麻豆传媒入口

Homework tends to be a polarizing topic. While many teachers advocate for its complete elimination, others argue that it provides students with the extra practice they need to solidify their learning and teach them work habits鈥攍ike managing time and meeting deadlines鈥攖hat have lifelong benefits. 

We recently reached out to teachers in our audience to identify practices that can help educators plot a middle path. 

On , elementary school teacher John Thomas responded that the best homework is often no-strings-attached encouragement to read or play academically adjacent games with family members. 鈥淚 encourage reading every night,鈥� Thomas said, but he doesn鈥檛 use logs or other means of getting students to track their completion. 鈥淛ust encouragement and book bags with self selected books students take home for enjoyment.鈥澛�

Thomas said he also suggests to parents and students that they can play around with 鈥渕ath and science tools鈥� such as 鈥渃alculators, tape measures, protractors, rulers, money, tangrams, and building blocks.鈥� Math-based games like Yahtzee or dominoes can also serve as enriching鈥攁nd fun鈥攑ractice of skills they鈥檙e learning.

At the middle and high school level, homework generally increases, and that can be demotivating for teachers, who feel obliged to review or even grade halfhearted submissions. Student morale is at stake, too: 鈥淢ost [students] don鈥檛 complete it anyway,鈥� said high school teacher Krystn Stretzinger Charlie on . 鈥淚t ends up hurting them more than it helps.鈥�    

So how do teachers decide when to鈥攁nd when not to鈥攁ssign homework, and how do they ensure that the homework they assign feels meaningful, productive, and even motivating to students? 

1. Less is More

A analyzed the homework assignments of more than 20,000 middle and high school students and found that teachers are often a bad judge of how long homework will take. 

According to researchers, students spend as much as 85 minutes or as little as 30 minutes on homework that teachers imagined would take students one hour to complete. The researchers concluded that by assigning too much homework, teachers actually increased inequalities between students in exchange for 鈥渕inimal gains in achievement.鈥� Too much homework can overwhelm students who 鈥渉ave more gaps in their knowledge,鈥� the researchers said, and creates situations where homework becomes so time-consuming and frustrating that it turns students off to classwork more broadly.

To counteract this, middle school math teacher Crystal Frommert said she focuses on quality over quantity. Frommert cited the , which recommends only assigning 鈥渨hat鈥檚 necessary to augment instruction鈥� and adds that if teachers can 鈥済et sufficient information by assigning only five problems, then don鈥檛 assign fifty.鈥澛�

Instead of sending students home with worksheets and long problem sets from textbooks that often repeat the same concepts, Frommert recommended assigning part of a page, or even a few specific problems鈥攁nd explaining to students why these handpicked problems will be helpful practice. When students know there鈥檚 thought behind the problems they鈥檙e asked to solve at home, 鈥渢hey pay more attention to the condensed assignment because it was tailored for them,鈥� Frommert said.聽

On , high school teacher Jacob Palmer said that every now and then he condenses homework down to just one problem that is particularly engaging and challenging: 鈥淭he depth and exploration that can come from one single problem can be richer than 20 routine problems.鈥� 

2. Add Choice to the Equation 

Former educator and coach Mike Anderson said teachers can differentiate homework assignments without placing unrealistic demands on their workload by offering students some discretion in the work they complete and explicitly teaching them 鈥渉ow to choose appropriately challenging work for themselves.鈥澛�

Instead of assigning the same 20 problems or response questions on a given textbook page to all students, for example, Anderson suggested asking students to refer to the list of questions and choose and complete a designated number of them (three to five, for example) that give students 鈥渁 little bit of a challenge but that [they] can still solve independently.鈥澛�

To teach students how to choose well, Anderson has students practice choosing homework questions in class before the end of the day, brainstorming in groups and sharing their thoughts about what a good homework question should accomplish. The other part, of course, involves offering students good choices: 鈥淢ake sure that options for homework focus on the skills being practiced and are open-ended enough for all students to be successful,鈥� he said.聽

Once students have developed a better understanding of the purpose of challenging themselves to practice and grow as learners, Anderson also periodically asks them to come up with their own ideas for problems or other activities they can use to reinforce learning at home. A simple question, such as 鈥淲hat are some ideas for how you might practice this skill at home?鈥� can be enough to get students sharing ideas, he said. 

