Making Homework Useful
Practical Homework Advice for Teachers
While most teachers would agree that there is not enough time to teach all of the material that is required to teach during the school day, homework very often offers little in the way of help. In fact, homework can cause a bigger headache than it seems to be worth if not approached pragmatically.
Teachers' Problems With Homework
Motivating students to complete homework assignments is an obstacle, keeping on top of the paperwork that accumulates is daunting, and reviewing homework during class eats up valuable class time, right? If approached in a teacher and student friendly manner, homework can be a handy educational tool.
What Constitutes Meaningful Homework?
Meaningful learning takes place when students experience material repeatedly and through varying entry points. Homework should reinforce the material learned during class and provide an opportunity to enhance understanding of the concepts taught in class that day.
Homework should be tailored to meet the needs of different learning styles. For example, when a class has been introduced to key vocabulary words, homework should not entail copying the definitions three times, but rather should ask students to use the words in original sentences, or find and record examples of them in reading assignments.
Nancy Paulu, in the article "Put an End to Homework Horror" recommends that teachers give homework that makes learning personal. For example, ask students to explain how a particular topic, or component of the day’s lesson, applies to them personally or has affected someone they know.
Why Don't Students Do Homework?
In middle and high school, students are registered for seven or eight classes in which homework is assigned. All of the teachers of these classes feel that their class is most important.
While teachers’ enthusiasm for their subject matter is laudable, students are all too often overburdened by their teachers’ zeal. This causes students to pick and choose which homework assignments to complete, which to blow off, and which to copy from a friend during lunch. To make matters worse, tweens and teens are more likely to complete the homework assignments that come most easily to them, thereby decreasing the overall value of homework completely.
How Much Is Enough?
To prevent the buffet style homework phenomenon, teachers must keep in mind that their class is not the only class for which homework is assigned, and create assignments that can be completed in approximately triple the number of minutes of the grade (i.e. 7th grade = 20 minutes, 8th grade = 25 minutes, 9th grade = 25-30 minutes, etc.).
Conversely, a homework assignment that doesn’t require students to focus for any length of time will not improve understanding of content and will cause savvy students to see it as less important, thereby increasing the likelihood that the assignment will be blown off altogether.
In order to know how much time students will require to complete an assignment, complete the assignment yourself and expect your most highly functioning students to match that time with the rest of the class taking a bit longer.
How Can a Weary Teacher Manage All of That Paper?
Teachers have developed many tricks of the trade when it comes to making homework count without drowning in a sea of paperwork. One method is to circulate throughout the classroom during class eyeballing students’ finished assignments. Another is to collect homework sporadically through the semester. It is important, if using this method, to avoid developing a pattern of collection as some students will pick up on your pattern and know when it is and is not safe to neglect homework. Third, homework assignments can be numbered and collected at the end of the marking period. This collection can be graded holistically and weighted into the students’ average.
However you choose to manage homework assignments and grading, remember that it is only useful if it is completed by students and reinforces instruction.
Pre-teen Lumbering Through HW
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