A classroom teacher’s view on homework

When considering homework, teachers discover it helpful to communicate their policy with the households of their trainees. After just recently completing a Learners Edge course, Jennifer Lindsey, a 4th grade teacher from Pennsylvania, showed on her research philosophy that includes the purposeful roles teachers and families play.

LE: What is your position on the problem of homework?
I answer as an educator and as the moms and dad of school age children when I address this question. I do see research as having a role in the educational procedure and I do not agree with Alfie Kohn (see post), who appears to believe research is useless, or worse, has an unfavorable effect. While Kohn asserts there is nearly no research that shows research to be beneficial, I did not see a convincing amount of difficult information to support eliminating all research.
Yes, the amount of homework need to be based upon the students age and grade level. As the majority of Kindergarten-3rd grade teachers are self-contained, it needs to be reasonably basic to provide mathematics research one night, spelling or reading one night, etc to prevent overwhelming 5 to 8-year-olds. Students must not become frustrated or bored if teachers are innovative with tasks and in interacting the purpose of the task. Those are my goals as a fourth-grade teacher. I see homework to extend knowing. Would I assign 30 math problems to students who I know would have problem with them, or to students who have shown their understanding of the ability? No, in those cases, it is my job as the instructor to modify the projects.
Our textbook points out it can take 24 repeatings of an ability for a student to reach 80% proficiency. Kohn points out how trainees might end up being better at remembering, however not thinking. I see this as two different things; we need students to remember specific realities and then move on to utilizing those abilities as thinkers and issue solvers.
As a moms and dad, it can be tough to squeeze in research some nights! We do the finest we can, and if we have issues or issues, I reach out to the instructor. Once again, excellent teachers make it a point to know what some house circumstances might be like and to customize appropriately.

Homework can be a divisive subject in the education community, and we hope you can appreciate this instructors perspective. We wish to hear your thoughts about research. What is your viewpoint? How do you communicate with households about research?

I do see research as having a role in the educational procedure and I do not agree with Alfie Kohn (see short article), who appears to believe homework is useless, or worse, has a negative impact. While Kohn asserts there is practically no research study that shows research to be useful, I did not see a convincing amount of hard data to support doing away with all homework.
Yes, the quantity of homework must be based on the trainees age and grade level. As a lot of Kindergarten-3rd grade teachers are self-contained, it should be fairly easy to offer math homework one night, spelling or checking out one night, and so on to prevent straining 5 to 8-year-olds. Research can be a divisive subject in the education neighborhood, and we hope you can appreciate this instructors point of view.

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