Jill Kibler, a former high school science teacher, told 麻豆传媒入口 that she implemented homework choice in her classroom by allowing students to decide how much of the work they鈥檝e recently turned in that they鈥檇 like to redo as homework: 鈥淪tudents had one grading cycle (about seven school days) to redo the work they wanted to improve,鈥� she said. 

3. Break the Mold 

According to high school English teacher Kate Dusto, the work that students produce at home doesn鈥檛 have to come in the traditional formats of written responses to a problem. On , Dusto told 麻豆传媒入口 that homework can often be made more interesting鈥攁nd engaging鈥攂y allowing students to show evidence of their learning in creative ways. 

鈥淥ffer choices for how they show their learning,鈥� Dusto said. 鈥淩ecord audio or video? Type or use speech to text? Draw or handwrite and then upload a picture?鈥� The possibilities are endless. 

Former educator and author Jay McTighe noted that visual representations such as graphic organizers and concept maps are particularly useful for students attempting to organize new information and solidify their understanding of abstract concepts. For example, students might be asked to 鈥渄raw a visual web of factors affecting plant growth鈥� in biology class or map out the plot, characters, themes, and settings of a novel or play they鈥檙e reading to visualize relationships between different elements of the story and deepen their comprehension of it.聽

Simple written responses to summarize new learning can also be made more interesting by varying the format, McTighe said. For example, ask students to compose a tweet in 280 characters or less to answer a question like 鈥淲hat is the big idea that you have learned about _____?鈥� or even record a short audio podcast or video podcast explaining 鈥渒ey concepts from one or more lessons.鈥�

4. Make Homework Voluntary 

When elementary school teacher Jacqueline Worthley Fiorentino stopped assigning mandatory homework to her second-grade students and suggested voluntary activities instead, she found that something surprising happened: 鈥淭hey started doing more work at home.鈥� 

Some of the simple, voluntary activities she presented students with included encouraging at-home reading (without mandating how much time they should spend reading); sending home weekly spelling words and math facts that will be covered in class but that should also be mastered by the end of the week: 鈥淚t will be up to each child to figure out the best way to learn to spell the words correctly or to master the math facts,鈥� she said; and creating voluntary lesson extensions such as pointing students to outside resources鈥攖exts, videos or films, webpages, or even online or in-person exhibits鈥攖o 鈥渆xpand their knowledge on a topic covered in class.鈥�

Anderson said that for older students, teachers can sometimes make whatever homework they assign a voluntary choice. 鈥淒o all students need to practice a skill? If not, you might keep homework invitational,鈥� he said, adding that teachers can tell students, 鈥淚f you think a little more practice tonight would help you solidify your learning, here are some examples you might try.鈥�

On , Natisha Wilson, a K鈥�12 gifted students coordinator for an Ohio school district, said that when students are working on a challenging question in class, she鈥檒l give them the option to 鈥渢ake it home and figure it out鈥� if they鈥檙e unable to complete it before the end of the period. Often students take her up on this, she said, because many of them 鈥渃an鈥檛 stand not knowing the answer.鈥� 

5. Grade for Completion鈥攐r Don鈥檛 Grade at All 

Former teacher Rick Wormeli that work on homework assignments isn鈥檛 鈥渆vidence of final level of proficiency鈥�; rather, it鈥檚 practice that provides teachers with 鈥渇eedback and informs where we go next in instruction.鈥澛�

Grading homework for completion鈥攐r not grading at all, Wormeli said鈥攃an help students focus on the real task at hand of consolidating understanding and self-monitoring their learning. 鈥淲hen early attempts at mastery are not used against them, and accountability comes in the form of actually learning content, adolescents flourish.鈥澛�

High school science teacher , confirming that grading for 鈥渃ompletion and timeliness鈥� rather than for 鈥渃orrectness鈥� makes students 鈥渕ore likely to do the work, especially if it ties directly into what we are doing in class the next day鈥� without worrying about being 鈥�100% correct.鈥� On , middle school math teacher Traci Hawks noted that any assignments that are completed and show work鈥攅ven if the answer is wrong鈥攇ets a 100 from her.

But Frommert said that even grading for completion can be time-consuming for teachers and fraught for students if they don鈥檛 have home environments that are supportive of homework or if they have jobs or other after-school activities. 

Instead of traditional grading, she suggested alternatives to holding students accountable for homework, such as student presentations or even group discussions and debates as a way to check for understanding. For example, students can debate which method is best to solve a problem or discuss their prospective solutions in small groups. 鈥淐ommunicating their mathematical thinking deepens their understanding,鈥� Frommert said.聽