Homework in High School Heather Heeter Mollie Rice Michelle Gerrity

Consider these questions during your discussion: What do you assign for homework? How often do you assign homework? How much homework do you assign?

WHAT are we assigning for homework? Read Projects Study Journal Vocab Writing SCoodle Forum posts Research Presentations Group projects Marinate Food preparation

WHEN are we assigning homework? Do you give more or less homework on particular week nights? Do you assign homework over the weekend? o How much? o Is it more or less than on a week night? Do you assign homework over breaks or holidays? o How much? Is it more or less than over a weekend?

Homework based on course level Is your homework load on par with others who are teaching the same level within your grade? For example: o Two of you teach Advanced English 9. o Are you giving similar assignments or amounts of homework to other Advanced English 9 teachers? Consider: o Does it matter if you are on par with your colleagues? o Should you change your homework policies based on what others are doing?

Homework based on course level Does the amount or difficulty level of the homework increase based on the level within the grade? o You teach English 10. After seeing what Advanced English 10 teachers assign, do you feel your homework is reasonable? o Do you think your homework levels are preparing students to continue on to the same level of English in the next grade? (Are you preparing your Advanced English 10 students for Advanced English 11?) Consider: o Should you change your curriculum/homework policy to meet the standards set by teachers in grades above you?

The Great Homework Debate What do you think about homework? When and why should homework be assigned? How often should homework be assigned? How much time should homework take students to complete? How much effort should students have to put into homework? How do time and effort correlate? How much time should be given for homework to be completed? (daily assignments vs.long-term assignments) What kinds of homework assignments are most beneficial to learning? Should homework be assigned at all? What do your students think?

"Homework Problems" by Susan Moon Back in my day... What were you like as a middle/high school student? How did you feel about homework? In your experience as a student, why types of homework assignments were most beneficial to your learning?

"Homework Problems" by Susan Moon A SCAHS Student Perspective: "Now I'm not arguing against homework completely.... What I don't agree with... is busy work." "The older we get, the more cumulative and involving our homework should be. The harder our classes are, the more analytical and in-depth our homework should be--but that doesn't mean giving us more homework per subject; it just means the depth of the homework should increase." What constitutes "busy work"? How do teachers increase the "depth" of homework assignments (without making them too time consuming)?