Homework and Practice: Instructional Strategies

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Permalink Reply by Kate Miller on January 27, 2012 at 6:30pm

Hi, I teach fourth grade and in my district they usually estimate about 10 minutes per grade level.  So in first grade you might have 10 minutes of homework, plus reading.  In my grade- we have 40 minutes expected time for homework completion which includes reading for 20 minutes for our Book It program through Pizza Hut.  As far as technology we don't really assign alot of outside projects or typed assignments- but if they have Ticket to Read licenses or an e-reader they can use that. 

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Permalink Reply by Kenneth Goldberg on January 28, 2012 at 5:26am

Ten minutes per night is the Harris Cooper standard and seems reasonable.  It seems to me, however, particularly in the elementary school grades that you have kids who are really bright and work quickly, kids who are average and take the ten minutes, and kids who work slowly and need more then ten minutes to do ten minutes of work.  For those kids who work quickly, they get lots of acknowledgement for being good students when they are young, are confident in themselves, and emerge as good workers later.  For those kids who work slowly, they are struggling to just get by.  I think ten minutes should be by the clock, not by the estimate of the assignment. Of course, that would require placing a lot of trust in the parents and the students in their statements that they did work the ten minutes.

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Permalink Reply by Kenneth Goldberg on January 28, 2012 at 5:21am

I'm a psychologist, not an educator, so I'm not in the practice of assigning homework. However, I am very familiar with the homework debate, and aware of the arguments being raised against homework.  I think educational policy belongs to educations, not others, however, I am struck by the fact that the homework research does not give strong suppport for the policy.  I've also looked at curricula from schools of education and haven't seen courses or electives listed in the practice of giving homework. So it strikes me that homework is policy more than technique.  I guess it is true that homework gives children the opportunity to extend their learning.  In my practice, I see a number of kids (and have talked to adults about what it was like when they were kids), for whom homework was a personal nightmare for them and their families, and, at least for them, didn't really extend their learning.

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Permalink Reply by Kate Mason on January 30, 2012 at 8:10pm

Hello.  I also teach 4th grade.  The homework we assign should approximately take the students 20mins for LA and math.  Then they are also assigned 20 mins of reading and response.  However, some of the parents request extra homework in math.  The students have access to the online textbooks for the LA and math curriculum.  Math homework is out of the book and the students are able to use the online version which also includes virtual manipulatives.  The online version of the LA textbook includes many interactive games that follow the daily lessons.  Our students also have accounts for www.FirstinMath.com and many of the students go on daily.  The students use these by choice.

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Permalink Reply by Stacey Bell on January 31, 2012 at 7:54am

I teach high school health, so I don't assign homework as regularly as a core subject teacher would assign.  However, I find that when I incorporate technology into the homework, the quality of work often increases.  Many students are using technology when they leave school anyway so they are more likely to enjoy and complete an assignment that incorporates technology. 

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