Tony Sinanis:

As some of you may know, two of my favorite topics to discuss and reflect on are test prep and homework... well, throw the two of them together and it goes to a whole other level! Being that this time of year always seems to bring up questions about test prep, homework and the perfect storm of the two, I just wanted to share my position on both.

Here's my favorite part:

Our second annual NO WORKSHEET WEEK CHALLENGE will take place during the week of January 26th! That's right... we did it last year at our school and we want to spread the joy with our PLN and the rest of the world this year! A week without any worksheets... no worksheets in class... no worksheets for homework... NO WORKSHEETS!! Now, let's take a deep breath... I am not saying NO PAPER... just NO POINTLESS, THOUGHTLESS or MEANINGLESS WORKSHEETS! You know the ones!

What I like about this approach is that it gives teachers an opportunity to try and change how they do things. I mean, really, will a week make that much of a difference? Probably not, but it will make a teacher think, "If I can do this for a week, for how much longer can I do it?" And maybe they will see that they really need to give homework.