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How to Create Effective Homework

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Based on a recent spate of articles on homework, it’s clear that the homework wars -- how much? how often? -- are still topic of big interest to both parents and teachers. Some teachers hate to give homework; others see it as a vital necessity. But according to some research presented by Annie Murphy Paul, the question isn’t how much, but whether the homework teachers do give actually advances learning.

“A recent study, published in the Economics of Education Review,” Paul wrote in “How Can We Make Homework Worthwhile?” , “reports that homework in science, English and history has ‘little to no impact’ on student test scores. (The authors did note a positive effect for math homework.) Enriching children’s classroom learning requires making homework not shorter or longer, but smarter.” Paul goes on to describe specific practices, like spaced repetition (in which information is presented and repeated spaced out over time), retrieval practice (testing or quizzing not for assessment, but to reinforce material learned), and cognitive disfluency (“desirable difficulties” used to make learning stick) -- all memory/retrieval techniques that may help homework move beyond busy work and advance real learning.

But to get those elements to work, said Fires in the Mind author and speaker Kathleen Cushman, students must be motivated to do their homework in the first place. One example Cushman gave was creating a project so interesting and involved, students naturally wanted to keep working on it after the bell rang. She pointed to a chapter in the book where she describes a particular motivation for some high school students she interviewed, under the heading “Homework We Actually Want to Do”:

“Christina and Nicholas both remembered a global studies unit on the French Revolution in which students acted out a courtroom trial of the king and queen. The project brought even routine homework assignments to life, they said.

“I was the queen. So of course I wanted to do my homework all the time, so I could know the facts of what happened and what didn’t happen, know what I wanted to say when someone tried to say I did this or that thing. I could say, ‘Oh no, I didn’t!’ - because I’d read my homework,” said Christina.

Christina was using a form of retrieval practice -- but because it was so much fun to be the queen, she only knew she wanted to stay in character. The queen had to study the information to get it right.

Another way teachers can take a good, hard look at homework practices, said Cushman, is to ask themselves a few vital questions: “Does this homework ask each student to practice something that the student hasn’t yet mastered? Does the student clearly see its purpose? When students are asked to repeat or rehearse something, does it require them to focus? Or can they do it without really paying attention?” If the homework meets these criteria, she said, then it falls into the desirable realm of “deliberate practice .”

Dan Bisaccio, former high school science teacher and now Director of Science Education at Brown University, said that after years of experience giving homework to high school students, he now “preaches” to his future teachers: “Homework should be practice and extensions of what happens in class and should not be ‘new learning,’” he said. “That is, students [shouldn’t be] having to teach themselves new content or skills.”

He said he agreed with Cushman that motivation is key, and tried to design homework that kept students interested. “Teachers need to clue into what motivates their students, giving them something that they really want to complete, and complete well.” One assignment Bisaccio used, called an “Experience Map,” asked students to create a map of their experiences after a field study or other important project - a technique employing both retrieval practice and the somewhat trickier interleaving, a “desirable difficulty” in which problems of different types are presented in one assignment, making students think harder to come up with solutions and answers.

“We ‘map’ mentally and physically each day. It helps to keep us orientated through our frenzied sun-up to sun-down daily experiences,” reads the assignment. Directions are to draw a field experience map, including -- with regard to the class -- where students have been, what they have done, new challenges, and insights. Special suggestions for drawing include “a place of danger, a favorite place, a place of power, a place with a secret.” Students are also called upon to map the places where they learned the most, where they were challenged the most, and where the funniest experience happened.

In addition, Bisaccio asked students to write what had challenged them most as a learner, what had stretched their limits most -- meant to be reflections just for students themselves, and asked to be kept on the back of the map. “What they wrote on the back was not shared with others,” he said. Once the assignment was completed, maps were posted to form a class atlas of what they had learned.

All the examples included here, however, are examples of homework in a traditional classroom. What about homework in a flipped classroom , where the lectures, usually videos, are the homework? A recent New York Times article on flipped classrooms may provide insight into flipping homework on its head, too: it quoted high school senior Luwayne Harris, saying, “Whenever I had a problem on the homework, I couldn’t do anything about it at home. Now if I have a problem with a video, I can just rewind and watch it over and over again.”

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Homework Ideas for Elementary Teachers: Save Time and Make Learning More Purposeful for Students in 2024

What’s the first word you think of when I say “homework?” It’s one of those hot topics that people feel very strongly about one way or another. However, more often than not, it’s a requirement. As a result, I am here to share homework ideas that will make your life as an elementary teacher a little bit easier.

I used to send homework home nightly, but found it to add chaos to each and every day. I would spend many lunch periods copying an assignment for that night. Kids would forget to take their copy home. Parents would call or email to get clarification on what the assignment was for that night.

Then I switched to a weekly packet. The packet included all of the pages for the week along with a cover sheet that listed spelling words and assignments. This was an improvement, but still not ideal.

Last year, I started using a separate folder just for homework. This is one of the best homework ideas I have come up with. The folder includes the homework calendar and all of the printables they will need for the week. I sent home a Paragraph of the Week assignment each week. The consistency was outstanding. We really felt like we hit gold because the kids were all working on something meaningful with a purpose. The parents liked it because it was easy for them to understand and help with. I began experimenting with a monthly homework packet. And let me tell you…

It. Was. Awesome! 

We placed everything into a homework folder for the month and included an assignment calendar. The folder stayed at home and the students returned their completed work each morning in the communication folder . Learn about some of my best homework ideas for elementary teachers below!

7 Benefits of Assigning Homework

Do you question the importance of homework? Are you one of the many teachers or parents who feel homework should be banned? The idea of homework just doesn’t make sense to you. If you are part of the growing number of people questioning if the reasons homework is bad outweigh the benefits to homework, then you might find this to be helpful. 

I’m going to be honest, as a teacher (and especially as a parent), I am in the camp of not liking the idea of homework at the elementary level. However, each of the districts I have taught in has required teachers to assign nightly homework in addition to reading for 20 minutes. It often felt like a waste of time and paper.

For some teachers, the word HOMEWORK brings about pangs of dread. Others see it as a necessary evil of learning. For many, it merely represents having to fulfill a district requirement. In many districts these days, homework is not counted towards a student’s overall grade. The debate over homework has been waged for years. The question is: What’s a teacher to do?

No matter where you stand on the topic of homework, here are some ideas related to homework that will make you feel better about assigning homework. They may even make you feel good in some cases! I am hoping the 7 benefits listed below will ease the guilt some teachers feel about burdening their students and their families with tasks to complete at home.

1. Prepares Students for the Next Day’s Learning

A great way to use homework is preparation for an upcoming lesson, whether it’s doing some reading ahead of time, or looking over other assigned material, there’s no doubt that preparing for an upcoming lesson is a beneficial way to assign homework.

2. Increases Responsibility

When a student has a task that they MUST do rather than WANT to do, they learn to be responsible. Homework is the “You do” in the learning model of “I do, We do, You do.”.  It gives the learner a chance to practice what was covered in class and take responsibility for their own learning.

3. Advances Problem-Solving Skills

If the student can’t find an answer to something in their homework, (or even where to look for information to find an answer), what steps will they take to solve this problem? Will they look in a dictionary, online, ask a friend, or go to a library? Homework gives students a chance to flex their problem-solving muscles.

4. Offers Review Practice

Whether it’s a new math skill, or spelling/vocabulary words, homework that involves reviewing material covered in class will help students to remember it and is a very useful assignment.

5. Teaches Time Management

For students with an active extra-curricular life, homework teaches them how to manage their time. This helps them learn to prioritize schoolwork.

6. Strengthens Persistence and Grit

There have been many studies done recently that show a lack of persistence and grit in today’s students. Developing the fortitude to complete homework assignments also helps develop a student’s capacity for grit and persistence. These are necessary for success in many areas of life, not just academically.

7. Promotes Self-Esteem

Students will develop a sense of pride when they learn the value of a job well done and take ownership of their work. This carries over into their personal development as well. It is for this reason that homework should always be a review of skills already taught.

5 Problems with Assigning Traditional Homework

These were five of the problems I faced in my 3rd grade classroom. No matter which grade you teach I’m pretty sure you can relate. The good news is I managed to find a solution that saved me time and reduced my stress each day. Not only that, but my students’ math skills were strengthened and their families were less burdened with random assignments each night. Read on to learn about the problems I had and how I solved them.

1. Mandated to Give Homework

My school required we give homework 4 nights per week. It was a mandate, so my personal feelings made no difference. I had to send it nightly.

2. Emails and Calls from Parents

I often received emails and phone calls from confused parents. They often said they didn’t understand the homework or told me that their child said that they had “never seen this stuff before”. Let’s be honest, our time is so limited. We do not want to spend the afternoon or start the morning returning messages explaining directions or convincing someone that you did, in fact, teach it in class.

3. Wasted Class Time Every Day

I needed to spend some of our instructional time every afternoon going over the instructions because each assignment varied.

4. Drop-In Visits from Parents

I frequently had a parent and child return to my classroom because the homework never made it into the backpack. This often resulted in an unplanned conference at a time when I needed to prepare for the next day.

5. Students Forgot what was Taught

Unrelated to homework, I consistently faced a different problem. I often would teach a concept, the students would demonstrate proficiency…and then they didn’t.

How often do you have students who forget what odd and even (or a prime and composite if you teach higher grades) numbers are, not remember how to round to the nearest 10, 100 or 1000, or sit like a deer in headlights when asked to write a number in expanded form in the spring when they were rock stars of that skill in the fall when it was taught.

This is especially troublesome if you teach in a grade that takes standardized testing at the end of the year because you then need to set aside a lot of class time for review and test prep.

How to Grade Homework

Determine if correcting homework is an effective use of your time. Teachers don’t know how much assistance a child had with an assignment so it isn’t always an accurate representation of their abilities. Checking the homework for effort and general understanding may be sufficient. If you are assigning worksheets, consider selecting a few questions to go over in class.

Homework Incentive Ideas

Homework should be completed because it is an expectation and not to receive a trinket. However, some teachers do find that extrinsic rewards are motivational to their students. If you choose to make those a part of your homework procedure, here are a few easy-to-manage suggestions:

Students earn a ticket when they complete an assignment. Have them place the tickets into a container. Draw one ticket a week to win a No Homework Night Coupon.

Certificate

Honor perfect homework efforts with a certificate. This could be done monthly or by marking period.

Offer a “No Homework Coupon.” These are like gold!

Ideas for Homework Consequences

First, check with your school and district to see if there is a policy in place. Next, determine a plan for how you will handle homework that is incomplete, missing, poor quality, etc. and be consistent. Be cautious about using recess as a punishment for not doing homework. Often the kids who are not doing their homework are the ones who most need recess .

10 Homework Tips for Elementary Teachers

Below are homework tips for elementary teachers to consider. You are bound to find some helpful homework ideas on this list that you can implement.

1. Assign Tasks Students can do Independently

The first tip on this list of homework ideas is to strive to find easy-to-manage, yet effective assignments. Although it is true that you shouldn’t be sending home tasks that students can’t complete on their own, you also need to be careful not to give them “busy work” either.  Having them complete an assignment for a skill they are proficient in also creates unnecessary work for the teacher. Time is a teacher’s greatest obstacle so be careful not to spend it copying, correcting, managing, chasing, etc sheets of paper that students are not gaining anything from. 

2. Keep Homework Assignments Consistent Across the Grade Level

The second tip on this list of homework ideas is to strive to be consistent with your grade level colleagues. Ideally, the assignments and policies should be identical.

3. Collaborate with Your Team

The third tip on this list of homework ideas is to save time by teaming up with the other teacher(s) at your grade level. Alternate prepping the packet for the week or designate different subjects to different teachers.

4. Communicate Expectations with Your Students’ Families

Communicate your expectations with parents from the beginning. Discuss them at open house and make a hard copy available for students who may transfer in later in the year.

5. Change the Way you See Homework

Use homework as an opportunity to teach organization and responsibility. While homework may not always be a reflection of a student’s abilities, it can be a valuable learning tool for time management and work habits.

6. Keep a Simple and Consistent Format

Design a simple and consistent format for homework. It could be reading and a math page every night or you may have students work on a different subject each night.  When I taught 2nd grade I used to do Math Monday (computation), Teacher Choice Tuesday (a spelling activity), Word Study Wednesday, Thinking Thursday (word problems).

7. Create a System for Collecting It

The seventh tip on this list of homework ideas is to create a system for collecting it. It’s important to have some sort of turn-in system and procedure so students know what to do with their homework each morning.

8. Implement an Efficient Routine for Checking Homework

Consider implementing an efficient routine for checking homework. If you are just going to check for completion and spot check the homework you could have students place it on their desk while they do morning work and you can circulate and check the pages.

9. Communicate Homework Progress with Parents

Determine how you will communicate homework progress with parents. In general, no news is good news, but I do have a homework alert that gets sent home as needed. It needs to be signed by an adult at home so the families know if they are not meeting the expectations.

10. Consider Creating a Menu of Optional Homework Activities

The last tip on this list of homework ideas is to create a menu of optional homework activities. Some parents find homework to be a burden and others want more. One way to make everyone happy is to send home a basic assignment that is required for all students and a list of optional enrichment choices for those who want additional assignments.

How I Implemented Homework in My Classroom

There are tons of homework ideas out there, but this is what worked for me.

As a public school teacher, I was required to give out nightly homework to my third graders. I found myself spending a lot of time picking out assignments, making copies, communicating directions, answering emails and phone calls from parents who did “not understand the new math” (aka the math workbook pages), distributing, collecting and correcting what essentially was just busy work sent home to meet a requirement I did not agree with. 

My biggest concern was (and continues to be) that many of the assignments from the workbook included 10-20 of the same type of problem. That meant that if a student was struggling with subtraction with regrouping and completed 20 problems incorrectly, that misconception and error became so much harder to fix. 

