Rethinking Homework

Homework. The most venerable educational tradition. The test of a rigorous classroom and curriculum. An important part of students’ education.

Or is it?

Homework proponents claim homework reinforces academic concepts, teaches students time management and leads to higher grades and test scores. 

One study conducted by Duke professor Harris Cooper suggests homework can lead to positive outcomes in high school, but — and here’s the catch — those benefits fade after two hours of work. A more recent study by Stanford researcher Denise Pope, co-founder of Challenge Success, agrees.

The problem with homework today isn’t that it exists — it’s that there is just too much of it. If teachers are going to continue to assign homework, we need to carefully consider its form, purpose and assessment.

Offering opportunities to practice is important, but it’s equally important to allow students to decide if that review has value. Forcing students to practice skills they have already mastered teaches only that education is tedious. If students’ assessments demonstrate mastery of the skills and content even when they never turn an assignment in, how necessary was that homework to their learning? 

Cathy Vatterott, an associate professor of education at the University of Missouri-St. Louis and author of three books about homework, wonders how many low grades each semester stem from incomplete homework rather than imperfect mastery. In her article “What Is Effective Homework?” Vatterott writes, “Do those D’s and F’s represent a lack of learning or a lack of compliance?”

Even for students who complete their work, grading homework undermines its purpose — to practice — and encourages cheating. If students know that their practice will be graded, will they take the risk of getting it wrong? How many will copy answers from a friend or have a parent give them the right answers?

Homework without a clear purpose decreases students’ enjoyment of learning. If we want to create “lifelong learners,” we must make learning a pleasurable experience. This doesn’t mean learning should be easy, but rather it should be a challenge worth pursuing. 

Without outside reading time, for example, humanities curricula would be extremely limited. Students deserve the challenge of a great novel or play, and they deserve time in class to puzzle through these longer works as a group. Students need time outside of class to rise to the challenge of longer texts, but this time is well spent — they learn that choosing to read means choosing a more enjoyable classroom experience.

Higher-level classes may require a more substantial homework commitment in order to expose students to more material and give them time in class to process and discuss. Clearly a senior taking five honors or AP courses is going to have more homework than a ninth grader. 

But even in these advanced classes, we must consider the value of depth over breadth. Students in my AP Literature might be capable of reading two more books in the semester, but if I can accomplish the same goals exploring fewer texts, why rush them? I’d rather spend that extra time reading historical context and literary criticism and assessing them through more than just the single lens of an in-class essay. 

Even when we assign purposeful homework, we must be flexible. This can be accomplished as easily as giving students a schedule ahead of time so they can plan around other commitments. 

If we want students to be well rounded and less stressed, we must empower them to manage their time wisely. The solution is not to abolish homework, but rather to take a critical look at what we are assigning. 

As we think about whether to assign homework each night, we must ask ourselves four questions: 

• Does this assignment have a clear purpose? Can my students articulate that purpose?
  
• Will this assignment work best outside of class rather than in class where I can offer immediate feedback?
  
• If it’s practice, am I providing flexibility for students to decide whether or not it will help them to learn and giving them the choice to opt out?
  
• Is this assignment doable in 20-30 minutes to allow time for them to complete work in other classes (or, if this is a higher-level course, am I limiting heavy homework nights)?
  

If we say no to any of these questions, we should also say no to homework.