if they are doing that work for themselves. 

 

But the majority of our students are not there. And I would think that, that wouldn't work. This is why I advocate that in my book because it is aimed at schools, really. I think that retrieval practice and spacing that retrieval practice, those are the key things, because that's what, again, that's what we do in the classroom. 

 

So why aren't we doing it for the homework as well? 

 

[00:25:52] Anna Stokke: I think, I hear you talking a bit about what's called the expertise reversal effect, right? Or if you talk to behavioral scientists, they have something similar called the instructional hierarchy. The idea is that for a novice. You really do need to explicitly teach things. You can't really expect them to learn the things on their own. A few will be able to, but most will not.  

 

And so most students actually in K-12 are novices. At the university level, we do often do things like pre readings for Well, higher level classes or when students know a fair bit, but you have to be careful about it. 

 

And on that note, I did want to just sort of follow up on flipping the classroom because that's something we have heard a lot about maybe not as much in recent years. It was maybe a bit more of a fad a few years ago, but the idea is that the student has to learn the lesson at home. So, maybe they're given a video or something like that. 

 

That's a lot of homework actually. And then they come to class, and they work on things in the class. What do you think about that sort of thing? 

 

[00:26:55] Jo Castelino: I actually tried it. So, when it was a fad, it was a fad here as well, I think, because I was, I think, just starting to train or quite early in my career, and I was told to try it. There was a website called Nearpod that I was using for it, and I was setting homework on it where they had to go through a few tasks with a video, a little quiz, and I thought, this is great. 

 

So, then they come to my lesson, and I don't have to teach it from scratch. We can try really application style questions. I mean they were coming to lesson and I still had to do it anyway. So, I, I still had to explain it all. It was, I spent hours making this beautiful Neaport presentation and these kids didn't know a thing. 

 

Now, I am not saying that there will be someone maybe listening and thinking, well I've tried it and it works so, you have done it wrong. It's possible. But I think when it comes to flip learning it's the same idea again. First of all, we're putting the onus on the student for some reason when you are the teacher. Why are we making them teach themselves when you are the expert and you know what to look out for and you know what, how they should phrase something? So, I think that's really unfair on students to put it on them, especially when they are novices. And even when they are experts, I think, like, at the university level, do they pay a fee, perhaps? I think they do, don't they?  

 

[00:28:19] Anna Stokke: Oh, yes.  

 

[00:28:19] Jo Castelino: What are they paying you for? To give them homework? To do it themselves? I'm sorry, but I feel, It's, it's a bit of cheating then, and it's not really going to help anyway. Maybe there is the odd type of topic someone might argue, but I can't see that for science, I will be honest with you. 

 

Because there's so much there that they could get wrong, and you want them to get it right. And the only way you know they are going to get it right is because you are the expert and you can tell them, and you can teach them, and you can guide them. But if you give it to them to do on their own, I genuinely think that's wrong. 

 

[00:28:55] Anna Stokke: Yeah, no, I agree. I, completely think it's unfair. It's unreasonable. You are the expert. You are the teacher. That's your job, right? To teach students. Which doesn't mean we can't give them challenging problems. We certainly can, but we should also give them the knowledge and teach them in order to be able to solve those problems. 

 

So, the next thing you mentioned is that homework should be regular. So how regular? 

 

[00:29:20] Jo Castelino: Yeah, again, that depends quite a bit. So, when I led on homework in my school, my previous school there were some subjects like science, English, maths, you will be pleased to hear, who saw their classes really often. I mean, I think we saw our classes nearly every day. So, for us, regular homework, I would say, is once a week. 

 

Something like that. But there are some subjects and some teachers who don't see their classes that often. In fact, we used to have art teachers who'd only see the class once a week. So, I can't expect them to set homework every lesson that they see. So regular does depend on how often you see your class and how much content that it is that you want them to know and practice. 

 

For big hitting subjects like science and English and maths, when there's a lot that we need to get through as well. I would say regular is about once a week or where they have a reasonable amount of time to be able to do it. So, if it's less than a week, as long as you think that, that is a reasonable amount of time for them to do it, fair enough. 

