- How much is too much for children to be doing a night? How much help should parents be giving their children on homework? If children never have homework, do parents think their child's teacher isn't doing their job properly?
- How should students approach homework? How can students develop good study habits and time management if they aren't given nightly homework?
- How much homework should those of us teachering assign? What should that homework look like if we are assigning it? And how should we grade it once we've assigned it?
- Should administrators implement a homework policy for their school? And what should that policy look like?
Well, I've looked at the research, and the results may surprise you! I'm not going to address all of the above questions in this post, but I'm including them because I think they're important for us to at least consider. [I'll link to the studies throughout the post in case you'd like to read them yourself.]
Elementary School
Most of the research shows that homework for elementary students is ineffective and actually detrimental to student achievement. Younger students have developed less effective study habits than older students. Many teachers assign homework for elementary students in order to help them learn to manage their time more effectively, but because younger students are less able to tune out distractions, it ends up being a test of how well the parents can manage the child's time. This isn't to say that homework should not be assigned to elementary students, but that we need to be more mindful of how much and exactly what we are assigning to those students.
Middle School and High School
The research shows homework is more effective for students in middle school and high school, with the biggest benefits being found in high school. There isn't necessarily a connection between homework and better grades, but there is one between homework and higher standardized test scores (which is a whole other can of worms).
How much time should the homework take?
So, how much homework should we be assigning? The research shows that 10 minutes in first grade is a good place to start. Every grade thereafter should add an additional 10 minutes, meaning second graders would get 20 minutes, and seniors in high school would get 120 minutes. This makes sense to me, since children's attention spans tend to get longer as they age.
What kind of homework should be assigned?
Now that we know about how much time our students should be spending on their homework, let's focus on the quality of homework we're assigning. If homework is not completed, it's not helping anyone (and if you're a teacher with limited copies or who has to buy their own paper, it's actually hurting someone!), so assigning homework does no good if students don't do it. Busy work turns students off from learning. If they can see the connection between what they're doing as homework and what they need to know for class, they are much more willing to do the homework. Students should not be learning new skills through homework. They should be practicing learned skills to help reinforce what they've learned in class. We have to make the homework we assign short, to the point, and purposeful. So, how do we do that?
Elementary Homework
Homework for elementary students needs to be designed in a way to help reinforce the child's natural love of learning and help students start to develop good study habits. You could assign 10 minutes of reading a book of the child's choice a night. This is a great way to involve parents or other family members in a non-threatening way. Again, students should be practicing skills already learned in class. This way, homework is not a struggle for the students (Or parents. How many times have teachers heard that the parents struggled to help their third grader with their homework!?!), but a time to practice learned skills. A sheet of math problems isn't the best way to practice skills. Instead, give them an assignment that requires them to find objects in their home and model different skills (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division) and illustrate what they did. This will help them see math in their every day lives.
Middle School and High School Homework
Once students reach these grades, teachers can start giving longer homework assignments, but they should still be purposeful. Students should be practicing a skill or process that students can do independently but not fluently, elaborating on information that has been addressed in class to deepen students' knowledge, and providing opportunities for students to explore topics of their own interest. Additionally, homework should be designed to maximize the chances that students will complete it. For example, ensure that homework is at the appropriate level of difficulty. Students in these grades should be able to complete homework assignments independently with relatively high success rates, but they should still find the assignments challenging enough to be interesting.
Grading Homework
Homework should be viewed as a formative assessment. It is an assignment that students are completing as they are learning the desired skills, and are therefore expected to make mistakes. Grading based on perfection penalizes students who do not grasp the concept completely on the first go-round, and typically deters students from even attempting in the future. However, simply grading based on completion doesn't allow for teachers to give feedback on skills or concepts the students are struggling with. The best approach seems to be to combine the two methods.
Let's say you assign 6 or 7 problems for the students to complete. Take off 5 points for each problem that is incorrect, but valiantly attempted and 15 points off for each problem that isn't attempted at all. Here's what their grades will look like if they at least give a good attempt at each problem:
-0 100%
|
-1 95%
|
-2 90%
|
-3 85%
|
-4 80%
|
-5 75%
|
-6 70%
|
-7 65%
|
Even if a student gets all of the problems incorrect, if they've at least given them their best effort, the student's grade won't be tanked. This also allows for teachers to provide fast and personalized feedback on the incorrect problems. Students who know their teacher will provide this kind of feedback are more likely to complete their homework more consistently.
What are your thoughts on homework?
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