The Homework Trap

I found a blog a few days ago. It is by Kenneth Golberg, and he talks about something he calls the homework trap. In it he make three recommendations for helping students who are not getting their homework done. One of these is that students who are struggling with homework be allowed to do homework for a set amount of time rather than a set number of problems. He suggests that students for whom school work is difficult will develop avoidance behaviors if they are force to struggle through long hours of homework. I see his point, but I also wonder if 10 or 15 minutes of homework is enough for these kids. Students who struggle with homework are likely to be somewhat behind their peers, or have gaps in their past learning. If they have reduced numbers of problems to solve, will they continue to fall behind? What makes a concept or skill "stick" in a students brain? Is it spending a certain amount of time with that concept or skill or is it doing a certain number of exercises involving what is to be learned? Maybe the whole idea of being behind is antiquated. If we move to competency based instruction maybe this won't matter any more and students can simply learn at their own pace. But is that just "the soft bigotry of low expectations"? As with many issues in education, I feel ambivalent about the idea of using time as the limiting factor for homework. However, we have tried the current method of forcing students to finish their homework for a long time, and it doesn't seem to be working. Maybe it's time to try letting students limit their time on homework.