Parents were signing reading logs, but the kids weren’t actually reading.

I was frustrated by feeling like my time, the students’ time, and the parents’ time was being wasted. I knew there had to be a better option, so I set out to fix the problem. I’m thrilled with the results I must say.

I began creating spiral review math pages for each day for my own 3rd graders. These pages proved to be important and meaningful work. This resource is best if not one of the best homework ideas I have ever come up with.

What are the Spiral Review Math Pages?

The spiral review math pages are a tool for teachers to use to ensure students are having continued practice with previously taught skills. They are available for 1st-5th grade. The spiral review packets were designed to have 25 pages per month, which gives you the flexibility to assign them for homework every night plus have extras. The 1st grade version is set up a little differently, but still has 180 pages so you’ll be covered for the year.

Each of the spiral review pages follow the same daily format, cover skills from each area (e.g. computation, measurement, geometry, data, and word problems) and continuously spiral previously taught skills. This consistent format of 10 standards-based questions focused on topics we’d already covered provides an important spiral review of all the grade-level skills. This helped students to retain previously taught skills. The added benefit was that students who had not demonstrated proficiency earlier in the year had the opportunity to do so over time through repeated practice and instruction.

Using these spiral review math pages makes homework more purposeful and easier to manage. My students became much stronger in all math concepts, the parents expressed gratitude for the consistent format, and the phone calls and emails asking for assignment clarification completely stopped. It was so effective that it completely eliminated the need for any test prep in the spring. My students’ test scores were even much higher than previous years.

These worked so well for myself and the other 3rd grade teachers who were using them, that (by request) I created them for 2nd, 4th, and 5th grade too. Each was designed in consultation with and piloted by experienced teachers in those grade levels. They have since been used the past few years by thousands of teachers who have reported great success as well. I most recently added first grade.

This is one of my favorite ideas for homework of all time!

What’s Included in the Spiral Review Math Resources?

The 2nd-5th grade packets all have monthly/seasonal themes. September targets many of the skills that were required at the end of the previous grade level. It was designed to be used as a review for the new year and to pinpoint important foundational skills that your students must be proficient in before moving on to new standards. The following months build in a systematic, sequential order with lots of spiral review built in so that students retain important concepts. They include the following resources:

• 250 print and go pages (plus 10 bonus pages) that will cover you for the full school year
• answer keys to make grading quick and easy for you
• 2,500 review problems (plus 100 bonus problems) based on the Common Core, which will help you rest easy knowing your students are practicing the math concepts and skills they need to
• 250 Google Forms so students can access them digitally from home or in school
• Recording sheets for students to show their thinking
• Item analysis data trackers to make it easy to see which students need to be pulled for small groups or if it would be beneficial to reteach the concept to the entire class
• Projectable answer keys so students can check their own work

The first grade version is a little different. It’s format has only 5 problems to better meet the developmental needs of our younger learners. It has 180 printable pages instead. In addition, this resource does not include seasonal pages, which allows you to use them at any time of the school year.

Learn more about the spiral review math resources for your grade level below.

• 1st grade spiral review math activities
• 2nd grade spiral review math activities
• 3rd grade spiral review math activities
• 4th grade spiral review math activities
• 5th grade spiral review math activities

Where Can I Learn More about Spiral Review Math?

You can learn more about spiral review in this post: Spiral Review Math .

The Benefits of Using Spiral Review Math Pages

There are tons of benefits to using the spiral review math pages for homework.

• The spiral review pages provide multiple opportunities for students to become proficient in a skill instead of just teaching it and forgetting it
• The repeated spiraling practice of foundational grade level skills ensures they were ready to build upon them when y ou introduce new skills.
• You’ll no longer need to waste hours of valuable class time on standardized test prep in the spring because the spiral review throughout the year ensure your students are always ready for the exam.
• It constantly shows you if there are skills you need to reteach either to the whole class or to a small group of students. 
• Students complete them with ease because the skills and the format of the pages are familiar to them.
• The variety of 10 different problems eliminates the risk of students cementing a misconception into their minds.

Why You’ll Love it as a Teacher

Not only will the nightly spiral review math pages provide your students with meaningful practice of important skills, increase their confidence as learners and make them stronger math students, they will also solve many of the problems you face as a teacher and make the parents’ lives easier too. It’s one of the best homework ideas I have ever come up with!

• You’ll longer needed to scramble to find homework for each night. Instead, simply print each month’s pages at the start of the new month and copy them all at once into weekly packets for the students.
• Your lesson planning will become much more intentional and focused because you are able to easily identify which skills your students need to work on more.
• You will no long waste valuable time correcting busy work. Instead, you’ll go over these important skills as a class.
• Parents will feel better about being able to help their students and became true allies and partners in their learning.
• Students and their families will be able to better enjoy their evenings together as a family because they know what to consistently expect for homework each evening.
• Distributing the week’s packet all at once enables students’ families to support my goal of teaching time management because they can work ahead when they know there is a busy night coming up on their calendars.
• Homework will be easier for you and more meaningful for your students.
• The homework assignments will be systematic and routine so parents and students will always know exactly what the expectations are and understand the instructions.
• You will constantly review all prior skills so that your student reach mastery over time. This will prevent students from forgetting what they learned earlier in the year.

How to Implement them in Your Classroom

I used a separate folder just for homework. It included the homework calendar and all of the printables they will need for the week. We placed everything into a homework folder for the month. The folder stayed at home and the students returned their completed work each morning in the communication folder .

I assembled the homework packets for the entire year in one afternoon and didn’t have to think about it again the rest of the school year. I sent them home on Friday afternoons.

The students simply completed one page each night beginning on Monday afternoons and returned only that one page to class in the morning. The other nightly pages remained at home. 

This meant I no longer needed to take any class time to explain the directions or check to make sure the papers made it into the backpacks.

The next morning I projected the answer sheet onto my smart board and reviewed each problem with them. This daily quick review made them accountable and reinforced all of the math skills regularly. Going over it in class sent the message that the work they did outside of school was purposeful and they would be accountable for it. They no longer felt homework was a waste of time so they demonstrated increased effort.

I also created data collection sheets to use either with one specific student’s page, or to examine the class as a whole. The pages were so easy to use and let me see at a glance where I needed to focus future instruction. 

How Can I Use the Extra Spiral Review Pages in the Packet?

There are 25 pages per month in each of the spiral review resources. Since you’ll never need to use all 25 for homework purposes, consider using the extra pages in the following ways:

• formative assessment to monitor progress
• morning work
• math center activity (“at your seat” activity during Guided Math Workshop )
• Emergency sub plans  activity

Where Can I Buy the Math Spiral Review Pages?

You can purchase the math spiral review pages from my Teachers Pay Teachers store . They are also available in my Elementary Math Resource Collection and grade level math clubs, which you can find below.

What Teachers Who Used these Packets Have Said

Thousands of teachers have used this homework idea in their classroom. Read some of the reviews below!

• “WOW! I’ve been teaching for 16 years and this has been the most useful thing I have used. My students really understand all of the skills and I loved knowing I wasn’t moving on without all my kids being proficient. The beautiful layout, structured format, and clear expectations made it so easy to make these become part of our daily routine. I highly recommend them to everyone.” (Thank you Jocelyn P.!)
• “I started using your monthly spiral review pages in October and never looked back. Not only did they provide us with quality daily work, but I just got my end of year scores back for the district math assessments and my entire class crushed it. I attribute their success 100% to these pages combined with your guided math book that opened my eyes to a whole new way of teaching. I can’t thank you enough. My administration has taken notice. I’m so proud of what we’ve done.” (Thank you Kerri K.!)
• My teammates and I had the opportunity to see you present about guided math and math workshop and excitedly jumped right in with your guided math format the next week! We have been using the spiral review pages as homework and in the “at your seat” station during our daily math workshop. OMG!!! We ALL agree that between the new teaching routines and the use of these pages, our students are consistently performing above average and truly understand the math. It’s not just our opinion either because we just received our test scores from last year and they were not only MUCH higher than ever before, but we outscored the district and student growth from the previous year was amazing. That was what prompted me to finally leave a review. I/we can not recommend these enough. Thank you for not only making our jobs easier, but so much more enjoyable as well. (Thank you Jessica R.!)
• These are absolutely wonderful for my students! I use them for a variety of things including review and homework. (Thanks Tony C.!)
• “Love the data sheets! Great way for me and my students to monitor their learning.” (Thanks Kelsey!)

In closing, we hope you found these homework ideas for teachers helpful! If you haven’t already checked out this post about spiral review math , please be sure to do so!

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What’s the Right Amount of Homework?

Decades of research show that homework has some benefits, especially for students in middle and high school—but there are risks to assigning too much.

Many teachers and parents believe that homework helps students build study skills and review concepts learned in class. Others see homework as disruptive and unnecessary, leading to burnout and turning kids off to school. Decades of research show that the issue is more nuanced and complex than most people think: Homework is beneficial, but only to a degree. Students in high school gain the most, while younger kids benefit much less.

The National PTA and the National Education Association support the “ 10-minute homework guideline ”—a nightly 10 minutes of homework per grade level. But many teachers and parents are quick to point out that what matters is the quality of the homework assigned and how well it meets students’ needs, not the amount of time spent on it.

The guideline doesn’t account for students who may need to spend more—or less—time on assignments. In class, teachers can make adjustments to support struggling students, but at home, an assignment that takes one student 30 minutes to complete may take another twice as much time—often for reasons beyond their control. And homework can widen the achievement gap, putting students from low-income households and students with learning disabilities at a disadvantage.

However, the 10-minute guideline is useful in setting a limit: When kids spend too much time on homework, there are real consequences to consider.

Small Benefits for Elementary Students

As young children begin school, the focus should be on cultivating a love of learning, and assigning too much homework can undermine that goal. And young students often don’t have the study skills to benefit fully from homework, so it may be a poor use of time (Cooper, 1989 ; Cooper et al., 2006 ; Marzano & Pickering, 2007 ). A more effective activity may be nightly reading, especially if parents are involved. The benefits of reading are clear: If students aren’t proficient readers by the end of third grade, they’re less likely to succeed academically and graduate from high school (Fiester, 2013 ).

For second-grade teacher Jacqueline Fiorentino, the minor benefits of homework did not outweigh the potential drawback of turning young children against school at an early age, so she experimented with dropping mandatory homework. “Something surprising happened: They started doing more work at home,” Fiorentino writes . “This inspiring group of 8-year-olds used their newfound free time to explore subjects and topics of interest to them.” She encouraged her students to read at home and offered optional homework to extend classroom lessons and help them review material.

Moderate Benefits for Middle School Students

As students mature and develop the study skills necessary to delve deeply into a topic—and to retain what they learn—they also benefit more from homework. Nightly assignments can help prepare them for scholarly work, and research shows that homework can have moderate benefits for middle school students (Cooper et al., 2006 ). Recent research also shows that online math homework, which can be designed to adapt to students’ levels of understanding, can significantly boost test scores (Roschelle et al., 2016 ).

There are risks to assigning too much, however: A 2015 study found that when middle school students were assigned more than 90 to 100 minutes of daily homework, their math and science test scores began to decline (Fernández-Alonso, Suárez-Álvarez, & Muñiz, 2015 ). Crossing that upper limit can drain student motivation and focus. The researchers recommend that “homework should present a certain level of challenge or difficulty, without being so challenging that it discourages effort.” Teachers should avoid low-effort, repetitive assignments, and assign homework “with the aim of instilling work habits and promoting autonomous, self-directed learning.”

In other words, it’s the quality of homework that matters, not the quantity. Brian Sztabnik, a veteran middle and high school English teacher, suggests that teachers take a step back and ask themselves these five questions :

• How long will it take to complete?
• Have all learners been considered?
• Will an assignment encourage future success?
• Will an assignment place material in a context the classroom cannot?
• Does an assignment offer support when a teacher is not there?

More Benefits for High School Students, but Risks as Well

By the time they reach high school, students should be well on their way to becoming independent learners, so homework does provide a boost to learning at this age, as long as it isn’t overwhelming (Cooper et al., 2006 ; Marzano & Pickering, 2007 ). When students spend too much time on homework—more than two hours each night—it takes up valuable time to rest and spend time with family and friends. A 2013 study found that high school students can experience serious mental and physical health problems, from higher stress levels to sleep deprivation, when assigned too much homework (Galloway, Conner, & Pope, 2013 ).

Homework in high school should always relate to the lesson and be doable without any assistance, and feedback should be clear and explicit.

Teachers should also keep in mind that not all students have equal opportunities to finish their homework at home, so incomplete homework may not be a true reflection of their learning—it may be more a result of issues they face outside of school. They may be hindered by issues such as lack of a quiet space at home, resources such as a computer or broadband connectivity, or parental support (OECD, 2014 ). In such cases, giving low homework scores may be unfair.

Since the quantities of time discussed here are totals, teachers in middle and high school should be aware of how much homework other teachers are assigning. It may seem reasonable to assign 30 minutes of daily homework, but across six subjects, that’s three hours—far above a reasonable amount even for a high school senior. Psychologist Maurice Elias sees this as a common mistake: Individual teachers create homework policies that in aggregate can overwhelm students. He suggests that teachers work together to develop a school-wide homework policy and make it a key topic of back-to-school night and the first parent-teacher conferences of the school year.

Parents Play a Key Role

Homework can be a powerful tool to help parents become more involved in their child’s learning (Walker et al., 2004 ). It can provide insights into a child’s strengths and interests, and can also encourage conversations about a child’s life at school. If a parent has positive attitudes toward homework, their children are more likely to share those same values, promoting academic success.

