Homework. The word alone evokes strong emotions from children, youth, parents, and teachers. For most teachers, this word sits right between rock and hard place. Assign too much homework, and teachers run the risk of complaints, if not outright misery, from parents, students, and—feeling the need to give feedback on all that homework—themselves. Assign too little homework, and teachers risk being seen as “soft” and lacking in rigor, and because homework can feel like it helps “cover” the curriculum, feeling further behind. And that just regards the issue of how much homework. Then there are all the complexities around what kinds of homework.
Advocates for the reduction or elimination of homework have raised substantive concerns about the quality of homework assignments, as well as the stress it imposes on children and their families, the ways in which it can interfere with family time and extracurricular activities, and the inherent inequity of assigning homework to children who may not have access to help at home (Kohn 2006; Kralovec and Buell 1991).
There is no doubt that quality of homework matters. Many teachers assign homework with the belief that students need practice persevering through tasks they do not enjoy. They see this as key to developing self-regulated strategies. However, self regulation without engagement does not guarantee learning, and partly because of this homework is associated with blind compliance in meaningless tasks. But where to start with reimagining what homework can be?
Research shows us the qualities of helpful homework:
But what should homework assignments look like in order for children to be motivated and engaged; have agency to initiate, strategize, and problem solve; enthusiasticly challenge students; offer real-life transfer of schoolwork; be inherently differentiated for the different abilities and interests and ages; and with feedback that is immediate, task-based, and results in actual improvement?
To accomplish this, homework must acknowledge, honor, and use the power generated when children discover and engage in their own passions, activities, and hobbies rather than assign tasks that are removed from children’s experiences and decontextualized from their lives. What if homework were assigned that can morph in ways that meet the wide variety of family cultures, expectations, and time constraints? What if there were a balance of days when children do not have any homework (aside from expectations that they are reading at home!) and days when they bring work home from school because it’s necessary, not simply because it’s a habit of our profession? What if it were taken into consideration that, just like adults who put in a full day of work, elementary school-aged children, too, need downtime and time for self-driven pursuits after a full day of school (Coppola 2015)?
References:
Alleman, J., J. Brophy, B. Knighton, R. Ley, B. Botwinski, and S. Middlestead. 2010. Homework Done Right: Powerful Learning in Real-Life Situations. New York: Corwin.
Coppola, S. 2015. “Four Stories That Homework Tells Children About School Learning, & Life.” My So-called Literacy Life, December 31. https://mysocalled literacylife.com/2015/12/31/four-stories-that-homework-tells-children-about -school-learning-life/.
Kohn, A. 2006. The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Lifelong Books.
Kralovec, E., and J. Buell. 2001. “End Homework Now.” Educational Leadership (April): 39–42.
Schiefele, U., E. Schaffner, J. Möller, and A. Wigfield. 2012. “Dimensions of Reading Motivation and Their Relation to Reading Behavior and Competence.” Reading Research Quarterly 47 (4): 427–63. doi:10.1002/rrq.030.
Wigfield, A., J. Gladstone, and L. Turci. 2016. “Beyond Cognition: Reading Motivation and Reading Comprehension.” Child Development Perspectives 10 (3): 190–95. http://doi.org/10.1111/cdep.12184