 

I give, I set homework every week because I think less than that. If someone had sent me anything and gave me less than a week to do it, I would be a bit cross. I wouldn't like my headteacher coming to me and saying, I want you to do this in two days' time. The other aspect of regular is, I would say, setting it on the same day each time. 

 

Because then, we spoke about self-regulation. Part of it is organizing your time. As teachers, I wouldn't want to know something I needed to do randomly or sporadically. So, oh, right, you have to do it in two days or next time it's every three days or next time it's something else. For example, like, let's say I see my class four of the five days of the week and I set homework on a Wednesday. 

 

So, it's every Wednesday and they know what to expect. They can plan their time. I know what I am doing. I can plan my time. I think it helps motivate because it's a routine that we can all get into, and it means we know what to expect. It's not unexpected. It's not something you can't control  

 

[00:31:23] Anna Stokke: I think again, it probably depends on the level the students at, how frequently, right? Actually, I'll say for my university class, when it's a first-year class, I give them problems to do every day. And, but I mean, I'm also not marking them, right? So that, that makes a difference too. And we should talk about that later. Like a lot of our homework is actually online homework, so it's instantaneous feedback, but I do actually expect them to keep up. So, I give homework after each topic's covered. The reason really is that math really builds on itself, right? 

 

So, if they don't practice the first topic, it's going to be hard to do the next topic.  

 

[00:32:02] Jo Castelino: Yes, absolutely.  

 

[00:32:04] Anna Stokke: But yeah, the point is it should be regular. And you also mentioned it should be set at the right amount. So how do you determine what's the right amount? 

 

[00:32:13] Jo Castelino: Yeah. So, I think that 10-minute rule is part of it, but I think what that 10-minute rule is forgetting is or people who use it are forgetting, is that, that is how much homework they should do in sum, altogether, not just for your subject. Now, as a student, who is doing a few subjects, we have our GCSE students doing about eight, nine subjects, we can't expect each subject to be giving them 90 minutes' worth of work per night. It's insane.  

 

They need to do other things. One of the things people have against homework is children need to have their lives. They need to do other extracurricular activities, and I get it and I, I support that. My son does lots of football, but we still make time for his spelling. We still make time for reading, and writing, and maths because that's important. 

 

But, if he had hours and hours of work, we wouldn't not be able to do that. So, I think it's important to consider a whole school approach. Now, this is obviously for schools. At university, it's a bit different because that's, that's the course that they've chosen. So that makes sense. Absolutely. If you set homework every day, it makes complete sense. 

 

At the school level, you have got students doing lots of different subjects and you cannot expect them to spend every day on every single subject. So, it needs to be a bit of a whole school approach. Now some schools, what they do is they decide for the subjects, that on Monday, you are going to get maths. 

 

On Tuesday, you are going to get English. On Wednesday, you are going to get this. I am a bit against that because it forces the subjects to follow somebody else's plan. And I feel that, that will take away some of the teacher's motivation in setting homework and the teacher's control and expertise in setting homework. 

 

And there is a danger by doing that, by deciding it holistically, a whole school approach, is that the teacher will only do it to tick a box and not really have any meaning behind it. And that's something we have to get away from. So, the other side of it is something we tried in my school before, where every student had a little planner. 

 

I don't know, do you have student planners in Canada as well? They are. Amazing, right?  So, they had a little planner where there was a blank timetable. And what we did was we said to every teacher at the start of the academic year, decide when your homework day, for your lesson is going to be. 

 

And the student would write it in. So, it was something that the teachers had control over and didn't feel like that was being taken away. They had autonomy there. But at the same time, there was an expectation that they did set homework on one day, every week. And then by having it in one place, we could see how spread out the homework was, how much it was, and that's, that's one aspect of it. 

 

But the other side of it then is, once you know all that, how do you as a teacher decide how much homework to set? I think knowledge of your students helps here massively. So, I have got a range of classes. I have got some classes that really fly. I mean, they are academically amazing. They get things really quickly. 

