At a meeting of department chairs at my school our position on homework came up. I have previously written about what I do with homework, but I found my natural resistance occurring this morning. It is expected that in every class the default position is no homework. That homework should only be assigned if it is effective, essential, and efficient, and that ultimately we should err on the side of not giving homework rather than doing so.
My first inclination, as a math teacher, is that the only way to learn math is that it needs to be practiced – in some form or another – everyday. Now I have already modified my assignments, at least in my Geometry class, so that rarely do students have required problems, although I do recommend and suggest problems to do. However, I do have them turn in a homework assignment outlining what they learned, what questions they still have, and what problem was difficult for them. So in essence, my default position is that there is almost always homework because I think they need to at least be thinking about what we are doing a little bit each day, although not necessarily problems.
So how do I reconcile what I do with what is asked of me. I know that there are some authors out there – Alfie Kohn comes immediately to mind – who would probably wholeheartedly agree with my administrations, position. And philosophically I somewhat agree as well, but I cannot shake the feeling that there needs to be some thinking done about classtime nearly every day.
I will continue to think on this… perhaps I will have a better answer the next time I post on homework.
