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No homework on weekends, or over a vacation. If it's assigned Friday and will take one night, it should be due Tuesday.
Make it as engaging as possible.
No homework over 30 minutes for elementary, 60 minutes for middle, 80 minutes for high.
80 minutes for high school divided between 7 classes is less than 12 minutes per class. I guess I'll have to make the due date for lab reports about two weeks after the lab...
And if homework assigned on Friday is due on Tuesday the teacher cannot assign homework on Monday so we're down to four days a week for homework or a total of 5 1/3 hours of homework a week for all 7 classes. That's not going to work and certainly will not get students ready for college where they can expect 3 hours of homework for each hour they spend in class.
I would expect an average of 2-3 hours of homework per night for high school and I would expect that some of it is done on the weekend. I don't, usually, assign homework on Friday's but I'm pretty sure some of my students use the weekend to catch up because Monday is a big day for late work being turned in.
Parents and students need to understand that students need to try to work on their own. Seeing me work a problem and getting what I did doesn't mean they can do it on their own. That's what homework is for.
But before tackling those problems on their homework, hopefully they'd be given time in class to work at their desks, or at the board, to give the new concepts/skills a trial run, right? I wouldn't want to have to tackle algebra problems at home after only having observed the teacher doing them in class. Not without an opportunity to "get it" in class, and ask questions if I ran into difficulties. (I should put up a poll: how many people struggled miserably through algebra?)
80 minutes for high school divided between 7 classes is less than 12 minutes per class. I guess I'll have to make the due date for lab reports about two weeks after the lab...
And if homework assigned on Friday is due on Tuesday the teacher cannot assign homework on Monday so we're down to four days a week for homework or a total of 5 1/3 hours of homework a week for all 7 classes. That's not going to work and certainly will not get students ready for college where they can expect 3 hours of homework for each hour they spend in class.
I would expect an average of 2-3 hours of homework per night for high school and I would expect that some of it is done on the weekend. I don't, usually, assign homework on Friday's but I'm pretty sure some of my students use the weekend to catch up because Monday is a big day for late work being turned in.
"I would expect an average of 2-3 hours of homework per night for high school"
Yes, because I would hate to spend any time with my kid, might at well just had the kid over to the state since they, through people like you, think that a kid suppose to have more time dedicated to the state than to spend with parents. If two to three hours of homework is needed, what in the heck are kids doing during the school day? Nothing?
"That's not going to work and certainly will not get students ready for college where they can expect 3 hours of homework for each hour they spend in class."
Well, not all kids go to college, nor should they. Also, I do not see where you get these numbers, no one spends three hours for homework for each hour of class. The whole argument for preparing for college is ridiculous, it would be like I need to wear a warm jacket in the summer to prepare me for the cold winter. First year UG is so stupidly easy that many kids are completing it before they are out of HS.
. . . disproved piaget and most of the subsequent research on childhood development.
Don't give me the credit. Much of Piaget's "work" was disproved by the subsequent research. His methods have been criticized (small sample size, children may have been conditioned to give expected response) and some of his conclusions disproved. I'm not saying there's nothing worth studying in his ideas, but they aren't Truth. They are one man's observations and conclusions - of children in one culture and from one time period.
Anyway, I did what you suggested and brushed up a little on Piaget. I still couldn't find anything that gives the idea that 8-10-year-olds are not capable of selecting a spelling activity that will help them learn the spelling words. (By trial and error, they should be able to get it.) Maybe you could provide a link.
I did learn that young Piaget himself was quite a scholar and published his first paper at age 10.
"He became interested in mechanics, birds, fossils of secondary and tertiary layers, and seashells when he was seven. And, at an early age became an active scholar. He published his first paper at age ten . . ." Psychology History
From parents to state and federal policy makers, it seems that everyone is decrying the decline in educational standards over the last generations. What role does homework play in maintaining higher standards? What is the movement among parents against homework about? Does homework enhance learning, or is it just busywork? Is there a happy medium between none and too much? Is it ok to require more homework incrementally, in middle school and highschool? What are your observations as parents and as educators?
When I was in school, homework was serious business. If I didn't finish my homework, dessert wouldn't be served, play-time wasn't allowed, sometimes I would have to stay up or wake up an extra hour early to finish, and in the later grades I wasn't allowed phone time or internet time. When I had questions, I would ask my parents and they would help me but not give me answers. They would also check my homework and make me re-do the problems I got wrong until I got help or solved it on my own.
Unfortunately, the idea of homework has completely changed. Many students, parents, and even teachers view it as busy-work. I have seen friends trade homework so they wouldn't have to do it; I have seen parents do their children's homework (and not even try to change the handwriting). While I think that some teachers develop a rut of assigning homework that has little to do with the lesson or doesn't ask students to apply what they have learned, I do know that many teachers have developed genuine lessons and tasks for students to complete beyond the classroom lesson. I agree that there needs to be some sort of homework that extends their learning beyond the classroom. The key is in the preparation of the lesson and adapting lessons and homework to target specific areas of learning that are genuinely appealing to students.
That's not going to work and certainly will not get students ready for college where they can expect 3 hours of homework for each hour they spend in class.
The top students who go into the more difficult majors will adapt when they get there.
I'm not saying it's a good thing.
Study time should be falling. I do not see where it is expected that as efficiency increases in teaching methods, studying methods, and student material, that study time should remain constant.
When I was in school, homework was serious business. .
No kidding. My parents would not have tolerated homework not being done when I was young. There was no TV or playing outside until it was finished. These day I hear parents write notes excusing homework because of baseball games and birthday parties.
As I got older it became my responsibility and I could do it or suffer the consequences. I probably had under an hour through elementary school, 1-2 hours through middle school and in high school I could have 3-5 hours a night. I wouldn't trade it for anything. Sure an average day for me in high school wasn't overly fun, but I graduated accepted to a great college, with a healthy understanding of the English language, history, sciences and math. It's really not that much when you figure there are 5 academic majors plus electives.
Not all homework is problem-solving, or worksheets, either. There's a lot of reading in middle school and HS. Reading chapters of history and reviewing, reading literature, reading science lessons. These days instead of book reports to write, kids have video/power point reports to put together. I think students who have a few hours of homework/night in HS learn how to organize their time, and have a smoother transition to college.
One issue related to homework is how many classes students have in school each day. Students who take fewer electives have more study hall time to complete some of their homework in school.
No homework on weekends, or over a vacation. If it's assigned Friday and will take one night, it should be due Tuesday.
Make it as engaging as possible.
No homework over 30 minutes for elementary, 60 minutes for middle, 80 minutes for high.
I don't think it could really work to have a no homework over the weekend rule for high school. High school kids have assignments that require large chunks of time to complete (like research papers and lab reports). Those type of assignments are meaningful and really require kids to sit down, uninterrupted for large stretches of time. Plus-kids that play sports usually save whatever they can for the weekend.
During football season my son would do whatever needed to be done during the week in time to hand it in. However, he would save whatever he could save for the weekend. Having more homework mid week would have required him to stay up way to late during the middle of the week.
Homework in moderation is good for kids. The only time I have issues with homework is when it is excessive.
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