 

They want to do more challenging work. Amazing. Brilliant. So, I might set them challenging homework that takes slightly longer. I still don't set more than 20 minutes per week, because I know how many other subjects they have to do and they do lots of other stuff too. So, that's, my benchmark. 

 

But for classes that really, really struggle with memory or with motivation or with organization, I would set at the start, especially when I am trying to build that habit, I would set easier homework, shorter pieces of homework. And then as I get to know them and we get that routine built in place, I start to increase it slowly. 

 

And so, it just comes with, I think, knowledge of your students and having a whole school approach as well. I think there's two sides to that. 

  

[00:36:10] Anna Stokke: I think what I hear you saying is you kind of scaffold the homework even, especially for students who are struggling and you're trying to kind of get them on board, get them into the habit of doing the homework, start with a small amount and make it easy and gradually increase the difficulty and increase the amount you're giving. 

 

[00:36:26] Jo Castelino: And the other thing I do is sometimes I will give them a similar question from the homework in the lesson. So, those who have done that homework, get to your lesson and they think, oh, I know that I just did that, So, I know that. And they feel I, I can do this, I can do science and it's not something that I can't. 

 

And it just builds that confidence and a little bit of fluency in the topic as well. Eventually, I think that's very powerful, but you do need to know your students and it does take time.  

 

[00:36:55] Anna Stokke: Now you mentioned feedback. So, you mentioned that homework must include feedback. So how soon after it's completed, should it include feedback? And my other question is how can teachers provide feedback to every student in the class in a timely fashion? Because it seems like a lot of work. 

 

[00:37:15] Jo Castelino: It is, it is. And I have made that mistake in the past where I have set stacks and stacks of work because I thought this is good stuff and they need to know it. And I have set it and then I have had absolutely no time to mark it or assess it. I have tried the bit where I mark it in the lesson that then takes away your lesson time. 

 

When are you going to learn the other stuff? Teach the other stuff. Or I take it home and then promptly forget about it. And eventually the kids have eaten it. My kids, yes, they eat paper. But these things happen. Okay they don't actually eat paper, but I think there's two parts of the feedback. 

 

I think part of the feedback should be that the homework should be a way for students to be able to recognize what they know, and they don't know. For that to happen, I think a bit of instant feedback is very useful. Now I set online homework as well, just like you. I use something called carousel learning. 

 

I think it's really powerful for schools and it's got not just simple questions, you know, you can really think about the questions you are putting in. You put in that question as well as the teacher. So, I set that, and in that homework, students can revise flashcards at the start, which has the same questions, and then they practice typing their answers. 

 

And then after they do that, it shows them the actual answer and their answer, so they can check if they got it right. And they have to do this themselves. It doesn't mark it for them. They mark it for themselves. And then I check whether they have marked it properly. I think that's really good, but that if not all students can do online homework, of course not, because, you know, there's all sorts of issues with connectivity, access. 

 

So, if that's the case. There are ways to set homework where part of it is so straightforward, retrieval practice that they can check themselves, like you said, and that gives them that practice of checking their notes. Did they get that right? Did they not? What do they know? What, what is missing in what, what are the gaps in their knowledge? 

 

And then there could be an element of giving them something a bit more complicated, but shorter, not the whole homework, and that could be assessed in a lesson. But the other side of giving feedback can be a bit delayed as well. And so, with my carousel learning, what I do is, I will gather information from the homework because I am scanning all of the work, and then I give them whole class feedback. 

 

I don't give individual feedback. I give it as a class. And then we focus on, these were the common mistakes. These were the common strengths. And I think it's really valuable to talk about the strengths and the weaknesses. And this is how, I highly recommend you do it like this person did it here. No names, all anonymous. 

 

But this person did it exactly right. And this person Clearly Googled their answer. So that's, that's the other side of it, giving a bit of delayed feedback, but some of it, an aspect of it, being immediate, is really important too.  

[00:40:06] Anna Stokke: And you talked a little bit about the right level of challenge and maybe we can say a bit more about that. How can you determine that you get the right level of challenge for homework? Cause you don't want it to be so easy that you have kids doing worksheets upon worksheets, and they knew how to do this already and it's just kind of, becomes very monotonous, but you also don't want it to be so challenging that the students are discouraged and they can't do the homework. 

