Assessing Student Work

f it doesn’t reflect actual content knowledge, it doesn’t go in the gradebook. Period.

If you as a classroom teacher are going to become focused on learning, an Edunator if you will, then you can’t be left guessing as to whether or not your students learned material. You’re going to need evidence of student learning.

First, no research has ever found a benefit to assigning homework (of any kind or in any amount) in elementary school.

Second, even at the high school level, the research supporting homework hasn’t been particularly persuasive.  There does seem to be a correlation between homework and standardized test scores, but (a) it isn’t strong, meaning that homework doesn’t explain much of the variance in scores,

Third, when homework is related to test scores, the connection tends to be strongest -- or, actually, least tenuous -- with math.  If homework turns out to be unnecessary for students to succeed in that subject, it’s probably unnecessary everywhere.