What happens in MCPS (and others) if your child does not do the homework,

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:From one teacher's perspective, I give out homework that is both optional and required. Students know the ground rules at the start of the term and how much, if any, the required homework will count towards their grade. If the student chooses to habitually fail to turn in required work this will be reflected in their final grade, unless there is justification. Rules don't change in midstream to accommodate a single student with a different philosophy about homework. You have 3 choices, find another classroom, accept the consequences of your decision, or appeal. If you can't provide justification the student is back to square one. I try to keep the playing field even and fair for all the students and if others can get the required homework done they get credit. Those that don't will not get credit. No favoritism.

Curious. If for what ever reason the no homework kid always knows the answer, and tests well, do you still penalize them?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And who are you...an educator?

Whom are you addressing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From one teacher's perspective, I give out homework that is both optional and required. Students know the ground rules at the start of the term and how much, if any, the required homework will count towards their grade. If the student chooses to habitually fail to turn in required work this will be reflected in their final grade, unless there is justification. Rules don't change in midstream to accommodate a single student with a different philosophy about homework. You have 3 choices, find another classroom, accept the consequences of your decision, or appeal. If you can't provide justification the student is back to square one. I try to keep the playing field even and fair for all the students and if others can get the required homework done they get credit. Those that don't will not get credit. No favoritism.

Curious. If for what ever reason the no homework kid always knows the answer, and tests well, do you still penalize them?

In MCPS we do. But really - it's 10%. And if a student manages to earn As and Bs on most common tasks (or projects), 10% isn't going to kill him/her, especially if a teacher uses formative assessments to drive instruction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you think your children have voluminous and unmanageable homework in MCPS elementary school you don't know what will hit them in MCPS high school...if they are college bound.

It's not so much voluminous or unmanageable homework that would concern me. In the elementary years, I'm concerned about homework that is primarily meant for practice and reinforcement of a skill -- when that skill has already been mastered. Homework that only takes 5 minutes to complete wouldn't be such a concern, even if the kid already knows the stuff. 5 minutes, so what?

But 20 or 30 minutes of homework practicing an already mastered skill -- that's a concern, if it is mandatory. If it isn't mandatory, no problem.

I'd assume that by the time a child is in high school, homework is no longer to practice basic skills, but is to synthesize information being learned in class. Kids need to take a lot of time to write essays and work on projects, that can't all happen in class. Si of course I'd expect homework in high school to take longer and be much more intense.

[Anonymous]

From one teacher's perspective, I give out homework that is both optional and required. Students know the ground rules at the start of the term and how much, if any, the required homework will count towards their grade. If the student chooses to habitually fail to turn in required work this will be reflected in their final grade, unless there is justification. Rules don't change in midstream to accommodate a single student with a different philosophy about homework. You have 3 choices, find another classroom, accept the consequences of your decision, or appeal. If you can't provide justification the student is back to square one. I try to keep the playing field even and fair for all the students and if others can get the required homework done they get credit. Those that don't will not get credit. No favoritism.

If there are any additional credits due from turning in required work these are awarded to students that turn in the homework. No homework. No credit. Students that do not turn in the work are not penalised. But, if that's the way the teacher sets up the ground rules. Why not?

[Anonymous]

It's not so much voluminous or unmanageable homework that would concern me. In the elementary years, I'm concerned about homework that is primarily meant for practice and reinforcement of a skill -- when that skill has already been mastered. Homework that only takes 5 minutes to complete wouldn't be such a concern, even if the kid already knows the stuff. 5 minutes, so what?

But 20 or 30 minutes of homework practicing an already mastered skill -- that's a concern, if it is mandatory. If it isn't mandatory, no problem.

I'd assume that by the time a child is in high school, homework is no longer to practice basic skills, but is to synthesize information being learned in class. Kids need to take a lot of time to write essays and work on projects, that can't all happen in class. Si of course I'd expect homework in high school to take longer and be much more intense.

I suspect mastery of academic skills is in the eye of the beholder.

[Anonymous]

It's not so much voluminous or unmanageable homework that would concern me. In the elementary years, I'm concerned about homework that is primarily meant for practice and reinforcement of a skill -- when that skill has already been mastered. Homework that only takes 5 minutes to complete wouldn't be such a concern, even if the kid already knows the stuff. 5 minutes, so what?

But 20 or 30 minutes of homework practicing an already mastered skill -- that's a concern, if it is mandatory. If it isn't mandatory, no problem.

I'd assume that by the time a child is in high school, homework is no longer to practice basic skills, but is to synthesize information being learned in class. Kids need to take a lot of time to write essays and work on projects, that can't all happen in class. Si of course I'd expect homework in high school to take longer and be much more intense.

I suspect that you would veto problem solving that would require more than 5 min to figure out. So problem solving exercises that required analytical thinking skills and a variety of strategies would be off limits for those that think homework is not very useful in younger aged pupils.

A simple and single word problem for an 8 year-old child may require a little longer then 5 minutes to read, reread, understand, diagram and come up with a strategy to solve. However, the child may do 50 rote fill in the blank exercises in less than 5 minutes. I prefer the former type of homework for my child any day of the week. I don't care if it takes him an hour to solve the riddle. The irony I find is many parent can't solve a couple of simple word problems (8/9 year-old standard) in 5 or 60 min!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I suspect that you would veto problem solving that would require more than 5 min to figure out. So problem solving exercises that required analytical thinking skills and a variety of strategies would be off limits for those that think homework is not very useful in younger aged pupils.

