Today, I write this post about a child’s greatest enemy in school: homework. Homework is one part of the curriculum that causes a great deal of stress to students, parents, and teachers. As if students did not already spend nearly six-and-a-half hours of school, instead of going out to play or playing video games, students have to do homework. Parents are pulled into helping their child with their homework, and us teachers have to grade it. Shouldn’t six-and-a-half hours be enough for students to learn while they spend the rest of the day relaxing? When I taught a lesson on persuasive essays, one of the prompts was about eliminating homework from schools altogether. Of course, their audience was the principal, so they could not just say that they wanted to eliminate homework from school so they could play video games; the principal does not care if students play video games because it is just not necessary for growth and development. However, less stress; spending time with family; and playing outside are reasons that could convince the principal to eliminate homework because these things are good for a child’s development. There seems to be so many good reasons to eliminate homework and just teach children the content we can teach in those six-and-a-half hours.
Is it really a good idea to tell students, “Okay, we just taught you all this new content, now go home, and we will teach you new stuff tomorrow?” Surely, students need the content reinforced in some way. That is how homework helps students. It reinforces what was already taught in class to make sure students can complete it without assistance from the teacher. When teachers assign students homework, students are getting extra practice with the content being taught. I once had a professor teach us that there is no place for homework in the classroom. I believed this because students should be engaged with the content in the classroom rather than at home where they have the opportunity to destress, spend time with their families, and play outside like I have previously stated. However, when I started student teaching, I saw how homework was used to reinforce what I taught in class, especially in math. In math, we introduce the topic; model it; do the guided practice with our students; and have them do it on their own. Sure, students have the opportunity to apply what they have learned when completing the independent practice, but is that enough? Some students who struggle with the content in class can practice at home so they have a better grasp at home. Sometimes, when students are forced to look at the content for a second time, it makes more sense. This can be especially true when the child has parental guidance.
In math, it makes a ton of sense for students to have more practice with the content at home because it is more concrete than ELA. However, what drives me absolutely crazy are those worksheets with comprehension questions that they give students after they are assigned a section or a chapter from the text they are reading in class. I remember getting these assignments in class when I was in high school, and all remember are these worksheets making me hate reading. Obviously, my degree is in English, so I do not hate reading, but those worksheets made me hate reading for the longest time. I am all for assigning students reading for homework instead of worksheets. I support this idea so that students can do the reading at home and discuss the text and complete any activities in the class related to the text in class where they should be interacting with the content. Maybe, I would allow them to complete a reader-response prompt for homework, but I thought I would save the comprehension questions for an in-class discussion. When students prepare their reader-response, we can talk about their responses in class. My idea for reading homework was inspired by the idea of the flipped classroom in which students are presented with the material at home (the text), then complete the interactive activities in class. If students are reading the text independently in class, they are not given any opportunity to discuss or interact with the text in class like they should have. That is not to say that students should not have the opportunity to read in class. Students should be allowed to read a book of their choice in class; they should just familiarize themselves with the text being taught in the curriculum at home before discussing it in class.
Perhaps the biggest argument against assigning homework is that it is time-consuming. As I said, students could be spending time with their families and getting exercise by playing outside. They could even have the opportunity to relax after a stressful school day. Instead, they are spending time doing homework. As teachers, it is important that we make sure we are giving homework that does not require too much time so that students can do all these things. The National PTA and the NEA recommend the ten-minute per grade-level rule when assigning homework. For example, a student in third grade would have a half-hour of homework. This could even be too much time for some students because what might take the typical student a half-hour may take a struggling student, economically-disadvantaged student, or student with a lack of parental support an hour. This is why it is so important for teachers to differentiate the homework. Since not all students learn on the same level, it is probably best to not assign them all the same homework since every child is different. As far as the time it takes students to do the homework, I would do my best to make sure students only have 10 minutes of homework a night. However, if I need to make my homework assignments longer, I would make sure it is no longer than the length recommended for the grade level I am teaching (If I am teaching third-grade, I would give them no more than a half-hour of homework). I want my students to be able to relax at after school has ended, but I want them practicing what they learned at school at home.
The article What’s the Right Amount of Homework by Youki Terada explains that “as young children begin school, the focus should be on cultivating a love of learning, and assigning too much homework can undermine that goal” (2018). In other words, giving too much homework can make elementary school students hate learning, and students should not hate learning at such a young age. Therefore, when assigning homework, teachers should be careful not to assign homework that will bore students or stress them out. Instead, they should want to go home and want to learn. Therefore, teachers should assign homework in more interactive contexts rather than sending home a worksheet. When I started my practicum, I came up with an idea to use Goodreads in the classroom (that will be my next Teaching Strategy page). When I would assign homework with Goodreads, I would have students read a section or chapter of the text I am reading with my class and give them a prompt related to what they read so that they could respond. This would allow students to not only read the text, but think about the text so that they could discuss it in class. This way, they are actively involved with the text as they are reading. I was having trouble with coming up with ideas to make math homework more engaging, but I think I can use Socrative to assign homework. I would use Socrative to assign math homework so that I can see that my students are doing the homework. Using Socrative, I can make quizzes for students that they can complete them online as a game rather than a worksheet. Although having students complete quizzes on Socrative does not feel like much of a reward at first, I would treat it as a game to see if they could get all the questions right. I would allow them to have more than one attempt at the quiz so they can try again to get it all right. I would allow them an explanation of why an answer was wrong and think about that on their second attempt. This way, it is reinforced into the students’ minds as they try their second attempt.
Of course, I offer these ideas to make homework more engaging for students, but both my ideas may not be the best ideas for those students who do not have access to a computer at home. Therefore, paper-and-pencil homework is more accessible to that student. You cannot just assign an economically-disadvantaged student a worksheet while his or her classmates complete the assignment on the computer. The student will hate learning if this is the case, and teachers do not want that. If I have a student who does not have access to a computer, I would make my homework paper-and-pencil. For my language arts homework, I would allow them to respond to the reading they are assigned in a written paragraph. However, since my idea for using Goodreads as reading homework might not make a student with no access to a computer as upset as not being able to use Socrative as a game, I may still allow my students to use Goodreads. Of course, I will not know this until I actually see it for myself. For the math homework, I would not assign Socrative to the class because that student would feel like he or she is missing out on the fun and be discouraged to do homework when he or she is just doing a worksheet. Therefore, it would probably be best to assign a worksheet or bookwork to the whole class altogether so that students do not feel like are missing out on game-like homework. Even if a teacher gives a worksheet as math homework, it would be a good idea to include some interactive component in the worksheet, like a coloring worksheet so that they do not feel like all they are doing is solving math problems using pencil-and-paper. Either way, it is important that students feel engaged with their homework so that they do not resent learning.