 

So how do you determine the right level of challenge? 

 

[00:40:37] Jo Castelino: I think that, again, comes with the knowledge of your students. So, you get to know them, you start to see where they lie in your classroom, and you can decide. But there is the aspect of this where some people mistakenly think, are you suggesting that you set different pieces of homework to different students? 

 

No, because that's crazy. We don't have that time. Ideally, yes, that would have been perfect, but we just don't have that time. So, it needs to be sustainable for the teacher as well. Now with my homework that I set with carousel learning; the student could choose not to use the flashcards. That gives them a bit of challenge. 

 

It tells them, right, have a go at the questions without revising the answers first, without knowing what the answers are. And then we have the other students who struggle. So, they can revise those flashcards. They can look at it and assess and then do the quiz. But to choose the right questions, it's important you collect, you gather data from your lessons. 

 

You gather data from the initial pieces of homework. And that will inform how effective your homework eventually becomes. I don't think anyone could get that challenge absolutely right the first few pieces of homework you set, because you don't know the student. As soon as you start to know your class, your general idea of the class, that's when you can choose the right level of challenge. 

 

And, even then, you can add aspects to it to make it a bit harder or a bit easier by showing them. Okay, if you get stuck, this is where you can look. And this is what you should be doing. Maybe there's a video you could watch. Or maybe there's your notes that you have taken in lesson. Or these are some prompts. But you don't have to use them, they are there. If you are stuck, if you practice that kind of thing in the lesson as well, they will know how to use it. It's not something foreign to them. And that's another side of it as well. It's not just about giving them the right questions. It's also how they can support themselves and how much they need to support themselves. 

 

[00:42:37] Anna Stokke: I want to just follow up on something quickly, just because I have a lot of North American listeners, British terminology. So, when you say revise the flash cards, you mean study the flash cards. What we would say is study the flash cards. Am I right? 

 

[00:42:51] Jo Castelino: Yes, I think, I think probably we say that too. 

 

[00:42:53] Anna Stokke: Because sometimes revise, I think of it as meaning rewrite. 

 

[00:42:57] Jo Castelino: No, yes, no, sorry. It's only because on the Carousel Learning it says revised flashcards as the phrase. So, I am used to using that phrase, but you're absolutely right. I mean, study them. I mean, learn them, and assess. Say that, say it out loud and check if you remember it. That's what I mean. 

 

[00:43:13] Anna Stokke: Okay. Excellent. I want to ask about something that I hear as a question, a criticism of homework or a reason that maybe homework shouldn't be assigned. I have sometimes heard that homework disadvantages students from low-income backgrounds. So, what does the research say about that? 

 

[00:43:31] Jo Castelino: There is some research out there that says that it does, and it doesn't. So, it's, it's not conclusive in other words, but I would recommend reading the work of Janine Bempechat. I hope I'm saying her name right. I have actually spoken to her. She's, she's lovely, very knowledgeable lady. But her work is more on Students who come from families that might struggle financially, that might struggle with resources that they have access to. 

 

And she says that actually homework, when done right, and I've spoken already about what that right homework looks like, about being regular, about being the right level of challenge, about how much support there is and the feedback that you give. If that's right, then actually, it allows those students as well to make as much progress as the others, to feel confident and fluent and masters of the knowledge that you are willing them to learn, you want them to learn. 

 

It's, it's a little bit difficult, but again, from my experience, I have taught in schools, I currently teach in a school as well, where we have lots of students that come from, disadvantaged backgrounds. And I will tell you one thing, Anna, the students who don't always do their homework, don't always come from those backgrounds. 

 

They come from backgrounds that are on paper, fine, absolutely fine. And you find that sometimes, that mindset. that schools might have of students who come from these backgrounds, don't value learning, it's nonsense. You have parents who really work hard and want the best for their child, and they, they usually struggle financially, and that's not something we should ever hold against them.  

 

You are not doing that because the students who can afford it will go and get a tutor. The students who can afford it will get that anyway.  