But it’s also possible for parents to be overbearing, putting too much emphasis on test scores or grades, which can be disruptive for children (Madjar, Shklar, & Moshe, 2015 ). Parents should avoid being overly intrusive or controlling—students report feeling less motivated to learn when they don’t have enough space and autonomy to do their homework (Orkin, May, & Wolf, 2017 ; Patall, Cooper, & Robinson, 2008 ; Silinskas & Kikas, 2017 ). So while homework can encourage parents to be more involved with their kids, it’s important to not make it a source of conflict.

Homework Guidelines for Elementary and Middle School Teachers

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Homework; the term elicits a myriad of responses. Students are naturally opposed to the idea of homework. No student ever says, “I wish my teacher would assign me more homework.” Most students begrudge homework and find any opportunity or possible excuse to avoid doing it.

Educators themselves are split on the issue. Many teachers assign daily homework seeing it as a way to further develop and reinforce core academic skills, while also teaching students responsibility. Other educators refrain from assigning daily homework. They view it as unnecessary overkill that often leads to frustration and causes students to resent school and learning altogether. 

Parents are also divided on whether or not they welcome homework. Those who welcome it see it as an opportunity for their children to reinforce critical learning skills. Those who loathe it see it as an infringement of their child’s time. They say it takes away from extra-curricular activities, play time, family time, and also adds unnecessary stress.

Research on the topic is also inconclusive. You can find research that strongly supports the benefits of assigning regular homework, some that denounce it as having zero benefits, with most reporting that assigning homework offers some positive benefits, but also can be detrimental in some areas.

The Effects of Homework

Since opinions vary so drastically, coming to a consensus on homework is nearly impossible. We sent a survey out to parents of a school regarding the topic, asking parents these two basic questions:

• How much time is your child spending working on homework each night?
• Is this amount of time too much, too little, or just right?

The responses varied significantly. In one 3 rd grade class with 22 students, the responses regarding how much time their child spends on homework each night had an alarming disparity. The lowest amount of time spent was 15 minutes, while the largest amount of time spent was 4 hours. Everyone else fell somewhere in between. When discussing this with the teacher, she told me that she sent home the same homework for every child and was blown away by the vastly different ranges in time spent completing it. The answers to the second question aligned with the first. Almost every class had similar, varying results making it really difficult to gauge where we should go as a school regarding homework.

While reviewing and studying my school’s homework policy and the results of the aforementioned survey, I discovered a few important revelations about homework that I think anyone looking at the topic would benefit from:

1. Homework should be clearly defined. Homework is not unfinished classwork that the student is required to take home and complete. Homework is “extra practice” given to take home to reinforce concepts that they have been learning in class. It is important to note that teachers should always give students time in class under their supervision to complete class work. Failing to give them an appropriate amount of class time increases their workload at home. More importantly, it does not allow the teacher to give immediate feedback to the student as to whether or not they are doing the assignment correctly. What good does it do if a student completes an assignment if they are doing it all incorrectly? Teachers must find a way to let parents know what assignments are homework and which ones are classwork that they did not complete.

2. The amount of time required to complete the same homework assignment varies significantly from student to student. This speaks to personalization. I have always been a big fan of customizing homework to fit each individual student. Blanket homework is more challenging for some students than it is for others. Some fly through it, while others spend excessive amounts of time completing it.  Differentiating homework will take some additional time for teachers in regards to preparation, but it will ultimately be more beneficial for students.

The National Education Association recommends that students be given 10-20 minutes of homework each night and an additional 10 minutes per advancing grade level. The following chart adapted from the National Education Associations recommendations can be used as a resource for teachers in Kindergarten through the 8 th grade.

It can be difficult for teachers to gauge how much time students need to complete an assignment. The following charts serve to streamline this process as it breaks down the average time it takes for students to complete a single problem in a variety of subject matter for common assignment types. Teachers should consider this information when assigning homework. While it may not be accurate for every student or assignment, it can serve as a starting point when calculating how much time students need to complete an assignment. It is important to note that in grades where classes are departmentalized it is important that all teachers are on the same page as the totals in the chart above is the recommended amount of total homework per night and not just for a single class.

Kindergarten – 4th Grade (Elementary Recommendations)

*If students are required to write the questions, then you will need to add 2 additional minutes per problem. (i.e. 1-English problem requires 4 minutes if students are required to write the sentence/question.)

5th – 8th Grade (Middle School Recommendations)

*If students are required to write the questions, then you will need to add 2 additional minutes per problem. (i.e. 1-English problem requires 5 minutes if students are required to write the sentence/question.)

Assigning Homework Example

It is recommended that 5 th graders have 50-60 minutes of homework per night. In a self-contained class, a teacher assigns 5 multi-step math problems, 5 English problems, 10 spelling words to be written 3x each, and 10 science definitions on a particular night.

3. There are a few critical academic skill builders that students should be expected to do every night or as needed. Teachers should also consider these things. However, they may or may not, be factored into the total time to complete homework. Teachers should use their best judgment to make that determination:

• Independent Reading – 20-30 minutes per day
• Study for Test/Quiz - varies
• Multiplication Math Fact Practice (3-4) – varies - until facts are mastered
• Sight Word Practice (K-2) – varies - until all lists are mastered

4. Coming to a general consensus regarding homework is almost impossible.  School leaders must bring everyone to the table, solicit feedback, and come up with a plan that works best for the majority. This plan should be reevaluated and adjusted continuously. What works well for one school may not necessarily be the best solution for another.

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• 5 Tips to Help the Disorganized Student
• 8 Common Questions Parents Ask Teachers
• Top Concerns of Science Teachers
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Does homework still have value? A Johns Hopkins education expert weighs in

Joyce epstein, co-director of the center on school, family, and community partnerships, discusses why homework is essential, how to maximize its benefit to learners, and what the 'no-homework' approach gets wrong.

By Vicky Hallett

The necessity of homework has been a subject of debate since at least as far back as the 1890s, according to Joyce L. Epstein , co-director of the Center on School, Family, and Community Partnerships at Johns Hopkins University. "It's always been the case that parents, kids—and sometimes teachers, too—wonder if this is just busy work," Epstein says.

But after decades of researching how to improve schools, the professor in the Johns Hopkins School of Education remains certain that homework is essential—as long as the teachers have done their homework, too. The National Network of Partnership Schools , which she founded in 1995 to advise schools and districts on ways to improve comprehensive programs of family engagement, has developed hundreds of improved homework ideas through its Teachers Involve Parents in Schoolwork program. For an English class, a student might interview a parent on popular hairstyles from their youth and write about the differences between then and now. Or for science class, a family could identify forms of matter over the dinner table, labeling foods as liquids or solids. These innovative and interactive assignments not only reinforce concepts from the classroom but also foster creativity, spark discussions, and boost student motivation.

"We're not trying to eliminate homework procedures, but expand and enrich them," says Epstein, who is packing this research into a forthcoming book on the purposes and designs of homework. In the meantime, the Hub couldn't wait to ask her some questions:

What kind of homework training do teachers typically get?

Future teachers and administrators really have little formal training on how to design homework before they assign it. This means that most just repeat what their teachers did, or they follow textbook suggestions at the end of units. For example, future teachers are well prepared to teach reading and literacy skills at each grade level, and they continue to learn to improve their teaching of reading in ongoing in-service education. By contrast, most receive little or no training on the purposes and designs of homework in reading or other subjects. It is really important for future teachers to receive systematic training to understand that they have the power, opportunity, and obligation to design homework with a purpose.

Why do students need more interactive homework?

If homework assignments are always the same—10 math problems, six sentences with spelling words—homework can get boring and some kids just stop doing their assignments, especially in the middle and high school years. When we've asked teachers what's the best homework you've ever had or designed, invariably we hear examples of talking with a parent or grandparent or peer to share ideas. To be clear, parents should never be asked to "teach" seventh grade science or any other subject. Rather, teachers set up the homework assignments so that the student is in charge. It's always the student's homework. But a good activity can engage parents in a fun, collaborative way. Our data show that with "good" assignments, more kids finish their work, more kids interact with a family partner, and more parents say, "I learned what's happening in the curriculum." It all works around what the youngsters are learning.

Is family engagement really that important?

At Hopkins, I am part of the Center for Social Organization of Schools , a research center that studies how to improve many aspects of education to help all students do their best in school. One thing my colleagues and I realized was that we needed to look deeply into family and community engagement. There were so few references to this topic when we started that we had to build the field of study. When children go to school, their families "attend" with them whether a teacher can "see" the parents or not. So, family engagement is ever-present in the life of a school.

My daughter's elementary school doesn't assign homework until third grade. What's your take on "no homework" policies?

There are some parents, writers, and commentators who have argued against homework, especially for very young children. They suggest that children should have time to play after school. This, of course is true, but many kindergarten kids are excited to have homework like their older siblings. If they give homework, most teachers of young children make assignments very short—often following an informal rule of 10 minutes per grade level. "No homework" does not guarantee that all students will spend their free time in productive and imaginative play.

Some researchers and critics have consistently misinterpreted research findings. They have argued that homework should be assigned only at the high school level where data point to a strong connection of doing assignments with higher student achievement . However, as we discussed, some students stop doing homework. This leads, statistically, to results showing that doing homework or spending more minutes on homework is linked to higher student achievement. If slow or struggling students are not doing their assignments, they contribute to—or cause—this "result."

Teachers need to design homework that even struggling students want to do because it is interesting. Just about all students at any age level react positively to good assignments and will tell you so.

Did COVID change how schools and parents view homework?

Within 24 hours of the day school doors closed in March 2020, just about every school and district in the country figured out that teachers had to talk to and work with students' parents. This was not the same as homeschooling—teachers were still working hard to provide daily lessons. But if a child was learning at home in the living room, parents were more aware of what they were doing in school. One of the silver linings of COVID was that teachers reported that they gained a better understanding of their students' families. We collected wonderfully creative examples of activities from members of the National Network of Partnership Schools. I'm thinking of one art activity where every child talked with a parent about something that made their family unique. Then they drew their finding on a snowflake and returned it to share in class. In math, students talked with a parent about something the family liked so much that they could represent it 100 times. Conversations about schoolwork at home was the point.

How did you create so many homework activities via the Teachers Involve Parents in Schoolwork program?

We had several projects with educators to help them design interactive assignments, not just "do the next three examples on page 38." Teachers worked in teams to create TIPS activities, and then we turned their work into a standard TIPS format in math, reading/language arts, and science for grades K-8. Any teacher can use or adapt our prototypes to match their curricula.

Overall, we know that if future teachers and practicing educators were prepared to design homework assignments to meet specific purposes—including but not limited to interactive activities—more students would benefit from the important experience of doing their homework. And more parents would, indeed, be partners in education.

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Should Kids Get Homework?

Homework gives elementary students a way to practice concepts, but too much can be harmful, experts say.

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Effective homework reinforces math, reading, writing or spelling skills, but in a way that's meaningful.

How much homework students should get has long been a source of debate among parents and educators. In recent years, some districts have even implemented no-homework policies, as students juggle sports, music and other activities after school.

Parents of elementary school students, in particular, have argued that after-school hours should be spent with family or playing outside rather than completing assignments. And there is little research to show that homework improves academic achievement for elementary students.

But some experts say there's value in homework, even for younger students. When done well, it can help students practice core concepts and develop study habits and time management skills. The key to effective homework, they say, is keeping assignments related to classroom learning, and tailoring the amount by age: Many experts suggest no homework for kindergartners, and little to none in first and second grade.

Value of Homework

Homework provides a chance to solidify what is being taught in the classroom that day, week or unit. Practice matters, says Janine Bempechat, clinical professor at Boston University 's Wheelock College of Education & Human Development.

"There really is no other domain of human ability where anybody would say you don't need to practice," she adds. "We have children practicing piano and we have children going to sports practice several days a week after school. You name the domain of ability and practice is in there."

Homework is also the place where schools and families most frequently intersect.

"The children are bringing things from the school into the home," says Paula S. Fass, professor emerita of history at the University of California—Berkeley and the author of "The End of American Childhood." "Before the pandemic, (homework) was the only real sense that parents had to what was going on in schools."

Harris Cooper, professor emeritus of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University and author of "The Battle Over Homework," examined more than 60 research studies on homework between 1987 and 2003 and found that — when designed properly — homework can lead to greater student success. Too much, however, is harmful. And homework has a greater positive effect on students in secondary school (grades 7-12) than those in elementary.

"Every child should be doing homework, but the amount and type that they're doing should be appropriate for their developmental level," he says. "For teachers, it's a balancing act. Doing away with homework completely is not in the best interest of children and families. But overburdening families with homework is also not in the child's or a family's best interest."

Negative Homework Assignments

Not all homework for elementary students involves completing a worksheet. Assignments can be fun, says Cooper, like having students visit educational locations, keep statistics on their favorite sports teams, read for pleasure or even help their parents grocery shop. The point is to show students that activities done outside of school can relate to subjects learned in the classroom.

But assignments that are just busy work, that force students to learn new concepts at home, or that are overly time-consuming can be counterproductive, experts say.

Homework that's just busy work.

Effective homework reinforces math, reading, writing or spelling skills, but in a way that's meaningful, experts say. Assignments that look more like busy work – projects or worksheets that don't require teacher feedback and aren't related to topics learned in the classroom – can be frustrating for students and create burdens for families.

"The mental health piece has definitely played a role here over the last couple of years during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the last thing we want to do is frustrate students with busy work or homework that makes no sense," says Dave Steckler, principal of Red Trail Elementary School in Mandan, North Dakota.

Homework on material that kids haven't learned yet.

With the pressure to cover all topics on standardized tests and limited time during the school day, some teachers assign homework that has not yet been taught in the classroom.

Not only does this create stress, but it also causes equity challenges. Some parents speak languages other than English or work several jobs, and they aren't able to help teach their children new concepts.

" It just becomes agony for both parents and the kids to get through this worksheet, and the goal becomes getting to the bottom of (the) worksheet with answers filled in without any understanding of what any of it matters for," says professor Susan R. Goldman, co-director of the Learning Sciences Research Institute at the University of Illinois—Chicago .

