It really has been disheartening to witness the lack of attention that has been given to education reform on the campaign trail. When you do hear a blurb it's either to ridicule Common Core (good in theory, horrible in design) and vouchers, vouchers, vouchers. I'm a father of a fourth grader and an elementary teacher (specialist). And while I wouldn't say completely banning homework is the way to go, definite limitations should be placed on the amount give with respect to their age and development level. And if little to no homework is being given, then are parents using that extra time productively, encouraging their children to read, doing extra-curricular activities, giving them unstructured free time and spending time around the dinner table? Meaningful and creative educational reform strategies is beyond due, and this current growing wave of limiting and banning homework (in an early childhood setting) is a step in the right direction.
I think that's the idea behind Common Core standards. The focus in both Language Arts and Math is on the why, and a deeper understanding. The tests such as the SBAC make it impossible to simply guess or get by without real understanding of the test. Here's a sample of a 4th grade test. They need to know about making inferences, and identify text that supports an inference. They have to draw conclusions and have an open ended question on it. There is one multiple choice, and another question with two correct answers. Another question asks students to highlight all sentences from a passage that support the answer they chose to the question above. They have to know all of the sentences from the passage to choose. That's in-depth because they could choose too many sentences, too few, or the wrong ones. In order to choose all the correct sentences and only the correct ones they have to have a real understanding of the passage and how it supports the answer they've already chosen. https://www.smarterbalanced.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/G4-Practice_Test_Scoring_Guide_ELA.pdf The Math one is also from 4th grade. In one of the questions they give a word problem about pages read, and then the question asks to pick all of the equations that show the work for the word problem. This level of understanding is deeper than previous tests and demonstrates that by not allowing students to figure out only way to solve the problem. They will need to understand multiple operations and how they all can relate to the word problem (real world situation). https://www.smarterbalanced.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/G4_Practice_Test_Scoring_Guide_Math.pdf You can look at these sample items from a test and see that in order for students to do well, they have be able to have a deeper understanding of subjects being tested. They can't just count fingers to get the one right answer. At least some portion of the questions have multiple correct answers with different perspectives of how to arrive at a valid response. It requires a deeper understanding, especially for a kid that's 9 or 10 years old.
I have to say after experiencing this the past 3-4 years (currently have a daughter in 2nd grade) I'd be interested to see how it turns out. The workload is a bit ridiculous in my opinion. My daughter has nightly work as do all others in her class, and on Friday alone had 4 tests the same day. I know I was not this worked when I was in the 2nd grade.
Homework early on is useless unless it's fun. Kids should have time to be kids and engage the world - not just go to school and then bring school home.
I really like the flip the class room teaching style. The problem is that student gave trouble adjusting to this.
College has very little homework if any, granted I didn't have a math centric degree. But I got through a Mandarin (difficult) and Poly Sci (not difficult) degree with very little homework. Even getting a JD involved more critical/creative thinking than actual homework. I think what elementary school should focus on things like getting kids to read and enjoy reading, that would do wonders in terms of writing ability for adults and thinking critically and creatively. Then Middle and high school focus on math and writing. Too many people don't have those basic skills. There are too many skills taught in school that have no application to real life
I can see that. It takes much more discipline from the students (and sometime parent pushing them) for this to work. Wouldn't make sense for early school, but I think it make quite a bit sense for high school.
To be fair, game time is real life, or in the school situation the test... don't you think homework would be equal to practice in this analogy?
So, you think that outside of math, English (essays/reading), Science (special projects) and everything else (studying assignments), there is no need for homework ever?
The problem is I work at a university. That being said I agree with your post. I think it is an great tool at universities
