I saw this today on teacher-parent Chris Cerrone's Twitter.
Dear HS teachers,
Repeat after me: "you don't need to give a s**tload of HW to get kids to learn...you don't need to give a s**tload of HW to get kids to learn"
Sincerely, Dad of a HS student (& teacher of 24 years. )
I was thinking about our readers when I read this.
How do the teachers here feel about homework?
As a parent of a fourth grader, I believe my daughter Kara gets a decent amount of homework and sometimes it is helpful. As a teacher, I assigned less over the years and did not find learning decreased. I liked project based learning and found it worked for most students as assignments were spread out however some kids really thrived on daily routine homework structure. They had a hard time keeping up with a long term assignment.
Any thoughts?
Please be professional if commenting.
I believe homework is useful if it's not busywork. I would have never gotten good at math if I didn't practice it at home. With that said, a lot of parents are lazy and don't want to spend the time to help their kids, nor do most of them know anything about education, so I don't pay much attention to them.
ReplyDeleteHW is just another tool to help make students into mindless drones. When do they get on their bikes and go for a ride? Dig a hole? Play hide and seek? When do they get to be kids? I learned way more about life out in the woods with my buddies making a fort than I ever did in school.
ReplyDeletePracticing skills taught during the school day at home can help reinforce what was learned. Students should also read when they are at home. I don't think hours of homework is necessary though. No more than an hour.
ReplyDeleteI did my M.Ed thesis on the effect of HW on academic achievement.
ReplyDeleteThere have been boatloads of pretty good research on this and almost all it found that only the most carefully structured HW directly based on the day’s classroom skills and, specifically, involving parents in the conduct and oversight of it had the slightest effect on long-term academic achievement.
I give HW, I don’t give busy work.
ReplyDeleteI resented doing busy work, so I won’t waste their time.
But, thoughtful HW is important.
As a 30-year high school teacher (and parent) I assign meaningful homework to the extent I can actually evaluate the quality of student work. Since there is no time allotted during the school day for me to assess the work a student has done at home, I tend to assign very little homework. Perhaps one 20 min. assignment every two or three weeks. It would be very easy to assign 45 mins a night but then I would never get to see it...and it would become busy work.
ReplyDeleteIt should be given every day but limited to 10 min. or so (per HS Subject) unless there is a good reason to give more (for ex, weekend Regents review assignments in the Spring or midterm review, etc.).
ReplyDeleteAs others have said it should be to reinforce and give practice working on a skill that was done in class THAT DAY. It is not the time, at least at this level, to give students "challenge" problems (except for perhaps an Honors or AP class) that will frustrate them.
What dumb motherfucker believes this is legit? They cant read and write. For the third straight year, New York City made more headway than the rest of the state on achieving proficiency in math and ELA for grades 3 through 8, according to test scores released by the state Education Department on Sept. 26.
ReplyDeleteA new baseline - 2018+1
New York City students narrowly outpaced students in the rest of the state in ELA, while narrowing the performance gap in math by gaining more ground than their counterparts statewide.
“New York City has continued for three years to outperform the rest of the state on growth measures,” UFT President Michael Mulgrew said at a press conference with Mayor Bill de Blasio and Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza at PS 204 in the Bronx. “That has not happened for decades. I know we have a lot of work to do, but we are taking on the challenge.”
He cautioned, however, that test scores are just one measure of a student’s, a teacher’s and a school’s performance. “A test score is a single piece of evidence,” he said. “The days of using test scores as a scarlet letter are over.”
In ELA, 46.7 of city students met proficiency standards, compared with 45.2 percent statewide. City students were 1.5 percentage points ahead of students statewide, almost doubling their .8 percentage point advantage from 2017.
In math, 42.7 percent of city students scored at the proficient level, compared with 44.5 percent statewide. City students were 1.8 percentage points behind students statewide, narrowing a gap that was 2.4 percentage points in 2017.
This year’s results continued the trend begun two years ago.
“The efforts of our teachers, our paraprofessionals, our administrators, our students and our parents are evident in how we compare across the state,” Carranza said.
Test results were released more than a month later than usual, a delay that state officials blamed on changes in the testing format. State officials also insisted this year’s scores couldn’t be compared with previous years, but instead constituted a new baseline for comparisons going forward.
The new state performance standards and the reduction of testing days from three to two for each exam preclude accurate comparisons to previous years, explained MaryEllen Elia, the state education commissioner.
Before the revisions to the state exams, city students’ English and math results had improved every year for four years, as did the English results in each of the city’s 32 community school districts.
The racial achievement gaps remained large on this year’s tests. In math, 72.2 percent of Asian students and 63.6 percent of white students tested proficient compared with 25.4 percent of black students and 30.3 percent of Hispanic students. In ELA, 67.2 percent of Asian students and 66.5 percent of white students met state standards, compared with 34 percent of black students and 36 percent of Hispanic students.
Opt-out rates were slightly lower than the previous year. Across the state, 18 percent of students refused to sit for the exams, compared with 19 percent in 2017 and 21 percent in 2016. In New York City, the overall opt-out rate was much lower, with 19,041 students, or 4.4 percent, refusing to take either exam, up slightly from 4.0 percent in 2017.
The state’s three-year moratorium on the use of state ELA and math exams to rate teachers in grades 3–8 ends in June 2019.
Since most kids don’t do the homework, the answer is no.
ReplyDeleteUFT sucjksand that's why there is so much homework. I'm pulling my dues as soon as I can.
ReplyDeleteI taught grades 1 and 3 and gave homework.....more to maintain the structure and routine of the school day. When I taught grades 7 and 8, in a JHS Special Educational class of learning disabled students, homework was math drills and grammar drills......10 minutes at most....to maintain routine and the discipline of being responsible to complete the task. When I taught HS English, homework was either a short writing task or a short answer worksheet related to the day's lesson. Homework, in my classes, was always checked, and recorded in the grade book and given for the purpose of maintaining structure . All of my teaching was in lower income communities where the students did not always get structure and or supervision at home, so I decided that giving a short HW assignment would add a small bit of structure to the lives of my students. When I taught HS, I also assigned one project per marking period.
ReplyDeleteMy children were always able to complete their HW, but I always supervised and insisted upon completion, but, never corrected. Their HW never interfered with their after school activities. They were able to manage their assignments and still play outside and participate in sports, etc. So, I feel that HW serves a purpose.
Good to hear from you Joan. We worked together for years.
ReplyDelete