Homework that's overly time-consuming.

The standard homework guideline recommended by the National Parent Teacher Association and the National Education Association is the "10-minute rule" – 10 minutes of nightly homework per grade level. A fourth grader, for instance, would receive a total of 40 minutes of homework per night.

But this does not always happen, especially since not every student learns the same. A 2015 study published in the American Journal of Family Therapy found that primary school children actually received three times the recommended amount of homework — and that family stress increased along with the homework load.

Young children can only remain attentive for short periods, so large amounts of homework, especially lengthy projects, can negatively affect students' views on school. Some individual long-term projects – like having to build a replica city, for example – typically become an assignment for parents rather than students, Fass says.

"It's one thing to assign a project like that in which several kids are working on it together," she adds. "In (that) case, the kids do normally work on it. It's another to send it home to the families, where it becomes a burden and doesn't really accomplish very much."

Private vs. Public Schools

Do private schools assign more homework than public schools? There's little research on the issue, but experts say private school parents may be more accepting of homework, seeing it as a sign of academic rigor.

Of course, not all private schools are the same – some focus on college preparation and traditional academics, while others stress alternative approaches to education.

"I think in the academically oriented private schools, there's more support for homework from parents," says Gerald K. LeTendre, chair of educational administration at Pennsylvania State University—University Park . "I don't know if there's any research to show there's more homework, but it's less of a contentious issue."

How to Address Homework Overload

First, assess if the workload takes as long as it appears. Sometimes children may start working on a homework assignment, wander away and come back later, Cooper says.

"Parents don't see it, but they know that their child has started doing their homework four hours ago and still not done it," he adds. "They don't see that there are those four hours where their child was doing lots of other things. So the homework assignment itself actually is not four hours long. It's the way the child is approaching it."

But if homework is becoming stressful or workload is excessive, experts suggest parents first approach the teacher, followed by a school administrator.

"Many times, we can solve a lot of issues by having conversations," Steckler says, including by "sitting down, talking about the amount of homework, and what's appropriate and not appropriate."

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Should Teachers Still Give Homework?

Giving homework is a standard practice in most educational facilities across all grade levels and locations. Homework is intended to further solidify concepts and practices that a student learns in class in their minds later at home. But that could all be changing. 

Educators are now taking many different approaches to homework with more of an emphasis placed on the relevancy of the work to both the students’ age and learning level. Some educators are joining the anti-homework movement, and have seen positive results from giving little to no homework for students. However, with outside parties like parents and families getting more involved in the conversation around homework, it may be here to stay. The question is, should it be?

• What is the history of homework?

For contemporary parents or guardians and their students, it might seem like homework has always been around. However, homework has actually been a widely debated topic since its inception in the 19th century. Horace Mann, among others, is credited with championing the idea of homework in the United States after touring German “Volksschulen (‘People’s Schools’)” while visiting the country.

As the idea of homework came across the Atlantic to America, it was quickly met with opposition and eventually a ban was placed on homework for any children under the age of 15 until 1917. When the United States and Russia entered the Cold War era, homework became relevant again as the United States placed emphasis on improving students’ knowledge to compete with other countries for success.

Various studies arguing both sides of the homework question have been released since then. The relevance of homework is now once again in question as educators and homeschooling parents try to understand the true purpose behind it. 

• Is homework still relevant? 

Somewhere around 50% of educators still assign homework . However, this number might be bolstered due to parent involvement. Often, educators don’t want to assign homework or want to assign less homework, saving the time their students have at home for family bonding and other activities. 

But many parents are uncomfortable with a lack of homework assignments for the following reasons:

• Parents feel like their children need homework to solidify concepts learned in the classroom.
• Some parents also advocate for the time management, organization, and structure that homework can teach children.

They will often complain to the teacher, forcing the teacher to provide homework of some kind. So while half of all educators are assigning homework, the number of educators who believe it’s necessary may actually be less since some teachers feel pressured to assign homework when they otherwise wouldn’t. 

The relevance of homework when it is assigned is frequently up for debate because there are many nuances that go into the process of a student completing homework. When a teacher assigns homework they need to be aware of many things including:

• Student access to a reliable internet source and computer or tablet
• Student/parent dynamics at home
• Parent/parent dynamics at home
• Student accessibility levels
• Necessity to student learning

All of these factors play a role in how well the student will respond to homework. Other factors like grade level also play a role in the quality and quantity of homework being assigned. But beyond these factors, homework also needs to be thought out before it's assigned. To some extent, the relevancy of homework is determined by how well it’s been formulated by the teacher assigning it.

• How much homework is too much? 

The quantity of homework will vary greatly by grade level. Teachers will often operate by the “ 10-minute rule ” which recommends that a child should be assigned 10 minutes of homework for every grade they’ve passed. So a fifth grader would have 50 minutes of assigned work. 

However, homework can become overwhelming when a teacher hasn’t put the time into creating meaningful assignments that can be completed in a reasonable amount of time. Thus the feeling of “too much homework” is often conflated with poorly constructed homework. A positively constructed homework assignment will contain a few things:

• Work reviewing material that the student has already learned in class
• Work that involves professor feedback or has a clear purpose
• Work that can be finished in the time period appropriate for the age and grade level of the student
• Why is homework important? 

While many educators do not see much value in homework at the K–6 level, studies have shown that students in middle school or grades 7–12 do benefit from homework. Often this is because a student is learning more rigorous material and has a more fully developed brain that benefits from the reinforcement that homework provides. 

Many teachers argue that homework for students is like practice for athletes: it reinforces concepts and the neural pathways a student has used during class. Beyond these benefits , homework can also teach students time management and organizational skills.

__________ Become who you are called to be Pursue your purpose at PLNU. __________

• Should teachers still give homework? 

Studies on the relevance of homework to actual success in the classroom are varied. One of the most comprehensive studies reinforces the idea that homework can have a positive impact if the teacher assigning it is doing so in the correct manner. In this case, the 2006 study conducted by Duke University psychology professor Harris Cooper, showed a positive correlation for students who were doing appropriate homework in higher grade levels. He stated that “a good way to think about homework is the way you think about medications or dietary supplements. If you take too little, they’ll have no effect. If you take too much, they can [hurt] you. If you take the right amount, you’ll get better.” 

The study also revealed that the impact of homework went down if the student was in elementary school. Therefore, the decision for teachers to assign homework should be based on the grade level they are teaching and the general intensity level of their students. One PLNU alumna, Megan Wheeler (19), who is also a grade school teacher has found this to be a sound policy and practices it with her own students:

“As an elementary teacher, I do not assign any homework to my students because I find that many students may not have home lives that are conducive to the demands that homework requires…My eight-year-old students are already working hard on school work for six hours during the day with me, so I would much rather they spend that time together as a family or participating in extracurricular activities.”

• Take the next steps to becoming an educator

Learning the ins and outs of properly constructed homework assignments can be a daunting task for rising educators, especially when the many types of student learning styles are taken into account. One of the best places to receive more instruction on how to assign the right kind of homework is in an education-specific degree program. 

PLNU boasts many undergraduate and graduate-level options for all types of budding educators so you can continue your education while pursuing a worthwhile career. Find out more about these programs by visiting PLNU’s School of Education website .

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A Simple, Effective Homework Plan For Teachers: Part 2

In part one of this two-part series on homework, we covered four strategies:

1. Assign what students already know.

2. Don’t involve parents.

3. Review before the end of the day.

4. Confront students who don’t have completed homework.

This week, we’ll finish the series with the final four strategies. At the end of the article, I’m going to issue a challenge—including a way to earn a free book.

Homework Strategies 5-8

5. Don’t collect it.

Most teachers collect homework.

Why? What are you going to do with it? Grade it and return it? Correct it so your students can analyze it later? Slap a sticker on it?

Collecting homework is a waste of time. Here’s why:

Upon return, nearly all students will stuff it in their desk or backpack and not give it another thought.

Returning it the next day–after you’ve moved on to the next lesson–is too late to be any benefit to students.

Homework is practice only and therefore shouldn’t be graded beyond a simple credit/no credit.

6. Partner check.

Instead of collecting it, have your students pair up and cross check their answers. Why? Because it adds ownership, motivation, and accountability to homework. It also deepens comprehension and is done before the next lesson–when it really matters.

If there is a discrepancy in answers, the students must work out who is right and why.

During this time, if there is a student whose homework is incomplete (rare, see strategies 1-4), he or she must begin work on it immediately and may not participate in the partner activity.

When your students are finished, allow for questions and be ready to provide further explanation.

7. Throw it away.

It’s done. You squeezed all the learning you needed from it. Now it’s time to throw the homework away. There is no reason to keep it, and pitching it in the trash underscores the importance of practice—which is an often-overlooked key to academic success.

It’s also an opportunity to have some fun. So grab a wastepaper basket and place it on a chair or desk in front of the room. Ask your students to crumble up their homework, and on your signal, shoot it at the basket.

Afterward, draw a crumbled ball or two from the basket and give out a simple prize—a sticker, first to line up, 15 seconds early for recess, whatever. This isn’t done as an incentive, mind you.

It’s done because it makes your classroom more fun , which is critical to effective classroom management.

8. Double it.

Any student who comes to school without homework completed, and doesn’t get it finished during partner check, must do it at home that evening along with the homework assigned for the day.

It is homework. And, sorry, but we’re busy learning today.

So the only time he or she can do it is at home. In the morning both homework assignments are due.

If a student comes to you and asks if it can be done during recess, it’s up to you. However, I’m not in favor of sending students to recess time-out .

If you decide to give your students the option of doing it during recess, I recommend you supervise them yourself in class and that you don’t accept the homework until the next morning.

A Challenge!

I challenge you to try this homework plan to begin the new school year.

If it doesn’t make your life easier, and you’re not thrilled with the improved learning and motivation in your students, email me and I’ll send you a free copy of any of my books.

Although, having seen this homework plan in action, I probably won’t believe you.

If you haven’t done so already, please join us. It’s free! Click here and begin receiving classroom management articles like this one in your email box every week.

What to read next:

• A Powerful Way To Relieve Stress: Part One
• A Simple Exercise Program For Teachers
• The Best Time To Review Your Classroom Management Plan
• Why Your New Classroom Management Plan Isn't Working
• 27 Things That Make Your Classroom Management Plan Work

30 thoughts on “A Simple, Effective Homework Plan For Teachers: Part 2”

I was wondering have you had safe and civil schools CHAMPS training by Randy Sprick? I just completed a 2 day training, and I feel everything I was ever taught to do is now obsolete. I was just curious what your thought on this were!

Sorry, I haven’t heard of it.

I have a question regarding strategy #8: Double it. What do you do if the student doesn’t return/complete both homework assignments the next day?

If you follow the first four strategies, and I encourage you to go back and read them, it shouldn’t happen. Done correctly, they provide irresistible motivation for students to complete homework. However, if it happens, then three assignments are due. If you follow the strategies, Shauna, you’ve done your part. At some point it’s up to the students and out of your hands. Coddling, encouraging, pep-talks, etc. won’t work.

If you lose a student, and he or she is refusing to do homework, then that is a different problem altogether. He or she cannot be a welcome member of your class any longer. Read the series on handling difficult students (right sidebar, near the bottom) for how to do this.

I am eager to try all 8 strategies tomorrow. I am skeptical, though. My students are inner-city minority kids who rarely manage to get their homework out the door. If they do there’s a good chance they have no space/tools/atmosphere in there home to do their homework. Is there any advice you can give me to remove those excuses from the list of excuses in the morning? I know they would be thrilled to trash it in the end.

Like all strategies on this website, the homework plan was developed and proven effective with disadvantaged students. One of the core philosophies of Smart Classroom Management is that there are no excuses, from the teacher managing the classroom to the students who we know can do the work. This attitude must permeate everything you do in the classroom. It is indeed possible to get homework back from all of your students every morning, but you have to believe it and know that it’s true before you can expect it from your students. It must become just the way things are done in your classroom.

This year In my first grade classroom I did weekly homework packets instead of nightly homework. Students were given packets of review work on Monday and they were due on Friday. The majority of the class turned them in but there was the same 2 or 3 who rarely had it done. I was wondering what you thought of weekly packets instead of nightly and I was wanting your comments on whether you feel homework is effective/necessary at first grade?

I’m not a fan of weekly homework packets. I think it’s something that needs to be checked daily. I’ll be sure to write about this topic in the future. As for your second question, I think homework can be beneficial (to a degree) for first grade as long as it’s review and doesn’t take long to complete.

Hello Mr. Linsin. I work in an experimental school where all work is done through email. We use little to no paper. The problem is that students have a built-in excuse: they can simply say they lost their internet connection or had other technology issues. Sometimes the files get corrupted on their USB drives. My question is, should I force a student who “lost” his or her data to re-do the homework during step 6?

If a student doesn’t have his or her homework, whatever the reason, it still must get done. So, yes, absolutely. Part of the learning with homework is in the responsibility. You may, however, want to require students who claim to have lost their data or have other tech issues to bring a note from parents. My guess is that this would be an exceedingly rare occurrence.

My school year starts next week, and I just found your articles on homework. I plan to implement these eight steps in my high school classroom. My question is, when a student turns the assignment in late, do you recommend still giving them full credit on a credit/no credit grade?

Hi Melanie,

No, I don’t recommend giving full credit for late homework. Depending on your students and their grade level, however, you may want to consider 1/2 credit for late homework.

its nice to go through the tips regarding home work need a long discussion and debate to improve it

Hi Michael, I recently began asking my students to get their tests signed by their parents. Quite a number of boys don’t bring it the next day; a few don’t bring it all. I think the main cause is a lack of responsibility (something I’ve seen come up quite often). Maybe 1 or 2 students are embarrassed to show their parents. The only strategies which seem relevant to this are 3 and 4. Is there anything else you’d suggest? Thanks!

