Because Newsela is
fantastic, and takes up much of my time, I thought I'd share pretty
interesting article with you all about Homework: Too
little or too much? It depends.
Here's the bottom line: I assign homework when I feel that they need to practice doing something rigorous outside of the classroom. I want them to go home, get work done, and come back with questions. If they utilize their class time, when I am there to help, to the best of their abilities, they rarely end up having homework. Except reading. When reading a class novel, they almost always have reading homework. The reason I was drawn to this article is because I was interested in know whether technology has cut down on either the amount of homework students have or the amount of time they report doing it. If, for example, they have to reply to a post on Edmodo, has that cut down on their "homework time" since they can honestly just open up the app on their phones, reply to the post, and get on with their lives, as opposed to writing it down and turning it in?
Among a mess of statistics (and so that none of you have to read the article in full if you don't want to), here are the interesting points to draw your attention to:
Here's the bottom line: I assign homework when I feel that they need to practice doing something rigorous outside of the classroom. I want them to go home, get work done, and come back with questions. If they utilize their class time, when I am there to help, to the best of their abilities, they rarely end up having homework. Except reading. When reading a class novel, they almost always have reading homework. The reason I was drawn to this article is because I was interested in know whether technology has cut down on either the amount of homework students have or the amount of time they report doing it. If, for example, they have to reply to a post on Edmodo, has that cut down on their "homework time" since they can honestly just open up the app on their phones, reply to the post, and get on with their lives, as opposed to writing it down and turning it in?
Among a mess of statistics (and so that none of you have to read the article in full if you don't want to), here are the interesting points to draw your attention to:
"In a report
by the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., education expert Tom Loveless
says those who think there is too little homework are more numerous. But, he
adds, those complaining about too much homework get most of the attention." Aw, I see. So, really,
are they complaining because the students don't necessarily enjoy the
homework? Hmm...
"The National
Parent-Teacher Association and the National Education Association are in
agreement when it comes to how much homework is the right amount. Both favor
the rule of thumb limiting homework in all subjects to 10 minutes times the
grade level. With this thinking, a first grader should have no more than 10
minutes of homework a night, a sixth grader up to 60 minutes, and a high school
senior up to two hours." I can honestly say I have never heard of
this "Rule of Thumb", but I don't know, I kind of like it.
Truthfully, though, it "depends heavily on the quality of the assignment, the extent of quick feedback, whether the student is motivated to do it." It is here that I said to myself, "You know what? That's what technology has done that the written assignment never could." I am able to read, respond, and have that information back to the student in a matter of minutes through the use of Newsela, Edmodo, and Google Docs.
And yet, Loveless reported that "regardless of how the question is posed, NAEP data do not support the view that the homework burden is growing, nor do they support the belief that the proportion of students with a lot of homework has increased in recent years."
So is any sort of discussion regarding homework a moot point? How do you all feel about it? What are your policies, and do they work? What if we did modify the question: not how much homework do you spend time doing, but how much has technology sped up or slowed down that time?
Truthfully, though, it "depends heavily on the quality of the assignment, the extent of quick feedback, whether the student is motivated to do it." It is here that I said to myself, "You know what? That's what technology has done that the written assignment never could." I am able to read, respond, and have that information back to the student in a matter of minutes through the use of Newsela, Edmodo, and Google Docs.
And yet, Loveless reported that "regardless of how the question is posed, NAEP data do not support the view that the homework burden is growing, nor do they support the belief that the proportion of students with a lot of homework has increased in recent years."
So is any sort of discussion regarding homework a moot point? How do you all feel about it? What are your policies, and do they work? What if we did modify the question: not how much homework do you spend time doing, but how much has technology sped up or slowed down that time?
Thanks so much for posting the article to read, it was very interesting on many levels. I know that I have struggled with what homework should look like in my classroom. I was assigning some things to assign them, and that is never what I want to do. This is something I really want to focus on for next year in my own development. I feel like my job is two fold, teaching them how to be responsible with at home assignments, while also getting them to realize the importance of that at home work. I think that technology has helped support many of my students with their homework, but I am still dealing with students who don't have constant access. I don't want them to be penalized for this, but I also want to try some more technology related assignments (especially if I flip my classroom more in the future). This is another item I will grapple with when I reflect this summer.
ReplyDeleteI just posted about Edmodo Snapshot... it seems to be one heck of a technology related assignment idea. You should check it out!
ReplyDelete