What are the benefits of homework?
• Students: deepens understanding and solidifies concepts learned in class.
• Parents: communicates what students are learning; an opportunity for parents to help their child.
• Teachers: provides feedback about what students have previously learned; helps guide instructional decisions
Below are the guidelines for elementary school homework listed in the Hillsborough County Public Schools Student Handbook.
Important highlights of the homework guidelines include:
• Homework should not cover new concepts; it should reinforce concepts already learned.
• In 4th grade, homework for all subject areas should not exceed a total of 45 minutes.
• Homework should not impact math report card grades; it should be reflected in “Expected Behaviors” section of the report card.
• Homework can be differentiated.
• Regular feedback about homework should be given to parents.
• Students should be able to accomplish the homework on their own.
What could 4th grade math homework look like?
• 1-2 problems (teacher created, or taken from a Go Math resource, Item Specifications, or a unit homework flyer) which require that students explain their thinking with models, words and numbers.
• Active thinking with a multiple choice question; students explain why all of the solutions not chosen are incorrect. This may also include multi-select questions with more than one correct answer.
• Process questions in which the answer is already given, and the importance is placed on finding different ways to justify the answer.
• A game that has already been played in class, sent home to play with older sibling or parent.
To assist with the implementation of purposeful homework, a sample homework sheet has been created for every grade level, one sample per unit. The purpose of the homework sheet is to encourage discussion about math concepts between both the parent and child, and the parent and teacher. There is also a template included in each unit; teachers are encouraged to continue that same format of homework for other concepts within a unit. These samples can be accessed on page 1 of each unit of study. A sample homework sheet is shown below:
Parent flyers have also been created for each K-5 math unit to communicate student learning with parents. The flyers include information about the content, sample tasks, a video, and purposeful practice tasks that parents can implement with their child at home. Flyers can be printed out and sent home, or parents can access the flyer for each unit at http://www.sdhc.k12.fl.us/doc/list/elementary-mathematics/resources/78-291/.
Additional information on homework, specifically ways parents can support at home can be found at http://alturl.com/rax3q or at https://youtu.be/-f0eC136F-k
The 4th Grade FSA Item Specifications, found at http://fsassessments.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Grade-4-Math-Test-Item-Specifications_Final_May-2016.pdf, can be a useful resource for homework sample problems and item types.