It comes down to how much they have respect for you. The better rapport, and the more trusting relationship, and the more they admire, respect, and look up to you, the fewer problems like the one you describe. As you get better in this one area, you’ll have greater leverage–and then everything becomes much easier.

I love your website! One question about homework: isn’t one of the main purposes of homework assessment for learning? If it is not collected, how else do you suggest teachers getting hard data on student progress (other than summative assessment scores)?

Hi Bethany,

I believe homework should be used for practice. It grooves and solidifies learning that has already taken place. Although it can give teachers feedback, I don’t think it should be used as an assessment–for many reasons. Your data should come from a controlled environment (teacher speak for your classroom) to make sure it’s an accurate assessment of what your students can do. There is a lot more to this, and if it fits, I’ll write an article about it in the future.

Hi ya… Is this geared toward elementary students? Wondering how it would work in middle school? THanks!

Smart Classroom Management is for all K-8 grade teachers. However, on the upper and lower ends of that spectrum, expect to make some small but mostly obvious modifications.

I am a middle school math teacher. I have a question about throwing homework away. It sounds like so much fun and I really would like my kids to do it. However, we are using an online program, Zangle, to enter their assignments (homework, assessments, etc) that the students can see and check. I sometimes make mistakes on entering in grades and would like to have them keep their homework to make sure I entered it correctly. Do you have any suggestions? Thank you!

Hi Christina,

If you follow the series guidelines on how to check homework, then you don’t have to ask your students to keep it (because you’ll check it right in front of them).

Personally, I think these tips are great, but I wouldn’t mind having that free book either because, hey, free book.

And who doesn’t love free books?

I am a new teacher just getting my ABCTE certification. How do you handle students who are absent for legitimate reasons? Do you require them make up all the homework they miss? How do you help them catching up? Thanks a ton!

I will certainly use your hw policy. Do you have a deadline for late hw after which no credit is given?

I’ll put your questions related to absences on the list of possible future topics. As for your final question, students either have it or they don’t. The deadline is first thing in the morning.

Throw homework away?? Think I would get into some serious trouble if I couldn’t prove to leadership that homework was being done.

Also self or peer marking that often? again would get me into some serious hot water, with SLT saying I wasn’t doing my job correctly.

What do you do about students who have trouble with executive functioning and forget to bring their homework home, lose their homework before it’s done, forget to do it at home, forget where they put their homework by the time they get home, actually complete the homework but lose it after it’s done, leave their homework at home, forget where they put their completed homework, or forget to bring their completed homework to class? I’ve had all of these excuses from students, mostly those who need organizational help.

I’ve learned so much from your website since I’ve started reading your articles! Looking forward to your response. Thanks!

The point is that the students who do their homework want their credits and want to see their work appreciated. And what is the consequence for those who do not show effort? Thanks, Kathrine

Hi Michael,

My homework strategy is similar to yours. However when walking around and checking student homework I do not say anything, initially, to those who haven’t completed. Instead I just silently note the non-completer’s names on my clipboard. Then I return to the front of the class and issue a detention of 10 minutes to those who didn’t complete their homework (students are aware of the rule and consequence).

The student then has a choice of completing the homework before their detention and putting it on my desk when they enter the detention room for me to check or sitting down with it and completing it during detention and giving it to me when their detention is finished.

What do you think of this strategy? Do you think issuing detention for not completing homework is too harsh?

I like it, Gary. No, I don’t think it’s too harsh.

Thanks Michael.

Glad to hear it!

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What Are The Creative Homework Ideas That Teachers Can Give To Students?

• July 13, 2022

Table of Content

If you are a teacher who loves to foster creativity in your classroom , why are you giving the same kind of  homework  every day? Students will be bored completing the same assignment every day and find it monotonous. Let us look at the  creative homework ideas to give to your students  and make their learning more meaningful.

Make them research more 

Instead of  giving math homework daily from their textbooks  and asking them to solve them, ask them to search the internet and explore things. Try to provide them with a couple of questions and ask them to research and find answers. For example, assign each student a city. 

Ask them to explore more and discover the famous landmarks, restaurants, popular events, and other information related to that city. This activity develops their language skills as they read a lot when they search and helps them know more when they dive deep into searching. 

Assignments that are relatable to real life 

The primary aim of education is to prepare students to face real-world problems. Apart from completing education and getting a job, there are numerous tasks for adults to accomplish in their life. Therefore, try to assign tasks that help them to practice real-world activities. For example, ask your students to go shopping with their parents and list the essentials, help their parents cook dinner, learn about traffic signals, fill out bank cheques, pay bills, etc., and make them share their experiences. 

Crafts making 

Crafts making is one of the enjoyable activities for students that help them let out their stress. Making them try craftwork ideas will  develop their creativity and learn practical skills . For example, when they build a craft model, they have to make appropriate measurements, create a plan, etc. Encourage your students to try clay molds, origami, DIY activities, making use of waste products, etc., and improve their creativity skills. 

Suggested – Creative Homework Ideas for Teachers that Make Online Learning More Engaging

Make them aware of current affairs

Making students watch news channels or read newspapers is too challenging, isn’t it? However, making them aware of current updates is essential to educate them about the real world. So, try to include this as a  routine of their   homework . Ask your students to note the current updates, write about an interview that discusses the influential events, etc., to make them study real-world happenings.

Outdoor activities 

Nowadays, young children are too obsessed with technology, which makes them sit for hours at home, play games, and watch movies. To make your students step out of their homes during weekend times, give  homework that involves outdoor activities.  For example, assign them a task of visiting a zoo or museum on their weekend and let them record or note the interesting things they find there. 

Creative homework that involves physical activities 

After this pandemic, where offices, schools, colleges, and everything become online, we became more sedentary than ever. So, giving  students homework that involves  walking, running, skipping, swimming, etc., is an excellent way to improve their physical activity. 

Language skills 

Besides focusing on technical skills, language and communication skills are also essential for the students to learn. Students can improve their communication skills only through practicing them constantly. You can assign tasks that involve literary and  communication skills  like poetry, story writing, storytelling, essay writing, email writing, summary or review writing of a movie or book, etc. 

Suggested – 10 Tips To Create Online Communication Skills Training 

Email writing skills  help them a lot when they enter the professional world. You can also give them a couple of new words and make them find their meanings to improve their vocabulary.

Using technology 

Teach your students  the appropriate  ways of using technology.  When students are guided on the right way to utilize technology, they will understand its importance other than playing games. For example, let them try creating a word document, trying basic operations in excel, creating a self-introduction video, photo editing, and more to make them get hands-on experience in technology. 

Social service activities for creative homework

Incorporating moral values in the minds of young children will help them grow as responsible adults. Making them do social service activities will develop empathy and teach them the importance of humanity. Assign tasks like visiting retirement homes or orphanages, helping the needy, growing trees, and more to make the upcoming generation more responsible. 

To wrap up 

Doing homework  would not seem hectic for the students. Instead, try discussing with your students to understand more about their interests. And assign them tasks that have a purpose and align with their interests. 

If you are a teacher who wants to manage all your online classroom activities effectively in one place, Classplus is the right place for you. Classplus assists you develop a customized teaching app for your online teaching business with numerous excellent features. Click here to know more about us!

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20+ creative alternative homework ideas for teachers

When giving homework, it must always be based on learning goals your students have to reach, just like in your lessons. But it’s sad to see that lots of teachers are using homework as extra lesson time. Of course, as a teacher, you’re on a clock. But that doesn’t mean your students have to suffer from it and keep working on those boring textbooks and worksheets at home.

Consider goals like attitudes, real-life experiences, and practice, physical exercise, social encounters, creative solutions, and philanthropy as crucial as your lesson goals. These are things students don’t just pick up in your classroom. These are things they pick up in life.

In this blog post, I’ll give you some innovative homework ideas that will engage your students more. These alternatives to traditional homework will thereby also teach your students new things that can’t be taught in the classroom. You will find a variety of homework ideas: online and offline.

I will mention homework alternatives for primary school and high school. Some of these ideas can be changed a little bit, so they are the perfect fit for the right audience.

20 Creative homework ideas

You can divide homework tasks into the following themes or categories:

• Crafts & arts
• Outdoor activities & outings
• Games and activities
• Physical activities
• Digital or computer activities
• Philanthropy & social work

💡 Good to know : all the ready-to-use homework activities are created with BookWidgets . You can easily create activities like these yourself or duplicate an activity below for free, edit it if needed, and share it with your students. You can do so in the examples separately, or you can find all the homework examples in the BookWidgets Blog group folder .

Crafts and arts homework

1. prepare a dish from a recipe book.

2. Make a board game

3. Create a birdhouse

4. Transform a fictional book character into a hand puppet

Outdoor homework activities and outings

5. coupon game.

Students can also go grocery shopping with their parents. Here, they have to read the ingredients of the products and help their parents choose the healthiest products for the best prices, figure out the best deal between the sizes of items, …

6. Visit the zoo

7. Visit the local dumping ground or container park

8. Build a tree house

Games and activities as homework

9. bookwidgets games.

10. Minecraft

11. Play Cards

12. Play Zoo Tycoon or Rollercoaster Tycoon

Physical homework activities

13. rope skipping.

Many rope-skipping songs let your students do different tricks while rope-skipping. This is an excellent opportunity for homework as well. Ask your students to transform a rope skipping song into a song with lesson content. Let them count or spell or even sum up the different states or capitals. To engage their lifestyles even harder, you can additionally give them the assignment to create a TikTok in which they are jumping and singing.

Click here to see how you can get Tiktok more involved in the classroom.

14. Walking quest

If there aren’t any walking quests in the neighborhood, you could ask your students to create a walking quest like this for their fellow students. What a fun day it will be!

15. Obstacle Quiz

In order for students to answer the questions, they have to run and pass a challenging parkour. This is a fun homework exercise, and in the end, it’s a great lesson starter or lesson end.

16. Swimming games

After the activity, they can fill out an Exit Slip:

Digital or computer homework activities

17. create a picture album.

This teaches them to handle the online software, add pictures and write without spelling mistakes. And of course, creating memories is so much fun!

18. Video job application

19. Your life in 10 minutes - video

20. Email pen-pals

Is it still too complicated? Read the messages from your students, before they send them, and provide them with some feedback.

Philanthropy and social homework

21. grow a community garden.

22. Help in a retirement home

23. Help at a homeless shelter

24. Collect litter

Here’s another homework tip: Don’t call homework “homework”. Call it a challenge. Homework has become a negative word for students, and I bet they start rolling their eyes as you even mention the word.

Still looking for more inspiration? Check out the blog on short films and lesson activities that spice up your Google Classroom . Tip: even if you don’t use Google Classroom, there is a lot of inspiration back here.

Above you have read single assignments. But, you also have the option to involve your homework in a project. Find out more here .

So, as I mentioned earlier, there are many fun alternatives to traditional homework. Now it’s up to you to apply this in the classroom as well. In this folder , you will find all the examples you have come across.

Which idea do you or perhaps your students like the most? Let us know on Twitter . Of course, there are many more alternatives. If you have other ideas, you are always welcome to share it with other teachers in our Facebook group .

One more thing: don’t forget to say hi👋 on LikedIn .

Join hundreds of thousands of subscribers, and get the best content on technology in education.

BookWidgets enables teachers to create fun and interactive lessons for tablets, smartphones, and computers.

Homework: To give and how much to give, that is the question

So, how much homework do you give per night? How do you determine what is the best amount? In addition to the impact that homework has on academic achievement, Christian teachers also are thinking about the impact of homework on the total well-being of students and their families. What about homework’s intrusion into precious family time? What about the student with slow processing who takes twice the time as other students to complete assignments? What about a parent’s choice to engage their child in other types of learning or work outside of the normal school day hours, essentially eliminating time to complete homework? These questions require the Christian teachers’ consideration because our role is to assist parents in the education of their children. Biblically, the parents “make the call,” so to speak.

Research informs one area of decision-making regarding homework. That area is the connection between academic achievement and the amount of time a student spends doing homework. Harris Cooper reviewed more than 60 research studies on homework between 1987 and 2003 and drew some conclusions which may be helpful. [1] Here is a brief summary of the meta-analysis of the research on homework: 1. The amount of homework assigned to students should be different based on the grade of the student.

• Elementary: homework does not increase academic performance, but can positively contribute to establishing work habits.  Recommended: grade in school times 10 minutes = time spent on homework (a student in fifth grade would be 5 x 10=50 minutes a night)
• Middle School:   Recommended:  90-120 minutes average per night
• High School:   every 30 minutes of additional homework per night yields a 5% increase in the student’s GPA up to a point.  Recommended: 120-180 minutes per night

Should Elementary Teachers Give Homework? (The Ultimate Guide) 

Homework completion among high school students is connected with higher academic performance. In elementary school, however, no link has been observed between homework and academic gains. These findings now raise the question of whether teachers should still give homework.

Elementary teachers should give homework. However, elementary students must spend 10 minutes at most on homework each night per grade level. Any homework done beyond this limit becomes less beneficial for children.

The rest of this article will discuss the purpose of giving homework and some arguments surrounding it. This article will also provide teachers with recommendations on what the right amount of homework should be.

Table of Contents

What Is the Purpose of Giving Homework?

Setting clear purposes for giving homework has been proven to contribute to a student’s academic success.

Giving homework can serve three main purposes, namely: practice (which helps students reinforce learned concepts), preparation (where the student performs research ahead of upcoming classes), and extension (which focuses on a student’s application of learned concepts).

When homework assignments are aligned with the teacher’s intended purposes, students are more likely to get deeply immersed in their tasks. Students also tend to better understand the end goals they are expected to meet.

Given this, it’s essential to know what purposes a teacher must have before giving a homework task. This ensures that the homework assignment is beneficial to the student rather than counterproductive.