 

So, you are not giving them that chance because of your mindset and your preconceptions of these students. And I find that very, very difficult when people say that to me. I think. No, no, that's not right. We need to be doing everything possible to level that, that field. And to do that, we have to set them homework, but it has to be right. It has to be sustainable. It has to be manageable. And it needs to be taking in data and being informed by data of your knowledge of the student in the classroom and in how they do with their homework. 

 

And as a school, we should be supporting students, all students, to be able to access that homework. Not in terms of, here are the answers guys, you can do it. No. Can they? sit down in a quiet space and work? If not, could we provide that in a school? Could we do that after school perhaps? Or before school? Is there an issue with internet access that they're struggling with? 

 

Can you set them homework they can access then instead? It's those questions that schools should be asking and should be considering throughout, not just one teacher for their class. It should be a school effort because that's when the school values it. And it becomes a thing that everybody knows, right? 

 

If you go to that school, they value this. It's about learning. It's about knowledge and homework is a part of that. It's not something separate. 

  

[00:47:17] Anna Stokke: So, you're talking about creating sort of a school culture, right? Where this is what our school does. Our students have homework. We give them reasonable homework, we have high expectations of our students, and we give support when necessary. I like what you said about, it could even be looked at as discriminatory, to be honest, from my point of view to say that we shouldn't assign homework to students from disadvantaged backgrounds.  

 

Not only that, it's just going to widen , the gaps, because the students whose parents can afford it are going to make sure they get the homework, and think of the things that are gained from getting homework, you get lots of practice, you get those self-regulatory behaviors, you learn how to focus, you end up with good study skills, independent learning, etc. 

 

 Let's talk a bit about rewards and consequences. I've had a few behavioral psychologists on the podcast and, and they talk a lot about reinforcement. So, it seems to be very important when you want people to behave in a certain way. In this case, we want students to complete their homework. 

 

So, should students receive rewards for completing homework? 

 

[00:48:27] Jo Castelino: It depends on what we mean by rewards, I think I'm not saying that, oh, yeah, you've done your homework, money or a voucher or a big teddy bear, don't think teddy bear would work at secondary anyway, but no, that's not what I mean by rewards. I mean, encouragement. I mean, acknowledgement. I mean, recognition of the work that has gone into doing the work or into this homework. I think those are really important. That's the reward.  

 

I know that in some ways, a bit of extrinsic rewards help push towards intrinsic rewards eventually, which is where we want to end up. You want students to feel like they have done it for their sake. They have done it because that's a good thing, not because they're going to get something from it as a reward or something extrinsic. But I think if you have that right culture and you are talking about, well you do your homework, now see how well you are doing in the lesson, see how much you know, see how confident you are, that's the kind of thing I mean, when I say rewards.  

 

[00:49:30] Anna Stokke: So, you had some comments about the importance of high expectations, and you had a phrase which is as follows, “what you permit, you promote,” if we permit little effort or incomplete work, we are promoting this work ethic. So, I am wondering if you can follow up on that a bit and maybe this, brings us to the consequence piece. So, whether students should face consequences for not completing homework, because there are students who just won't do anything. 

 

[00:49:57] Jo Castelino: No, I agree. I can't take credit for the first bit, what you permit, you promote, because I don't actually know. I tried to look this up and I couldn't work out who first said it. So, if any of your listeners know, please do let me know and enlighten me. Because I can't give them credit, but I, I did say the next bit, so I can take credit for that. 

 

This is true, not just for homework. It's true for all management in terms of behavior and just your classroom in general. So, in the classroom, if someone is talking while you are explaining something, and you have just let that be. Then you are promoting that. And more and more students will start to talk, and more and more of these little, that little chatter will start to build. 

 

And suddenly the norm in your classroom has gone from maybe of silence when you are speaking to, oh, it's fine if we speak when Dr. Castellino is explaining something. It's, it's normal. It's allowed. So that's, these things can build, absolutely build. Now, when it comes to homework, if you say, oh, you haven't done it, it doesn't matter. Don't worry about it. Then why will they do it the next time? And why will their friend, Johnny, do it the next time? Why would he put himself through all that effort when actually you're just letting it go when they don't do it? Instead, what we should be doing is making our students understand that you have set this homework for a reason. 