A simple and single word problem for an 8 year-old child may require a little longer then 5 minutes to read, reread, understand, diagram and come up with a strategy to solve. However, the child may do 50 rote fill in the blank exercises in less than 5 minutes. I prefer the former type of homework for my child any day of the week. I don't care if it takes him an hour to solve the riddle. The irony I find is many parent can't solve a couple of simple word problems (8/9 year-old standard) in 5 or 60 min!

No, I wouldn't "veto" interesting homework that requires higher order thinking skills! Not at all! That type of homework I would welcome (I'd still prefer in the early elementary years, that it not take too long, except occasionally, and at predictable intervals, so we can plan that, say, Thursday homework always takes a lot longer.)

I'm saying if homework based on practicing rote skills which my child has already mastered NEEDS to be completed, for some ridiculous reason, please keep it to under 5 minutes so my child can do other things with the rest of his afternoon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

It's not so much voluminous or unmanageable homework that would concern me. In the elementary years, I'm concerned about homework that is primarily meant for practice and reinforcement of a skill -- when that skill has already been mastered. Homework that only takes 5 minutes to complete wouldn't be such a concern, even if the kid already knows the stuff. 5 minutes, so what?

But 20 or 30 minutes of homework practicing an already mastered skill -- that's a concern, if it is mandatory. If it isn't mandatory, no problem.

I'd assume that by the time a child is in high school, homework is no longer to practice basic skills, but is to synthesize information being learned in class. Kids need to take a lot of time to write essays and work on projects, that can't all happen in class. Si of course I'd expect homework in high school to take longer and be much more intense.

I suspect mastery of academic skills is in the eye of the beholder.

Shouldn't be -- that's what pretests are for!

[Anonymous]

No, I wouldn't "veto" interesting homework that requires higher order thinking skills! Not at all! That type of homework I would welcome (I'd still prefer in the early elementary years, that it not take too long, except occasionally, and at predictable intervals, so we can plan that, say, Thursday homework always takes a lot longer.)

I'm saying if homework based on practicing rote skills which my child has already mastered NEEDS to be completed, for some ridiculous reason, please keep it to under 5 minutes so my child can do other things with the rest of his afternoon.

I don't think you develop these "interesting" type of skills with the occasional assignment. These fundamental skills are developed from frequent practise. And the time it takes kids to master this drops significantly with pateint practise/homework. With frequent practise you'd be amazed how quickly kids learn to solve problems. This makes future homework easier and faster to dispense with. These are the type of skills that separate the wheat from the chaffe in high school and college. Unfortunately, you just don't turn these skills on like a spicket when a kid gets to high school if he only does 10 min of homework per grade level.

[Anonymous]

Shouldn't be -- that's what pretests are for

The biased pretests the parents or the teachers perform! The same ones you refuse to let parents see with no normative values or yardsticks (means with standard deviations) for comparison. Tell us about your pretests.

[Anonymous]

Are the pretest used in MCPS validated?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Shouldn't be -- that's what pretests are for

The biased pretests the parents or the teachers perform! The same ones you refuse to let parents see with no normative values or yardsticks (means with standard deviations) for comparison. Tell us about your pretests.

I'm talking about teacher created pretests of the skills they are teaching. For example, in a math class, if the skills being taught and sent home for homewor include mastery of addition facts: 7+8, 7+9, 6+7, 5+8 and so on -- single digit addition with sums greater than 10 -- the teachers give the children a pretest to see who has already mastered those addition facts. Children who already have complete accuracy with these facts and can ansqwer the questions quickly )without counting on their fingers) really do not need to take them home and review and practice them, nightly, for 10 minutes. They should be given more appropriate homework.

Also, spelling pretests. Children should be given a pretest of that week's spelling words. Children who can already spell all the words on the spelling list do not need to then take those words home and copy them three times each. They should be given different homework -- or words they don't already know how to spell!

I don't know why you are asking about normative values for this kind of pretest?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

No, I wouldn't "veto" interesting homework that requires higher order thinking skills! Not at all! That type of homework I would welcome (I'd still prefer in the early elementary years, that it not take too long, except occasionally, and at predictable intervals, so we can plan that, say, Thursday homework always takes a lot longer.)

I'm saying if homework based on practicing rote skills which my child has already mastered NEEDS to be completed, for some ridiculous reason, please keep it to under 5 minutes so my child can do other things with the rest of his afternoon.

I don't think you develop these "interesting" type of skills with the occasional assignment. These fundamental skills are developed from frequent practise. And the time it takes kids to master this drops significantly with pateint practise/homework. With frequent practise you'd be amazed how quickly kids learn to solve problems. This makes future homework easier and faster to dispense with. These are the type of skills that separate the wheat from the chaffe in high school and college. Unfortunately, you just don't turn these skills on like a spicket when a kid gets to high school if he only does 10 min of homework per grade level.

No -- I agree -- higher order thinking skills do not get developed with the "occasional" assignment. That is why they need to be taught, in school; especially in the later elementary years (grades 4-6), after the basics have been mastered (through repetition and practice, as necessary) in early elementary school. Again, key word is IN SCHOOL. The curriculum should be efficient enough that these skills can be taught, efficiently, in school.

[Anonymous]

Why do a significant number of area children get their math education OUT OF SCHOOL. Is this overkill or does SCHOOL fail them and many find a way to compensate. I would hazard that the majority of area kids do. MAJORITY = > 50%. Do you think these kids and parents would do this if they had faith in MATH taught in SCHOOL. They don't seem to be a leery about SCHOOL regarding the other subjects.