A study published in 1990 suggests that a teacher should start by identifying what type of homework they are going to give, with tasks being reduced to three main kinds :

• Preparation

Practice Homework

Practice exercises are designed to reinforce or apply the student’s recently learned information. This homework can be typically seen when a teacher assigns a take-home arithmetic problem so that a student can practice the questions independently.

The caveat on giving such homework is that the task is not very engaging. The more able students who are already confident with the content would only be doing the task for the sake of its completion.

On the other hand, the less able students may find it too challenging and give up. Teachers, in the end, are faced with the challenge of making practice assignments individualized and student-specific, which aids in the individual needs of the students.

Preparation Homework

On the other hand, there are preparation homework tasks where an assignment is intended to provide the student with sufficient background knowledge for the next day’s topic or discussion.

Teachers are advised to provide students with specific guidelines when proceeding with preparation assignments. In assigning a reading, for instance, you can be guided by the following questions:

• Why should the students read the selected reading?
• Does the reading offer important new information or concepts?
• How is it related to the previous topics in the subject matter?

Teachers can also explore other preparation tasks, like asking students to observe their surroundings outside of school or to conduct additional research on a topic.

Extension Homework

Extension assignments aim to extend the student’s work beyond what was started in class. They are designed mainly to foster independence, creativity, and inventiveness in the pursuit of knowledge. As a result, these tasks lean more toward individual application and inquiry, with the output being more authentic as the whole process is student-initiated.

Knowing these three basic kinds of homework provides a starting point for teachers on the purpose they want their students to get. With all this considered, elementary teachers are now one step towards giving homework that would best benefit their students.

5 Reasons For Homework

In this section, reasons for homework will be discussed concerning the interests and perspectives of students, parents, and teachers alike.

1.    Homework Serves Important Academic Functions

The most obvious benefit is that homework aids in the academic functions that underlie the very purpose of giving homework. Such assignments help in the completion of students’ unfinished work in school so they don’t fall behind in their studies.

Moreover, homework enables students to revise and consolidate what they have learned in the classroom. As the saying goes, “practice makes perfect.”

Through specific types of homework, students are better prepared for lessons and assessments, which will boost their self-esteem and confidence. It can also fuel students to expand their knowledge of concepts further.

Finally, if implemented correctly, homework can fuel a child’s curiosity and inquiry into a particular topic and beyond.

2.    Homework Helps in the Student’s Personal Development

Primarily, homework is set to aid in a student’s learning process.

At the same time, doing homework is believed to teach students the necessary skills they will need in their later years. This aspect of giving homework is one of its non-academic functions .

To illustrate this, a study exploring the views of primary school teachers in Hong Kong outlines that most teachers assign homework tasks to develop positive virtues in their pupils, such as:

• Time management
• Personal responsibility
• Accountability
• Self-discipline
• Independence

Some parents of elementary students express their agreement for this reason. They believe that it is a step toward future schooling and preparation on how the system works. Additionally, this belief is reasonable as parent involvement in their child’s education declines over time, so becoming self-dependent is essential.

3.    Homework Promotes Communication

Giving homework promotes communication not only between the teacher and the students but even the parents and the wider community. Essentially, all stakeholders in the child’s education are made aware of the student’s performance status in the following ways:

• Home-school communication: Teachers become aware of students’ understanding of a specific topic through homework. At the same time, sudden deterioration of performance might indicate home-life issues, which could help the teacher understand the non-academic aspects of their student’s life.
• Parent-child communication: Children whose parents assist in their homework or provide support to them tend to fare better in learning outcomes. Parents can take advantage of the opportunity to work and bond over their child’s learning. In addition, completing homework tasks can act as a much better alternative to screen time (watching TV or using devices like tablets and phones), which parents would unquestionably welcome.
• Parent-school communication: Parents who supervise their child’s homework can better observe and understand the teacher’s learning intentions and methods. Such situations are beneficial in developing homework policies in which parents are active contributors.

Essentially, through effective homework routines, teachers can build stronger relationships with parents .

4.    Homework Complies With School Requirements

Some district or school policies may require that all students do a set amount of homework for a certain period each week. These directives may be aligned with the belief that a “good school” gives take-home tasks.

With school league tables and inspection evaluations being so prominent, schools are under pressure to raise academic standards constantly. For some administrators, setting homework is a straightforward response to addressing the complex matter of boosting academic achievement.

5.    Homework Eases Time Constraints

For some teachers, assigning homework can help ease time constraints on the amount of curriculum material they need to cover in school.

Class time can be spent more on activities that require teacher support rather than tasks that can be done independently by the student.

Furthermore, homework can reduce the student’s time spent inside the classroom. They are instead allowed to have more time for themselves, provided they can effectively manage their time outside of school.

5 Reasons Against Homework

While there are substantial reasons for giving homework, there are also reasons against it. These reasons are often due to the disparity between the viewpoints of students and adults.

Adults often perceive homework as something beneficial to students in the long term. However, this perspective on homework does not always translate to the students.

The reason for this is that students are more likely to focus on the immediate benefits of a particular activity, so the appreciation and acknowledgment of homework’s purposes are sometimes lost on children. Here are five reasons against elementary teachers assigning homework.

1.    Homework Can Be Disengaging for Students

Research studies have found that many pupils across different grades believe that their homework is far from engaging. This view is due to homework being:

• Routine and predictable.
• A repetition of what has already been discussed in school.
• Not challenging enough for students.
• Too challenging and confusing for students

The level of engagement offered by homework is often limited. Therefore, students lack motivation when completing tasks, so learning and understanding become rudimentary.

Due to the common reasons why students find homework uninteresting, homework risks being labeled as a waste of time. When children reach this point, teachers must go back to the purpose of giving homework.

The teacher is advised to reflect on the homework methods they are currently utilizing. As mentioned previously, homework should be challenging and stimulating enough to provide its intended purpose to the students.

2.    Homework Takes Away From Other Interests

Children should be encouraged to pursue a wide range of interests, as a balanced régime will help them become well-rounded individuals.

Having the time and energy to spend on other things will also raise students’ self-awareness about what they are good at and what makes them happy. For instance, they might discover that they really enjoy playing musical instruments, or that they are a talented artist.

The requirement to complete homework tasks takes valuable time and effort away from other pursuits. Students already spend an average of seven to eight hours at school. Instructing them to dedicate extra time to their studies can be draining and unproductive to their development.

3.    Homework Does Not Guarantee Academic Progress

Sometimes, the purpose of a homework assignment is not appreciated. This phenomenon may be due to a misguided view of homework, especially among elementary school students and teachers.

Some students may do their homework for purposes other than its intended ones. For example, many young children do their homework to avoid getting into trouble at home or school.

These instances lead to a lack of recognition and acknowledgment of the purpose of the homework.

Numerous studies have shown that there isn’t a clear correlation between more homework and higher levels of academic success .

While homework may benefit some students to improve in specific subjects, it can lead to resentment and negative attitudes toward studying for others, thus having an adverse effect.

Therefore, the quality of homework should always come before quantity. Doing so will make homework more effective and more likely to produce the desired outcomes for the students.

4.    Homework Can Cause Issues at Home

Family life can also be negatively impacted when teachers set homework. Parents frequently view homework as an additional chore, needing to supervise and ensure that their children complete it.

Surveys also reveal that homework can cause great anxiety among both parents and students. Parents may feel inadequate or lacking the skills needed to support their children with assignments. Additionally, students may feel extra pressure when working with parents around.

All of these factors result in negative feelings developing within the household. Ultimately, homework can put a strain on parent-teacher relations .

As teachers, it is essential to consider that not all students have adequate learning settings in their homes. It will all boil down to how well teachers know their students and how they modify their homework-giving method accordingly.

5.    Homework Thwarts Being Social and Active

As children grow up, their interest in other social activities also grows. To this end, another perceived cost on the part of the students is that homework tends to be solitary in nature.

For kids, doing homework lessens the time spent with their family and friends. At such a crucial moment in their lives, elementary students should have the time and opportunity to develop their social skills through healthy interactions, both at school and outside.

Furthermore, most homework projects are written tasks that require students to sit at a desk. These assignments can take anywhere between half an hour to two hours to complete. Young children being sedentary for long periods can cause health problems like obesity.

These issues can be solved by reconfiguring homework tasks into group activities. Teachers can set practical tasks where family and friends can participate, promoting movement and social interactions while learning.

What’s the Right Amount of Homework?

At this point, we already know that homework tasks have their pros and cons. They can be helpful but only up to a certain extent. As elementary school teachers, it is essential to know the right amount of homework to increase the efficacy of take-home assignments.

The right amount of homework, according to the National Education Association, is ten minutes of homework a night per grade level. This recommendation means that elementary students should receive between 10 to 50 minutes of homework assignments each day, depending on their age.

Any homework that goes beyond this time limit can lead to the following negative effects on students:

• Less time for family and recreational activities
• Lack of rest
• Increased stress and anxiety

Unfortunately, the ten-minute rule is not applied uniformly within academic institutions. The study led by Robert M. Pressman and his colleagues in 2015 showed that elementary school students typically receive three times the recommended homework load.

The challenge now lies in the hands of teachers. The following paragraphs contain some practices that teachers and schools should find useful.

1.    Adhere to the Ten-Minute Guideline

The process by which schools and educators give homework needs to change. It will make a more significant difference if school administrators are the ones who initiate reform in homework policies.

Adherence to the ten-minute guideline must be institutionalized. This initiative can be achieved if educators put more emphasis on the quality of homework and not on the quantity .

Teachers may start first by grasping the pedagogical advantages of homework. They can then proceed to schedule homework strategically. Assign tasks only when it is most beneficial and not whenever possible.

2.    Create Engaging, Relevant, and Creative Tasks

Homework tasks are more successful if students understand their purposes. One great way of communicating this is by relating the learning to real-world applications. Find out what students are interested in or are curious about and make connections to these. Consequently, learning becomes significantly more meaningful and engaging.

Another way to boost engagement is by infusing creativity into the assignments set. Opt for practical, hands-on tasks that require students to interact with others as much as possible.

Catherine Thimmesh’s talk about creativity in the classroom can also be applied to homework setting. She outlines the importance and benefits of creativity and suggests that creative prompts can be surprisingly easy to implement (in only five minutes or less). Watch the video here:

3.    Involve Parents in a Healthy Way

To prevent the likelihood of family disputes about doing homework, parents must be given the role of mentors and support agents rather than tutors or instructors. This arrangement will remove the pressure on parents who feel nervous or frustrated when overseeing their children doing homework.

Additionally, parents can support their kids by providing them with the necessary tools to complete assignments. These tools could be in the form of a designated peaceful study area or books and digital resources.

Finally, parents can help ensure that their child spends the appropriate amount of time working on tasks, depending on the grade level, and free from distractions.

Final Thoughts

There are many considerations related to the effectiveness of homework activities given to elementary students. First and foremost, teachers must be clear about their intended objectives upon giving homework tasks instead of assigning homework for the sake of it.

Furthermore, they must take into account the arguments for and against setting homework. To put all these things into perspective, teachers should always weigh the right amount of homework in relation to students’ grade level and choose quality over quantity.

• ScienceDirect: Homework purposes, homework behaviors, and academic achievement. Examining the mediating role of students’ perceived homework quality
• ERIC Institute of Education Sciences: Homework as a Learning Experience. What Research Says to the Teacher
• Taylor & Francis Online: Meanings of Homework and Implications for Practice
• ERIC Institute of Education Sciences: What Is Homework For? Hong Kong Primary School Teachers’ Homework Conceptions
• National Education Association: How much homework is too much?
• American Psychological Association: Is homework a necessary evil?
• Taylor & Francis Online: Homework and Family Stress: With Consideration of Parents’ Self Confidence, Educational Level, and Cultural Background
• YouTube: Creativity in the classroom (in 5 minutes or less!) | Catherine Thimmesh | TEDxUniversityofStThomas
• The New Republic: More Homework Won’t Make American Students Smarter

Related posts:

• How To Deal With Students Who Won’t Stop Talking (20 Top Tips)
• 7 Ways Elementary Students Can Benefit From PowerPoint
• How To Deal With Angry Elementary Students (13 Top Tips)
• How Would Students Describe You as a Teacher? (7 Answers to Give)
• How Do I Become A Teacher In California?

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Student Opinion

Should We Get Rid of Homework?

Some educators are pushing to get rid of homework. Would that be a good thing?

By Jeremy Engle and Michael Gonchar

Do you like doing homework? Do you think it has benefited you educationally?

Has homework ever helped you practice a difficult skill — in math, for example — until you mastered it? Has it helped you learn new concepts in history or science? Has it helped to teach you life skills, such as independence and responsibility? Or, have you had a more negative experience with homework? Does it stress you out, numb your brain from busywork or actually make you fall behind in your classes?

Should we get rid of homework?

In “ The Movement to End Homework Is Wrong, ” published in July, the Times Opinion writer Jay Caspian Kang argues that homework may be imperfect, but it still serves an important purpose in school. The essay begins:

Do students really need to do their homework? As a parent and a former teacher, I have been pondering this question for quite a long time. The teacher side of me can acknowledge that there were assignments I gave out to my students that probably had little to no academic value. But I also imagine that some of my students never would have done their basic reading if they hadn’t been trained to complete expected assignments, which would have made the task of teaching an English class nearly impossible. As a parent, I would rather my daughter not get stuck doing the sort of pointless homework I would occasionally assign, but I also think there’s a lot of value in saying, “Hey, a lot of work you’re going to end up doing in your life is pointless, so why not just get used to it?” I certainly am not the only person wondering about the value of homework. Recently, the sociologist Jessica McCrory Calarco and the mathematics education scholars Ilana Horn and Grace Chen published a paper, “ You Need to Be More Responsible: The Myth of Meritocracy and Teachers’ Accounts of Homework Inequalities .” They argued that while there’s some evidence that homework might help students learn, it also exacerbates inequalities and reinforces what they call the “meritocratic” narrative that says kids who do well in school do so because of “individual competence, effort and responsibility.” The authors believe this meritocratic narrative is a myth and that homework — math homework in particular — further entrenches the myth in the minds of teachers and their students. Calarco, Horn and Chen write, “Research has highlighted inequalities in students’ homework production and linked those inequalities to differences in students’ home lives and in the support students’ families can provide.”