 

There is a reason, and that reason is that they are going to improve. They are going to improve not just, as you mentioned earlier, the confidence, the skills, the study skills, the habits that they are building, just being able to answer questions and do well. All of these things are the reasons why you are setting homework. 

 

So, if you don't do it, you are failing yourself in not achieving these different things. And so having that mindset and reminding students of that mindset, you are trying to change that culture. But it does mean that when they don't listen and they don't do it, that you have to follow up on that. 

 

So initially, maybe it is a conversation with them and family and home. to see what the barriers might be. Is it because of motivation? Or actually, maybe they had a really tough week, and something was going on and they struggled and they're not telling you because they are in front of their friends and they don't want to show that side of themselves. 

 

I've had that, you see, I've had students with genuine reasons. So, the first step should be to seek knowledge, not to judge. We should go and find out why that student has not done that homework, and not just immediately assume that, oh, it's because they don't care. Once you know that, you have to look into how you might be able to remove what that barrier might be. 

 

Now, it might be that the barrier was I couldn't be bothered. I didn't want to do it. If that's the case, then great. That is a consequence because they need to understand that actions have consequences. And the action of not doing their work or not doing it properly means that you have to experience some kind of consequence. 

 

Now, here in the UK, we have initial consequences might be a comment that is sent home. And then eventually, you might have something called a detention, where they sit for about half an hour or a certain amount of time, and they're doing that homework then, and they are doing some study then. And that tells them, this was important, that's why we are making you do it now. 

 

You should have done it in your time, but we are taking that time from you now, because you didn't listen. But the first step, as I say, is to know your student, address the barrier, help them out, and then if it doesn't work, or everything you have done has no impact, that's a consequence. 

 

[00:53:39] Anna Stokke: So, Jo, do all your students complete their homework? 

 

[00:53:43] Jo Castelino: I wish, I wish I could say they all do, but unfortunately not 100%. I have to be honest. I don't think there's anyone in this world who can say, every single student does it every single time. If they do, they are lying, Anna. But I have had times when my classes have done 100%, all of them. But I wouldn't say that's every single time. 

 

Now, sometimes there have been genuine reasons, and that's why. Like, I have had a student who was off ill for about a week and a half. Of course, I am not going to expect them to do their homework. I have had another one who had a bereavement. Again, not going to expect them to do their homework. And I have had a few, a couple of them, who just couldn't be bothered, and they thought they could try and get away with it. 

 

So, they had the consequence the next time they have done it. So, it, it does vary, but it's close to 100%. So, I can say, we have been in school for about six-seven weeks, and I have got that culture where I want in my classroom. 

  

[00:54:39] Anna Stokke: So, what about parents? Are the parents always on board? And if not, you know, you might have parents complaining that they want to do things with their kids in the evenings, that sort of thing. Like that's another criticism you will sometimes hear about homework, right?  

 

[00:54:54] Jo Castelino: Definitely.  

 

[00:54:54] Anna Stokke: And so how do you get parents on board? 

 

[00:54:57] Jo Castelino: Yeah, absolutely. I said earlier that my son plays football. He trains about five times in the week. It's a bit mad. He's only eight. I don't know what he's doing, to be honest, but anyway. And that is a big part of his life, and we are not going to take that away from him because he trains and it's something important to him as well and he's good at it. 

 

But, I get how parents feel about homework in terms of the encroachment on family time, but if you're setting the right amount, and like I said, that comes from knowledge of your students and their home lives and, and just the, just how, how good they are in the lessons, then there is a way to manage that and spread that out. 

 

That's why also I suggest setting homework once a week, because then it gives them that time and it doesn't force them to do it the next day, it gives them a chance to plan when they're going to do their science homework, when they're going to do their English homework, and it gives them a bit more freedom, a bit more control over that. 

 

But we, what we do in schools, so my previous school and my current school is we communicate quite a lot with parents, and we explain why we are setting homework as a school. We explain the whole idea behind it and how we support the student as well in school, but also how they can support themselves outside of school and how parents can support. 

