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222 points dougb5 | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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zdragnar ◴[] No.45123041[source]
I recently found out that my nephew's school had no take-home homework before high school, instead having kids complete assignments during class time. At first, I was flabbergasted that they would deny kids the discipline building of managing unstructured time without direct supervision. Homework- at home- seemed like such a fundamental part of the schooling experience.

Now, I'm thinking that was pretty much they only way they could think of to ensure kids were doing things themselves.

I know it was a rough transition for my nephew, though, and I don't know that I would have handled it very well either. I'm not sure what would be a better option, though, given how much of a disservice such easy access to a mental crutch is.

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nunez ◴[] No.45126802[source]
There seems to be two schools od thought on this from what I've learned from my wife's experiences.

One school has been abdicating homework for more in-classroom practice, as homework adds more grading and scheduling load on the teacher for little overall benefit. The core idea behind this is that motivated students will always practice at home, even if they aren't explicitly asked to. Unmotivated students --- usually the majority in a typical classroom --- won't or will do a poor job of it.

Another school of thought is the "flipped" classroom. This approach doubles-down on homework by having teachers prepare a pre-recorded lesson for students to watch while they're home and using the classroom as a space for practice and retention. This increases the student's accountability for their own learning while decreasing the teacher's workload over time if they are teaching the same material for a long time (very high initially, of course).

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1. BrenBarn ◴[] No.45135306[source]
What do they do in the flipped classroom when (not if :-) some students come to class having done absolutely nothing at home?
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2. nunez ◴[] No.45138749[source]
Depends on the instructor, the school, the admin, the state, etc. This is actually a huge blind spot with the approach. We have a friend that's a college instructor that will turn students away if they don't do the material. Flipped works great in that environment. Not so much when you're a public school teacher in a state that cares about standardized test performance and advancement at all costs while also cutting their education budgets and, consequently, forcing teachers to wrangle 30+ student classrooms...

Thread on the topic: https://old.reddit.com/r/Teachers/comments/1958imi/what_are_...