Mr. Kang argues:

But there’s a defense of homework that doesn’t really have much to do with class mobility, equality or any sense of reinforcing the notion of meritocracy. It’s one that became quite clear to me when I was a teacher: Kids need to learn how to practice things. Homework, in many cases, is the only ritualized thing they have to do every day. Even if we could perfectly equalize opportunity in school and empower all students not to be encumbered by the weight of their socioeconomic status or ethnicity, I’m not sure what good it would do if the kids didn’t know how to do something relentlessly, over and over again, until they perfected it. Most teachers know that type of progress is very difficult to achieve inside the classroom, regardless of a student’s background, which is why, I imagine, Calarco, Horn and Chen found that most teachers weren’t thinking in a structural inequalities frame. Holistic ideas of education, in which learning is emphasized and students can explore concepts and ideas, are largely for the types of kids who don’t need to worry about class mobility. A defense of rote practice through homework might seem revanchist at this moment, but if we truly believe that schools should teach children lessons that fall outside the meritocracy, I can’t think of one that matters more than the simple satisfaction of mastering something that you were once bad at. That takes homework and the acknowledgment that sometimes a student can get a question wrong and, with proper instruction, eventually get it right.

Students, read the entire article, then tell us:

Should we get rid of homework? Why, or why not?

Is homework an outdated, ineffective or counterproductive tool for learning? Do you agree with the authors of the paper that homework is harmful and worsens inequalities that exist between students’ home circumstances?

Or do you agree with Mr. Kang that homework still has real educational value?

When you get home after school, how much homework will you do? Do you think the amount is appropriate, too much or too little? Is homework, including the projects and writing assignments you do at home, an important part of your learning experience? Or, in your opinion, is it not a good use of time? Explain.

In these letters to the editor , one reader makes a distinction between elementary school and high school:

Homework’s value is unclear for younger students. But by high school and college, homework is absolutely essential for any student who wishes to excel. There simply isn’t time to digest Dostoyevsky if you only ever read him in class.

What do you think? How much does grade level matter when discussing the value of homework?

Is there a way to make homework more effective?

If you were a teacher, would you assign homework? What kind of assignments would you give and why?

Want more writing prompts? You can find all of our questions in our Student Opinion column . Teachers, check out this guide to learn how you can incorporate them into your classroom.

Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.

Jeremy Engle joined The Learning Network as a staff editor in 2018 after spending more than 20 years as a classroom humanities and documentary-making teacher, professional developer and curriculum designer working with students and teachers across the country. More about Jeremy Engle

What Is Homework?

Homework is work that teachers give students to complete outside of the school day. Homework is meant to provide students with practice for what was learned in school or an extension of what was done in class. Students are expected to complete the homework and return to school with the completed homework assignment.

Why Do Teachers Give Homework?

Most teachers give students homework so that they can practice something that was taught to them during class.

For example, if a teacher is teaching students how to add decimal numbers then the homework assignment would be for students to try adding decimals at home independently.

In my science class I never give my students homework that isn’t meaningful or practice towards a learning standard.

Gone are the days of giving homework that is “busy work”.

Also, when students return the following day their homework assignment is incorporated into the lesson so they quickly figure out that completing homework is necessary.

Some teachers, myself included, will use homework as a formative assessment.

If you are unsure what formative assessments are then you need to check out this article I wrote recently.

What Does Homework Look Like?

Homework can be almost anything.

Some examples of homework may include a simple worksheet to complete, a long term project, research, reading, a journal entry, completing something online, a drawing, or the continuation of something started in school, and just about anything else.

Homework isn’t limited to one specific thing.

With my eight grade students I have assigned videos for them to watch, creating a slideshow, completing a CER (more about the CER here) , conduct a survey for data collection, and more.

I have even had them collect leaves to identify the following day in our science class!

If you are a teacher reading this make sure to make your homework assignments interesting and worthwhile, don’t just assign homework as busy work.

Do Teachers Have To Give Homework?

No, teachers don’t have to give homework.

Usually teachers have discretion whether or not they are going to assign homework.

Personally, the principal or school district I work for has no idea how often I assign homework or what I assign for homework.

This decision to give or not give homework solely comes down to the classroom teacher.

The Importance Of Homework

The importance of homework is a heavily debated topic these days.

On one hand you have teachers that will say it is necessary that students continue learning outside the classroom in order to be more successful inside the classroom.

On the other hand some teachers will say that homework isn’t necessary as long as students are working hard during the school day.

Another reason homework is seen as not necessary is because students these days are so busy out of school that they don’t have time to complete homework.

Who is right?

I’d say it’s probably somewhere in the middle.

There is nothing wrong with a little homework for students but it shouldn’t be assigned every night.

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I (Allen) am currently teaching at a public school in a western suburb of Chicago. My teaching career started in 2004. Some of my interests outside of teaching is being with my family, biking, playing video games, travelling, and making the Teacher Adviser website.

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Teachers Collaboration & Professional Growth

The Great Homework Debate: To Give or Not to Give

I’ve been teaching in the elementary classroom for 18+ years. Over that course of time, I have assigned homework in many different ways . I have given homework that is due the next day, due at the end of the week, or the following week. I have given short-term projects, choice boards, you name it. I’ve had the same students complete the homework and the same students not complete homework. I’ve had some parents want (actually demand) homework, while other parents would rather not have homework added to their already full plate. As a result, I have been considering the idea of not assigning homework at all.

One thing I have learned about my students and their families is that not every home looks the same. Not all family members have the same schedule. Some students don’t have families at home to support them. Some students are watching other siblings. Some students are hungry and tired when they get home. And before you know it, the afternoon turns into evening, and then into the night, and it’s time for bed.

To be quite honest, I don’t find much value in homework, and neither do many of my students. Hear me out. I find the school day to be long and tiresome for many students. Some students work long and hard during the day. The ones that don’t will not go home and complete homework. Many kids receive support in school and need the same support at home in order to complete the homework. Some parents work late and are tired themselves. They may not be able to offer the support that their child(ren) needs.

As a busy mom of two boys, I know when I leave work, I have many personal responsibilities I need to tend to. I need to pick up my own boys from aftercare, get them home, fed, and bathed. They want to unwind and play. They don’t want to do homework. I don’t want to do homework with them. It can be a battle. They’re tired. I’m tired. It gets ugly. I try to teach my children that there needs to be a balance between home and school, work and play. Some nights homework just doesn’t fit into our busy schedule.

To Give or Not To Give Homework: That is the Question

I reached out to teachers on Instagram and put out a story poll asking if elementary teachers give homework. 34% of teachers responded yes to giving homework, while 66% responded no. Then I received a ton of DMs from teachers sharing some great options for homework.

• Unfinished classwork
• Do something nice for someone else and don’t tell them it was you, and ask an adult in your life what their favorite song is and ask them to either play it or sing it to you.
• Life skills (good for special education)
• Non-academic choice boards (go for a walk with your family, play a board game, help with 2 chores, etc)
• Optional academic or practice choice boards

So, I made the decision to at least start the year off with an optiona l homework choice board. It’s nothing fancy. It does reinforce learned concepts and skills from our daily lessons and curriculum, like a math practice page and or activities to practice word study (spelling and vocabulary), reading, and some extensions in science and social studies. I like the idea of optional homework because it gives families flexibility. It gives the parents and students who want or need homework an opportunity to complete homework while allowing families who would rather not have homework to forgo it or pick and choose which nights work best to complete homework.

I do offer an incentive, some kind of positive reinforcement, to those students who complete homework. In my school, we reward students with “buzz bucks” for students to cash in to receive rewards/prizes. I write a little note to go along with the bucks too.

“Leo, I noticed you crushed the math homework this week. That must have taken time and effort but it shows in your work. Keep it up!” ~Mrs. Weis

My students love this acknowledgment and praise. They save my little notes, too. Now that’s meaningful! I have seen at least half my class hand in homework so far each week, which I think is a win. There’s no moaning and groaning about it and the parents seem happy, too.

In my years of experience, I find that participative leadership, instead of authoritarian leadership, works. Participative leadership empowers and involves students and parents in some decision-making processes, like homework. This has proven to increase engagement and participation. H omework shouldn’t cause stress for students and parents, especially elementary students who may not be independent at home. Homework should reinforce skills and provide meaningful practice.

So, i f you’d like to try something different this year with homework, you can grab a copy of my homework choice boards that you can edit to the grade and subjects you teach. You can make multiple choice boards to differentiate and meet the needs of your students.

Since using these optional homework choice boards, I have customized the choices on the board. I’ve added more specific tasks that relate to our daily work and curriculum, such as response prompts to the novel we are reading, links to practice sites for math (Prodigy, Dreambox, etc), videos for additional support, specific science and social studies concepts to extend learning about what we are learning in class, etc.

Not down for optional homework? You can choose Homework Bingo. Students must complete a box each night, 4 boxes horizontally, vertically, or diagonally for the week. Working on a long-term project? You can assign one small part of the project each night. Smaller tasks are more manageable and help students with time management and accountability for meeting project deadlines.

Grab the FREE editable Homework Choice Boards here .

What are your thoughts on giving homework in the elementary classroom? I’d love to hear them.

Thanks for reading.

If you like it, then pin it!

Christine Weis is a passionate educator, classroom management coach, wife, and mom of two busy boys. She enjoys teaching, writing, and creating resources for teachers.

February 14, 2024 at 3:18 pm

You can’t give a prize to students for doing something that they must do.

November 15, 2021 at 10:03 pm

What a great blog to read. Such an important topic you’ve shared with us. Thanks for the share!

November 11, 2021 at 11:48 pm

I think that I’m against homework because kids being in school all day and then having homework is hard. I think it needs to stop!

November 11, 2021 at 10:36 pm

A good balance is so important. Quality family time I think allows for kids to do their best in all aspects of their lives.

November 11, 2021 at 8:02 pm

I love this idea! When my kids were younger they always had a ton of homework. And both were competitive athletes at a young age. So this would have been very welcome!

November 11, 2021 at 10:21 am

In elementary school, my daughter had homework for a week as far as I remember. This way, the kids learned to organize themselves and spread their chores over a couple of days – or do it panic-stricken the day before the deadline 😀 It really prepared them for high school and all the following institutions.

November 11, 2021 at 8:42 am

I love your perspective. My kids are now in middle school and some teachers say they will never give homework while others do. But it seems no matter what, they always have schoolwork to do at home. They are exhausted when they come home.. and the thought of doing more for school on some nights is so rough. I would love to see more teachers join in on your approach.

November 11, 2021 at 6:56 am

It’s really interesting to hear your take on this. I am really pleased that my daughter doesn’t really get homework – just her timetables, spelling and reading book which takes minimal time after school. I feel like they already do so much at school already and it’s a long day – they need time to just be after school.

November 11, 2021 at 6:55 am

I enjoyed the article from top to bottom. Thanks for sharing such amazing ways of doing homework

November 11, 2021 at 6:49 am

I loved the homework choice boards. thanks for the free download!

November 11, 2021 at 5:28 am

Homework… The word alone is enough to bring on a huge yawn for kids. But hey! they need to do it. Doing homework teaches them a lot of things and one of it is being responsible.

November 11, 2021 at 12:42 am

This is such a really great and informative post. I’ve got a lot of things that I learned from this. Thank you so much, I’m gonna share this to my friend who has a son who is elementary. I really enjoy reading this!

November 10, 2021 at 4:10 pm

I enjoyed this reading. Never thought about the subject really. Just took it all for granted. My older started school this year and even though she does all her homework, there are days that we have a battle at home. It would be great to have a choice… And I belive she would rather do it if she didnt have to…

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School Life Balance , Tips for Online Students

The Pros and Cons of Homework

Updated: December 7, 2023

Published: January 23, 2020

Homework is a word that most students dread hearing. After hours upon hours of sitting in class , the last thing we want is more schoolwork over our precious weekends. While it’s known to be a staple of traditional schooling, homework has also become a rather divise topic. Some feel as though homework is a necessary part of school, while others believe that the time could be better invested. Should students have homework? Have a closer look into the arguments on both sides to decide for yourself.

Photo by  energepic.com  from  Pexels

Why should students have homework, 1. homework encourages practice.

Many people believe that one of the positive effects of homework is that it encourages the discipline of practice. While it may be time consuming and boring compared to other activities, repetition is needed to get better at skills. Homework helps make concepts more clear, and gives students more opportunities when starting their career .

2. Homework Gets Parents Involved

Homework can be something that gets parents involved in their children’s lives if the environment is a healthy one. A parent helping their child with homework makes them take part in their academic success, and allows for the parent to keep up with what the child is doing in school. It can also be a chance to connect together.

3. Homework Teaches Time Management

Homework is much more than just completing the assigned tasks. Homework can develop time management skills , forcing students to plan their time and make sure that all of their homework assignments are done on time. By learning to manage their time, students also practice their problem-solving skills and independent thinking. One of the positive effects of homework is that it forces decision making and compromises to be made.

4. Homework Opens A Bridge Of Communication

Homework creates a connection between the student, the teacher, the school, and the parents. It allows everyone to get to know each other better, and parents can see where their children are struggling. In the same sense, parents can also see where their children are excelling. Homework in turn can allow for a better, more targeted educational plan for the student.

5. Homework Allows For More Learning Time

Homework allows for more time to complete the learning process. School hours are not always enough time for students to really understand core concepts, and homework can counter the effects of time shortages, benefiting students in the long run, even if they can’t see it in the moment.