 

I think if you communicate with parents in different ways, you are basically bringing them on board. You are giving them a bit of insight into why you are doing it. And I truly believe, that when someone has that insight and they understand where you are coming from, they are a bit more open to accepting what you have to offer and that's, that's something I think schools should be doing. 

 

They should be opening up their doors as such and telling parents and giving them that information and inviting them in. Come and see what we do in the classroom and see how that links to the homework we are setting. It links. It's not something crazy and random. It's worth it. So, I think there's so many aspects.  

 

This is why I wrote a whole chapter on it really because I think schools can get this right. And when they get it right, it builds that culture again. And then that culture is not just in the school. It's also at home and parents are supporting you with what you are trying to achieve.  

 

[00:57:19] Anna Stokke: Yeah, in fact, you had some sample letters that went home to parents in the book. In fact, even explaining things like the benefits of retrieval practice, space practice, explaining, you know, essentially how we learn. And that seems like a great idea to me that, this is important for your child. It's going to make it easier for them in school. They are going to be better at academics and, it's going to have all these, these positive benefits just to let parents know what the positive benefits are, so that they will support, right? 

 

Jo Castelino: Yeah, absolutely. 

 

 Anna Stokke: What about cheating? obviously this is a huge deal right now, the prevalence of AI, you can get it to write an essay for you. You can get it to do your math homework. We have always dealt with this. There's been math software around for a long time that we know that there's this issue, or even students might actually just cheat off a friend, they might not even do the work themselves. 

 

So, it kind of seems hard to avoid this when the homework is unmonitored. So, what do you do about that? 

 

[00:58:24] Jo Castelino: So, like you said, cheating has always been there, hasn't it? Like I remember going to school and someone writing it on the bus and copying it from someone. But I think the difference, as you say, right now is that because AI can rewrite something in your voice as such, it's harder to detect. It's not the fact that it's made cheating easier. It's just harder to detect that that cheating has occurred.  

 

I think there is no very simple answer here. I wish there was, I could say, oh yeah, actually we should all be doing this and ChatGPT will be out the window. No, it's not like that. It's not as simple as that. I think it's important for us to build a culture of integrity with our students and make them understand that being honest with their work ethic is a valuable thing. Now that develops in the classroom and through what you say and what you value and how you reward and acknowledge that integrity. 

 

So, some of the things that I do like, practical things that I might do. Like I said earlier, I will set something that I have set for homework in the lesson. Now, one of the things that, that helps me with is to see if students have done it properly, if they actually remember it. 

 

But, of course, a student might have done it genuinely and have forgotten it in your lesson. So, I can't really use that. So then if you suspect a student has cheated because they are just not answering the same questions in your lesson, and they've apparently done their homework. Having a chat with them again. It's like with the whole consequence thing.  

 

We need to be respectful of our students and we need to come from a place where they know they can be honest with us as well. So having a discussion with them, a frank discussion, not in front of their peers, you are not trying to embarrass them or humiliate them. 

 

You just want to understand what made them cheat. Was it because they just had no time or because it was so much easier to do, which I think can definitely be the case, you know, because yes, I had time, but I wanted to play on my PlayStation or something. I didn't want to do it but then making them see that doing that is just failing themselves again. 

 

And that is something that you cannot abide by because that's not, integrity. That is not a work ethic that you are trying to develop. And it's about then also praising the students who can do this and who do this or even praising honesty. If they say to you, yeah, I cheated. I am sorry. And you say, thank you for your honesty. 

 

That's, that's excellent. That's a great starting point. We need to now do something about this. How can I help you do something about this? And then getting parents on board too. Getting them to see and almost oversee, almost, not check that they are not cheating, but be a part of it too. You know, not, not do the homework for the child, but to be a part of the process of doing the homework. 

 

It's, it's a big thing doing this work and they are a part of it and they are checking that the student is doing it well, as well as they can. And it's, it's, it's a culture thing really, Anna, I think. You know, it's no easy answer. It's something that you try and build over time and that you all have to be singing from the same hymn sheet. 

