A classroom teacher’s view on homework

When considering homework, instructors find it beneficial to interact their policy with the households of their trainees. After just recently completing a Learners Edge course, Jennifer Lindsey, a fourth grade teacher from Pennsylvania, showed on her research philosophy which consists of the purposeful roles instructors and families play.

LE: What is your position on the concern of research?
When I answer this concern, I answer as a teacher and as the parent of school age kids. I do see homework as having a role in the instructional procedure and I do not agree with Alfie Kohn (see short article), who appears to think research is worthless, or even worse, has a negative impact. While Kohn asserts there is almost no research study that shows research to be helpful, I did not see a persuading amount of difficult data to support eliminating all homework.
Yes, the quantity of research ought to be based on the trainees age and grade level. As the majority of Kindergarten-3rd grade instructors are self-contained, it needs to be relatively easy to offer mathematics homework one night, reading or spelling one night, etc to prevent overloading 5 to 8-year-olds. I see research to extend knowing.
Our book points out it can take 24 repeatings of an ability for a student to reach 80% competency. I believe practicing abilities is worthwhile. Kohns comparison with tennis does not make good sense to me. There are abilities in tennis you must practice to enhance. There are fundamental math abilities kids should practice to construct a strong structure prior to moving on to higher-level math skills. Kohn explains how students might progress at remembering, but not thinking. I see this as 2 different things; we need students to keep in mind specific facts and then move on to utilizing those abilities as thinkers and issue solvers.
As a parent, it can be hard to squeeze in research some nights! We do the best we can, and if we have problems or issues, I reach out to the teacher. Again, excellent teachers make it a point to understand what some house circumstances may be like and to customize appropriately.

Research can be a dissentious subject in the education neighborhood, and we hope you can appreciate this teachers perspective. We would like to hear your thoughts about research. What is your viewpoint? How do you communicate with families about homework?

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I do see research as having a role in the instructional process and I do not agree with Alfie Kohn (see article), who appears to believe research is worthless, or worse, has an unfavorable effect. While Kohn asserts there is nearly no research study that proves research to be beneficial, I did not see a persuading quantity of difficult data to support doing away with all research.
Yes, the quantity of homework should be based on the students age and grade level. As most Kindergarten-3rd grade instructors are self-contained, it ought to be relatively simple to provide math research one night, spelling or checking out one night, etc to avoid overwhelming 5 to 8-year-olds. Homework can be a dissentious subject in the education community, and we hope you can appreciate this instructors point of view.

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