6. Homework Reduces Screen Time

Many students in North America spend far too many hours watching TV. If they weren’t in school, these numbers would likely increase even more. Although homework is usually undesired, it encourages better study habits and discourages spending time in front of the TV. Homework can be seen as another extracurricular activity, and many families already invest a lot of time and money in different clubs and lessons to fill up their children’s extra time. Just like extracurricular activities, homework can be fit into one’s schedule.

The Other Side: Why Homework Is Bad

1. homework encourages a sedentary lifestyle.

Should students have homework? Well, that depends on where you stand. There are arguments both for the advantages and the disadvantages of homework.

While classroom time is important, playground time is just as important. If children are given too much homework, they won’t have enough playtime, which can impact their social development and learning. Studies have found that those who get more play get better grades in school , as it can help them pay closer attention in the classroom.

Children are already sitting long hours in the classroom, and homework assignments only add to these hours. Sedentary lifestyles can be dangerous and can cause health problems such as obesity. Homework takes away from time that could be spent investing in physical activity.

2. Homework Isn’t Healthy In Every Home

While many people that think homes are a beneficial environment for children to learn, not all homes provide a healthy environment, and there may be very little investment from parents. Some parents do not provide any kind of support or homework help, and even if they would like to, due to personal barriers, they sometimes cannot. Homework can create friction between children and their parents, which is one of the reasons why homework is bad .

3. Homework Adds To An Already Full-Time Job

School is already a full-time job for students, as they generally spend over 6 hours each day in class. Students also often have extracurricular activities such as sports, music, or art that are just as important as their traditional courses. Adding on extra hours to all of these demands is a lot for children to manage, and prevents students from having extra time to themselves for a variety of creative endeavors. Homework prevents self discovery and having the time to learn new skills outside of the school system. This is one of the main disadvantages of homework.

4. Homework Has Not Been Proven To Provide Results

Endless surveys have found that homework creates a negative attitude towards school, and homework has not been found to be linked to a higher level of academic success.

The positive effects of homework have not been backed up enough. While homework may help some students improve in specific subjects, if they have outside help there is no real proof that homework makes for improvements.

It can be a challenge to really enforce the completion of homework, and students can still get decent grades without doing their homework. Extra school time does not necessarily mean better grades — quality must always come before quantity.

Accurate practice when it comes to homework simply isn’t reliable. Homework could even cause opposite effects if misunderstood, especially since the reliance is placed on the student and their parents — one of the major reasons as to why homework is bad. Many students would rather cheat in class to avoid doing their homework at home, and children often just copy off of each other or from what they read on the internet.

5. Homework Assignments Are Overdone

The general agreement is that students should not be given more than 10 minutes a day per grade level. What this means is that a first grader should be given a maximum of 10 minutes of homework, while a second grader receives 20 minutes, etc. Many students are given a lot more homework than the recommended amount, however.

On average, college students spend as much as 3 hours per night on homework . By giving too much homework, it can increase stress levels and lead to burn out. This in turn provides an opposite effect when it comes to academic success.

The pros and cons of homework are both valid, and it seems as though the question of ‘‘should students have homework?’ is not a simple, straightforward one. Parents and teachers often are found to be clashing heads, while the student is left in the middle without much say.

It’s important to understand all the advantages and disadvantages of homework, taking both perspectives into conversation to find a common ground. At the end of the day, everyone’s goal is the success of the student.

Related Articles

Poland's kids rejoice over new rules against homework. Teachers and parents aren't so sure

Warsaw, Poland — Ola Kozak is celebrating. The 11-year-old, who loves music and drawing, expects to have more free time for her hobbies after Poland’s government ordered strict limits on the amount of homework in the lower grades.

“I am happy,” said the fifth grader, who lives in a Warsaw suburb with her parents and younger siblings. The lilac-colored walls in her bedroom are covered in her art, and on her desk she keeps a framed picture she drew of Kurt Cobain.

“Most people in my class in the morning would copy the work off someone who had done the homework or would copy it from the internet. So it didn’t make sense,” she said.

The government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk enacted the ban against required homework this month amid a broad discussion about the need to modernize Poland's education system, which critics say puts too much emphasis on rote learning and homework, and not enough on critical thinking and creativity.

Under the decree, teachers are no longer to give required homework to kids in the first to third grades. In grades four to eight, homework is now optional and doesn't count towards a grade.

Not everyone likes the change – and even Ola’s parents are divided.

“If there is something that will make students enjoy school more, then it will probably be good both for the students and for the school,” said her father, Pawel Kozak.

His wife, Magda Kozak, was skeptical. “I am not pleased, because (homework) is a way to consolidate what was learned,” she said. “It helps stay on top of what the child has really learned and what’s going on at school.”

(Ola's brother Julian, a third grader, says he sees both sides.)

Debates over the proper amount of homework are common around the globe. While some studies have shown little benefit to homework for young learners, other experts say it can help them learn how to develop study habits and academic concepts.

Poland's educational system has undergone a number of controversial overhauls. Almost every new government has tried to make changes — something many teachers and parents say has left them confused and discouraged. For example, after communism was thrown off, middle schools were introduced. Then under the last government, the previous system was brought back. More controversy came in recent years when ultra-conservative views were pushed in new textbooks.

For years, teachers have been fleeing the system due to low wages and political pressure. The current government is trying to increase teacher salaries and has promised other changes that teachers approve of.

But Sławomir Broniarz, the head of the Polish Teachers' Union, said that while he recognized the need to ease burdens on students, the new homework rules are another case of change imposed from above without adequate consultation with educators.

“In general, the teachers think that this happened too quickly, too hastily,” he said.

He argued that removing homework could widen the educational gaps between kids who have strong support at home and those from poorer families with less support and lower expectations. Instead, he urged wider changes to the entire curriculum.

The homework rules gained impetus in the runup to parliamentary elections last year, when a 14-year-old boy, Maciek Matuszewski, stood up at a campaign rally and told Tusk before a national audience that children “had no time to rest.” The boy said their rights were being violated with so much homework on weekends and so many tests on Mondays.

Tusk has since featured Matuszewski in social media videos and made him the face of the sudden change.

Education Minister Barbara Nowacka said she was prompted by research on children’s mental health. Of the various stresses children face, she said, "the one that could be removed fastest was the burden of homework.”

Pasi Sahlberg, a prominent Finnish educator and author, said the value of homework depends on what it is and how it is linked to overall learning. The need for homework can be “very individual and contextual.”

“We need to trust our teachers to decide what is good for each child,” Sahlberg said.

In South Korea, homework limits were set for elementary schools in 2017 amid concerns that kids were under too much pressure. However, teenagers in the education-obsessed country often cram long into the night and get tutoring to meet the requirements of demanding school and university admission tests.

In the U.S., teachers and parents decide for themselves how much homework to assign. Some elementary schools have done away with homework entirely to give children more time to play, participate in activities and spend time with families.

A guideline circulated by teachers unions in the U.S. recommends about 10 minutes of homework per grade. So, 10 minutes in first grade, 20 minutes in second grade and so on.

The COVID-19 pandemic and a crisis around youth mental health have complicated debates around homework. In the U.S., extended school closures in some places were accompanied by steep losses in learning, which were often addressed with tutoring and other interventions paid for with federal pandemic relief money. At the same time, increased attention to student wellbeing led some teachers to consider alternate approaches including reduced or optional homework.

It's important for children to learn that mastering something "usually requires practice, a lot of practice,” said Sahlberg, in Finland. If reducing homework leads kids and parents to think school expectations for excellence will be lowered, “things will go wrong.”

AP writers Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark, Michael Melia in Hartford, Connecticut, and Hyung-jin Kim in Seoul, South Korea, contributed.

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Solar eclipse reunites students with retired Webster teacher nearly 50 years later

In what may be the longest homework assignment in history, a group of students has waited nearly 50 years for one retired teacher to teach his students the biggest lesson of all the day of the solar eclipse. 

Patrick Moriarty has always had a niche for education.

“Science was always a big thing for me and I loved Earth science because whatever you learned, you could step out the door and see it,” retired teacher Patrick Moriarty said. “And I thought, ‘Oh, this is the best science in the world, because I can put my hands on anything I'm learning.’ So I thought, you know, I think I'm going to go into education. And I went into education and found it was a complete suit for me.”

He became an earth science teacher for the Webster Central School District. In 1978, Moriarty was passing out worksheets about eclipses to his ninth-grade students.

“So I had this sheet of about 50 eclipses that were coming up from like 1974 until 2030,” Moriarty said. “And one of them was going to happen right here in this area on April 8, 2024. So I turned to the kids and I said, ‘All right, circle that eclipse on April 8th, 2024.’”

He made a promise that became a tradition for the next 16 years of his career. 

“We're going to meet on that day,” Moriarty said. “And they looked at me like I was crazy because they were only 14 years old.”

Moriarity’s former students shared in disbelief how the lesson would soon come to life.

“He's keeping his word,” former student at Spry Junior High Kevin Thompson said. “One of my buddies from class, we're still good friends and it's something I wondered if we're going to do that, that's getting closer, that type of thing.”

“Mr. Moriarity was my teacher in 1988,” former student at Schroeder High School Andrea Rock said. “And I was like ‘oh yeah okay.’ Years later he ended up being my 10th grade basketball coach. We were in similar professions. I'm an administrator. He was an administrator. And so our paths had crossed professionally, you know, here and there. So we've sort of stayed in touch then through Facebook.”

Fast forwarding almost 50 years, Moriarty has held to his word. preparing to open his home for a reunion of over 100 of his former students, colleagues and family. 

“It's really not about the eclipse anymore,” Moriarty said. “It's about people and the sharing and the impact of teachers, the impact of teachers and what teachers can mean to students even when they're 60 years old and they can think back to when they were in junior high.”

They are looking forward to celebrating not only a once in a lifetime opportunity of the eclipse, but also being able to be taught by their teacher again. 

“I am going to look so forward to hearing Mr. Moriarty teach the lesson that we've waited 40 years to get the experience of,” Thompson said. “Many teachers don't get to experience what he's been experiencing the last couple of years through Facebook and now in-person students sharing what he meant to them in their lives. And it's awesome because teachers don't get to hear that enough.”

Many of his students share that although this has been the longest homework assignment in history, they have all gained a new lesson. 

“You can take the teacher out of the classroom, but you can't take the classroom out of the teacher and to witness this event with him in such a way that he's going to bring it to life,” Rock said. “There's no better place that I'd rather be than to hear him orchestrate these three minutes.”

Student Voices: From Teacher to Student - The Transition to Graduate School

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By Stephanie Pett MPP/MBA '25

In Fall 2023, I transitioned from being a 7th-grade math teacher to becoming a Master of Public Policy student at Sanford. I was no longer the one assigning homework or grading tests. Instead, I was on the other side, scrambling to pull out my notebook as class began, and dreading exams. Suddenly, I found myself at the will of my professors’ syllabi, no longer the one setting the pace.

As a teacher, there is an overwhelming amount of expectations, some reasonable, some incredibly unrealistic. Transitioning from teacher to student, I have found myself recognizing the efforts of some professors, giving them more grace, and also recognizing flaws in professor methodologies and pushing back more than I would have as an undergraduate student.

Student-teacher relationships and classroom culture are often stressed as crucial foundations of student success. I have found myself noticing and being grateful for all the efforts my professors have made to build a strong community at Sanford. For example, in my first semester, my Policy Analysis professor organized a class happy hour so we could all get to know each other. Later in the semester, that same professor hosted a dinner at his house for the class. The professor’s intentional efforts to form strong relationships with his students increased student engagement, built trust, and allowed him to challenge our ideas knowing there was two-way respect.

My time as a teacher not only gave me an appreciation for what my professors do well, it also defined my understanding of what they could do better. As a teacher, I was an incredibly fast grader. My students would receive their test scores back the following day. I have found myself impressed by professors who return assignments quickly, allowing students to review feedback on an assignment they remember completing. At the same time, I’m more critical when some professors take weeks to provide feedback. Similarly, when professors forget to post assignments promptly, I am often the first to email reminding them, so students have enough time to complete the assignment.  

Time management was a major challenge while teaching. I would think about my lessons outside of class. I would replay conversations with students. I would bring assignments home to grade. When starting graduate school, I was determined to establish boundaries. Although that has been a major challenge given the consistent looming of assignments and exams, I have been able to give myself somewhat of a routine. To avoid my undergraduate habits of late-night essay writing, I force myself to stop working on homework at 8 pm. To make sure I feel somewhat awake when I arrive at my morning lectures, I cook myself breakfast every morning. These little habits have helped me establish the consistency I loved having in the workforce and allowed me to avoid the pitfalls of student life I struggled with as an undergrad.

Another challenge anyone coming to graduate school from the workforce faces is a lack of consistent income. Although Sanford offers paid assistantships to many students, which is a great help, but it is far less than what I made working as a teacher. Before Duke classes began, I started a part-time job as an after-school math tutor at a local school. Although working part-time makes time management even more difficult, having a source of income is necessary for so many graduate students, and I am grateful to be in a community where many students work part-time to make ends meet.

Transitioning from teaching to being a full-time graduate student has had its challenges, but I am grateful for the educational opportunity I have. When I told my students last year that I was attending Duke, they were in awe. For many of them, Duke is a dream school. Thinking about my students reminds me how lucky I am to be furthering my education. I have no doubt in my mind that education is the gateway to opportunity, and attending Duke as a graduate student is an incredible opportunity I am fortunate to have.

Stephanie Pett is a first-year MPP/MBA student. Before attending Duke, Pett was a 7 th  grade math teacher in Charlotte, N.C. with Teach for America. This year at Duke, Stephanie has been focusing on education policy. Pett served as the Sanford Women in Policy secretary. Outside of class, Pett continues to work in education as an afterschool math tutor in Durham, N.C. 

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