Homework and Corrections
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Philosophy of assigning homework and allowing students to make corrections:
I believe, and scientific studies have proven, that students need practice to master new skills. The "ten minute rule" says that students should spend an average of ten minutes per grade level on homework four to five nights a week. This means that an average fourth grade student should spend about 40 minutes on homework, AR reading, and math fact practice or studying each school night.
Homework for my class falls into two categories. Most homework your child will bring home are assignments that were begun in class during the school day, but not completed during that time. Some homework consists of assignments (such as math fact practice) that do not have any class-time provided for the students to work on the project during the school day.
A typical lesson in my classroom consists of an introduction to the topic (often drawing on what was learned previously), an explanation or reading activity to develop the students' knowledge (this usually includes whole-group practice or question-answer segments), guided practice that allows the students to individually work problems or answer questions and get teacher or peer feedback, and independent practice that gives the students time to develop their mastery of the lesson. Most homework should be a continuation of this "independent practice" and students should need little or no adult assistance to complete their work. Individual students may need an adult to help them review the expectations or steps involved in the assignment, and monitoring to ensure that the students are staying on-task.
Long-term homework assignments help students develop time-management skills and work at their own pace on self-directed activities. Clear directions and a timeline for the assignment's completion are provided at the beginning of the project. Parents' roles in these type of homework assignments are to help their students develop a reasonable schedule for completing the project, assist with gathering the supplies the student will need, ensure that the student understands and follows the project's directions, and monitor the student's progress. Unless otherwise stated in the directions, long-term projects should be ONLY STUDENT WORK, not the efforts of a parent.
As a teacher, I will monitor students' completion of homework, and notify the childrens' parents if work is turned in late or not handed in on the day it was due. Check your child's assignment book for the day to see if your child had late or missing work.
Corrections serve two purposes. The main purpose is to allow a student to better understand a concept that he or she did not fully comprehend the first time and practice a skill correctly. A secondary purpose is to allow a student a second-chance to improve their score on a particular assignment.
I allow students in my class to correct most daily assignments, provided that the assignment was originally turned in in a timely manner. Only work with a score below 75% correct may be corrected and returned for a better score. Please see the directions below for complete instructions on how corrected work should be completed and turned in.
I do not allow students to correct tests. This is because the material on tests was already taught, practiced, and assigned for further study before the test was taken. Most tests will have studyguides provided so students will know the specific material that will be tested.
Long-term assignments (Specialty Project assignments, final copies of English papers, etc.) may not be corrected. This is because the students were given extended periods of time to complete their work and had opportunities for adult feedback before the scoring.
As a teacher, I will notify the child's parents ONE TIME that an assignment that needs to be corrected has been sent home. I will write a note in the child's daily assignment book and send the original work home that day to be corrected. I will not hold students in during recess for unfinished corrections, nor will I notify the student or their parents more than once that a particular paper needs to be corrected. Papers in need of correction will say "Correct and Return" somewhere at the top of the page.
Directions for correcting daily work:
- Daily assignments below 75% can and should be corrected and returned to be rescored. Assignments between 75%-100% may be corrected at home for mastery, but will not be rescored at school.
- Corrected work will be rescored and averaged with the original score. (Essentially, this means that each corrected answer is worth half-credit and then added to the original score).
- Corrections must be done on a clean sheet of paper with the correct heading.
- The paper with corrections must be stapled on top of the original paper, leaving the original paper easily read.
- Only answers that were incorrect need to be redone. Please number to match the original problem or question number!
- All work that is corrected must be completely redone to show understanding.
- Math problems must be completely rewritten and all steps shown for solving the problem.
- Corrections other than math must have the original questions or information included! *See also Answering Textbook Questions.
- All corrections should be signed by a parent or guardian when completed outside the classroom. Please check to see that your child has corrected all of the problems that originally had mistakes!
- A paper may only be corrected one time.
- Corrections should be returned to school within about 2 days of receiving the original scored assignment. Much beyond this, and the student does not relearn the correct information to apply it to following lessons.
- Please attach a note if your child needs teacher help to correct an assignment, and we will work with him/her at school.
- As the teacher, I reserve the right not to rescore corrected papers that are turned in long after the assignment was given to the student to correct, corrections turned in after the end-of-quarter deadline, or papers that show little or no effort on the student's part to correct all mistakes.