s/o APS middle school math homework question

[Anonymous]

Do the kids who are taking algebra have homework for algebra and/or for the year they are in a class that is compressing 2-3 years of math into one year?

My kid will be in the pre-algebra for 6th graders next year at Gunston and I am just wondering if I am going to be having to come up with my own ways of making sure he is practicing or if he will be getting homework. I am not comfortable with him learning 3 years of math in 1 year without additional practice to reinforce what he is learning.

[Anonymous]

My kid was in 6th grade pre algebra at a different middle this year and routinely had math homework. Almost no homework in other classes.

[Anonymous]

My son just finished pre-algebra at Swanson. They had a minimum number of weekly assignments in Dreambox each week. The 6th grade team also always also had posted a page with links to extra practice options for the unit they were covering in a range of different apps. Every now and then there was a specific homework assignment.

[Anonymous]

You are overthinking it. they have practice time in class so they can ask questions to the teacher. What they don’t finish is generally the homework. It’s much better to do reinforcement in the classroom where you can have immediate feedback, then waiting eight hours later at home to try it on your own. There will be times when they have additional/separate homework but I really don’t think this is something you need to be overly concerned with

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do the kids who are taking algebra have homework for algebra and/or for the year they are in a class that is compressing 2-3 years of math into one year?

My kid will be in the pre-algebra for 6th graders next year at Gunston and I am just wondering if I am going to be having to come up with my own ways of making sure he is practicing or if he will be getting homework. I am not comfortable with him learning 3 years of math in 1 year without additional practice to reinforce what he is learning.

Mine will be taking it at a different school and I plan to seek reinforcement because having a strong foundation is so critical, and up until now, there hasn’t been any challenge. There’s a summer AoPS pre-pre-algebra course this summer, but we have conflicts. Will likely sign up for one of their classes to do concurrently during the school year.

[Anonymous]

For algebra in 7th, DD had homework but didn't have to do it. What mattered is that they mastered the material. I think this approach is becoming more and more common, but I believe it's up to the teacher. I don't remember what 6th was like but I believe that DD didn't do a lot of the homework assignments and still did well in the class (and obviously was placed in algebra for 7th because that was where they belonged).

DD is not the kind of child who can be pushed so I almost entirely stayed out of it. The only thing I did was help them at the beginning of sixth do one math assignment with them so I could show them how to be neat and organized when writing down their work, and impressed upon them that organization and neatness was almost as important as learning the concepts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You are overthinking it. they have practice time in class so they can ask questions to the teacher. What they don’t finish is generally the homework. It’s much better to do reinforcement in the classroom where you can have immediate feedback, then waiting eight hours later at home to try it on your own. There will be times when they have additional/separate homework but I really don’t think this is something you need to be overly concerned with

Having immediate classroom feedback on homework is good but that means there is less time for instruction. (With block scheduling, breaking up class instruction with practice is unavoidable, but that argues for not using block scheduling for math so you don't have to limit weekly instruction.) Also, as content gets harder each year, additional reinforcing homework (done at home) becomes more important.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are overthinking it. they have practice time in class so they can ask questions to the teacher. What they don’t finish is generally the homework. It’s much better to do reinforcement in the classroom where you can have immediate feedback, then waiting eight hours later at home to try it on your own. There will be times when they have additional/separate homework but I really don’t think this is something you need to be overly concerned with

Having immediate classroom feedback on homework is good but that means there is less time for instruction. (With block scheduling, breaking up class instruction with practice is unavoidable, but that argues for not using block scheduling for math so you don't have to limit weekly instruction.) Also, as content gets harder each year, additional reinforcing homework (done at home) becomes more important.

Um ok. APS uses block schedules. It’s not developmentally appropriate to teach new material for the whole block. Practicing the lesson is not taking away from instruction time, it’s re-inforcing the lesson in a hands on manner.

[Anonymous]

It cuts into new instruction time per week, making it harder to cover a year's worth of content.

[Anonymous]

My kid had math homework. Sometimes he could finish it at school; sometimes not. Also at Gunston.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Having immediate classroom feedback on homework is good but that means there is less time for instruction. (With block scheduling, breaking up class instruction with practice is unavoidable, but that argues for not using block scheduling for math so you don't have to limit weekly instruction.) Also, as content gets harder each year, additional reinforcing homework (done at home) becomes more important.

Um ok. APS uses block schedules. It’s not developmentally appropriate to teach new material for the whole block. Practicing the lesson is not taking away from instruction time, it’s re-inforcing the lesson in a hands on manner.

Built in time to practice is called classwork. APS has kids regularly do "homework" during class, which by definition means it isn't homework.

