Blog #10 Rationale for Homework

The homework debate has been around for years, but has recently resurfaced in a different way.  Today's families are harried, what with parents working just to stay afloat in this current economy, and students having multiple extracurricular activities and responsibilities outside of school.

Johanna Sorrentino, in her article "The Homework Debate" wrote about a school in Arizona in which the school policy is to "make sure learning remains a joy for their students, not a second shift of work."  I think that many teachers often lose sight of this, and give students unnecessary work to do at home.  In my opinion, homework should have a purpose.  It should be given as a follow-up to what the teacher has instructed and to what the students have learned.  Local and state standards must be addressed as well, and so homework can never be given as busy work.  If teachers cannot come up with the reason for their homeowk assignments, then perhaps they should not be given in the first place.

In my classroom, I assign homework in one form or the other almost every night; some assignments are follow-up worksheets that accompany the math curriculum, while others are on-going things the students must do, like read every night for at least fifteen minutes, and study their differentiated lists of spelling words.  I have seen both sides of the debate personally; some parents want more homework for their children and some want less.  There is no pleasing everyone, it seems.  As a rule, I follow the general guidelines of ten minutes for every grade in school, so my students have no more than thirty minutes a day.  Special projects may be given from time to time, but students are given ample warning of due dates.  Third grade has recently assigned a volcano project, and the students have a month to complete it.  Feedback from me comes in the form of graded work on which I have corrected student mistakes so that they know what their errors were.  One to one conversation about their work is also something I do in my classroom.

As for technology, my students have access to a website that lists their spelling words, current basal stories, and activities that go along with them.  One assignment I give is to reread the story midway through the week on this site.  I find it very useful because the site lets the students hear the words as they are being read out loud.  The words are also highlighted so that slower readers can track the words.  I also have my own page where the students and parents can see what assignments are coming up. Students and parents can communicate with me on this site every day if they choose to do so.

Homework has value when given with purpose.




Sorrentino, J. (n.d.). The homework debate. Retrieved from http://education.com.