 

You should all be saying the same types of things and knowing and feeling and valuing the same types of things. But I wish there was a nice, easy answer. Maybe one day AI will give us the answer because apparently, it's giving everybody the answer. But at the moment, this is what I would suggest. This is what I do. 

 

And I think there is value in that because in this world out there, how much is integrity valued? You know, a lot of false misinformation is valued instead, and we want to try and change that, don't we? So, I think it's worth us fighting. It's worth us fighting against the robotic AI.  

 

[01:02:11] Anna Stokke: What about low stakes quizzes though? could their homework be you know, I am going to, I am going to give you a quiz on this concept that we learned this week and so their homework could be preparing for that quiz. So, you give them problems to do, to work on, to prepare for that quiz because they can't use AI on an in class monitored quiz,  

 

[01:02:33] Jo Castelino: No, they can't. You're absolutely right. I do sometimes think about the few students I do teach, that struggle so much with their memories. I have got a class currently, and it's honestly, you teach, I teach them every day and they forget from one lesson to the next what I have said. And then for them, I have to also be understanding that even if I do set them work like that, that I have to have that element of trust in them. That they are doing it, but you're absolutely right for the majority of students. That is a great way to check. Are they truly engaging and thinking about that work? Not just doing it for the sake of it. And it's, it's a nice way. It's, it's kind of like asking the same types of questions in lesson typing. 

 

But yeah, absolutely, I think there are ways to try and support and develop that, that love of learning. It's about the love of learning.  

 

[01:03:33] Anna Stokke: Okay. So final question. If you were a teacher in a school in which you had been advised or perhaps told by your principal not to assign homework. How could you convince your principal that homework is worthwhile and important? 

 

[01:03:38] Jo Castelino: Well, it depends. Are they ordering me or are they just telling me and they are open to learning? Because if they are ordering me, I would probably just leave. But the other option is give them my book. No, I mean, I would talk about what the purpose of learning is in that school. I would have a chat with them about what are the core principles and drivers of learning that we want to achieve in the school. 

 

And most of the time, I will be honest, I think it will marry perfectly with what homework is trying to achieve. So, then I will relate that to don't we want our students to be prepared for independent study because that's what we expect them to do. We expect them to do it in schools and then definitely when they leave our school we want to equip them with those skills. 

 

I mean people talk about schools giving students not just the knowledge but the skills to prepare themselves for life. These are those skills. This independent study Skills are what is going to set them up, not just for learning for an exam, but also just for life. The organization, the time keeping, the, the removing distractions. These things are powerful things, you know, and we want students to be able to do that.  

 

So, I would do two things. I would check what the driver is for teaching and learning in the school, and then I'd relate that and then talk about the skills that we can build with homework as well. 

 

[01:05:05] Anna Stokke: That's great advice. So, I want to thank you so much for sharing your time with me today. I know you're really busy. You have a full-time job as a teacher and you are clearly an excellent teacher. So, I really appreciate you coming on and, and talking about your book with me today. It's been a pleasure. 

 

[01:05:22] Jo Castelino: Thank you so much, Anna. I have really enjoyed talking about this and it's been fascinating to hear your thoughts as well from Canada and also, I really appreciate the fact that you agreed with me that science was a better subject. So, thank you for that. 

 

[01:05:37] Anna Stokke: Wait a minute. I did not. All right. Well, thank you very much.  

 

[01:05:41] Jo Castelino: Thank you.  

 

[01:05:43] Anna Stokke: As always, we have included a resource page that has links to articles and books mentioned in the episode. 

 

If you enjoy this podcast, please consider showing your support by leaving a five-star review on Spotify or Apple podcasts. Chalk and Talk is produced by me, Anna Stokke, transcript and resource page by Jazmin Boisclair, social media images by Nicole Maylem Gutierrez. Subscribe on your favorite podcast app to get new episodes delivered as they become available. 

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You can follow me on X for notifications or check out my website, www.annastokke.com, for more information. This podcast received funding through a University of Winnipeg Knowledge Mobilization and Community Impact Grant, funded through the Anthony Swaity Knowledge Impact Fund. 

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