I'm a PP, and we required DC to do 20min of math per night in middle school using either apps from school or in workbooks that we purchased. DC is a strong student but needed to practice and reinforce concepts taught during the day. If we hadn't done that it would have meant DC essentially did math only 3 days per week. No homework, no daily class. That's not enough to master pre-algebra.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Having immediate classroom feedback on homework is good but that means there is less time for instruction. (With block scheduling, breaking up class instruction with practice is unavoidable, but that argues for not using block scheduling for math so you don't have to limit weekly instruction.) Also, as content gets harder each year, additional reinforcing homework (done at home) becomes more important.

Um ok. APS uses block schedules. It’s not developmentally appropriate to teach new material for the whole block. Practicing the lesson is not taking away from instruction time, it’s re-inforcing the lesson in a hands on manner.

Built in time to practice is called classwork. APS has kids regularly do "homework" during class, which by definition means it isn't homework.

I'm a PP, and we required DC to do 20min of math per night in middle school using either apps from school or in workbooks that we purchased. DC is a strong student but needed to practice and reinforce concepts taught during the day. If we hadn't done that it would have meant DC essentially did math only 3 days per week. No homework, no daily class. That's not enough to master pre-algebra.

That’s excessive unless the child is behind. Our sixth grader mastered pre-algebra with straight days with no extra homework time. They are not some genius or anomaly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Having immediate classroom feedback on homework is good but that means there is less time for instruction. (With block scheduling, breaking up class instruction with practice is unavoidable, but that argues for not using block scheduling for math so you don't have to limit weekly instruction.) Also, as content gets harder each year, additional reinforcing homework (done at home) becomes more important.

Um ok. APS uses block schedules. It’s not developmentally appropriate to teach new material for the whole block. Practicing the lesson is not taking away from instruction time, it’s re-inforcing the lesson in a hands on manner.

Built in time to practice is called classwork. APS has kids regularly do "homework" during class, which by definition means it isn't homework.

I'm a PP, and we required DC to do 20min of math per night in middle school using either apps from school or in workbooks that we purchased. DC is a strong student but needed to practice and reinforce concepts taught during the day. If we hadn't done that it would have meant DC essentially did math only 3 days per week. No homework, no daily class. That's not enough to master pre-algebra.

That’s excessive unless the child is behind. Our sixth grader mastered pre-algebra with straight days with no extra homework time. They are not some genius or anomaly.

You may want to cross check with the AoPS Algebra 1 pre-test just to confirm. There's a lot of content in pre-algebra to master. Without homework, that is hard to do. Hats off to your sixth grader if they could do it without homework.
https://data.artofproblemsolving.com/course-docs/diagnostics/algebra-a-pretest.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That’s excessive unless the child is behind. Our sixth grader mastered pre-algebra with straight days with no extra homework time. They are not some genius or anomaly.

Disagree. Throughout elementary school kids all had to read 20min each night. They didn't say to the advanced readers "oh, don't worry about it". Homework can strengthen skills, and in something like math where you often need to master concepts and then practice their application, doing a little bit each day can matter. More power to you if your child was able to have pre-algebra three times per week and fully master it with no other additional classroom time or practice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Having immediate classroom feedback on homework is good but that means there is less time for instruction. (With block scheduling, breaking up class instruction with practice is unavoidable, but that argues for not using block scheduling for math so you don't have to limit weekly instruction.) Also, as content gets harder each year, additional reinforcing homework (done at home) becomes more important.

Um ok. APS uses block schedules. It’s not developmentally appropriate to teach new material for the whole block. Practicing the lesson is not taking away from instruction time, it’s re-inforcing the lesson in a hands on manner.

Built in time to practice is called classwork. APS has kids regularly do "homework" during class, which by definition means it isn't homework.

I'm a PP, and we required DC to do 20min of math per night in middle school using either apps from school or in workbooks that we purchased. DC is a strong student but needed to practice and reinforce concepts taught during the day. If we hadn't done that it would have meant DC essentially did math only 3 days per week. No homework, no daily class. That's not enough to master pre-algebra.

That’s excessive unless the child is behind. Our sixth grader mastered pre-algebra with straight days with no extra homework time. They are not some genius or anomaly.

You may want to talk to families with older kids. Many kids follow one of these paths:

1) Families recognize that with block schedules and minimal homework, their kid is not going to build a sufficiently strong base in middle school math. They enroll their kid in AoPS or RSM or some other program. Those groups do assign homework and kids build a strong base steadily as they proceed through high school.

2) Families assume that good grades in middle school math mean their kid is proficient in math and let it be. Then as the kid gets to high school, courses assume firm knowledge of earlier concepts that they never developed fully or can't remember and they start to do poorly in math class for the first time. At that point, there are two choices: pull back to a lower math pathway or hire a tutor who will assign the homework that wasn't done earlier and build their math foundation.

Of course, there are some kids that do ok throughout without outside supplementation. However, those kids have to work very hard as they advance to both backfill and learn new content at the same time.

This is obviously just one person's view, so take it for what it's worth.