Dive Brief:

• A second-grade teacher in Texas told parents at the start of the school year that students wouldn’t have formal homework, suggesting instead that the parents do other things that correlate with student success, like eating dinner together, reading, playing outside and putting their children to bed early.
• Christine Hauser, whose daughter is entering second grade this year, writes for the New York Times that this anecdote is just one of many relating to children and homework expectations as students head back to school.
• Hauser says the National PTA and the National Education Association both endorse a 10-minute-per-grade limit on homework, meaning first graders get no more than 10 minutes of homework, sixth graders get an hour and 12th graders get two hours.

Dive Insight:

A regular complaint from students is that their teachers act as though that class is the only one the student has. When teachers do not have opportunities to collaborate, they have little time to find out how much homework other teachers in the same grade are assigning to their students. A schoolwide commitment to the 10-minute-per-grade timeline would have to also come with additional teacher collaboration time.

Flipped classrooms provide an interesting discussion point for homework. If students are being asked to listen to lectures or do the bulk of the basic learning outside of class to prepare for activities that build on it in class, it’s going to take time. As with so many things, schools have to find a balance. 

Recommended Reading

The New York Times: As Students Return to School, Debate About the Amount of Homework R...