review homework meaning

Homework: Only Review What You Need to Review

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A lot of teachers think that if you assign homework, you must review it with students the following day. This makes sense in that it’s important for students to correct and learn from their mistakes.

But what if they didn’t make any mistakes? I realize it’s unlikely every student will have the correct answer for any given question. Yet even if only half the class got it right, what should those students do while you review something they already know how to do? Well, I can tell you what they did in my classroom before I changed my approach: they talked or slept or worked on assignments for other classes.

The root of the problem is the same as what I described in the context of class openers (or Do Nows ): teachers reviewing an assignment without knowing whether students need them to review it. In extreme cases, teachers go over every homework assignment, beginning to end. I’m reminded of my high school math teacher working through problem after problem on the board, oblivious to snoozing and socializing students.

Then there are those teachers who act like disc jockeys by taking audience requests: “What questions would you like me to go over?” And if just one kid requests #3, the teacher reviews #3. Same goes for #4, #5, and so on. I did this until it backfired for a couple of reasons. First, just because Michael needs you to review #3 doesn’t mean Maria and Marcus do, which is why many students don’t pay attention when teachers use the DJ approach. Second, if students want to keep you from moving on to the next activity, all they have to do is request another question. And if you think kids won’t play you like this, think again. Nothing rankled me more than students asking me to go over problems, and then yakking or putting their heads on their desks as I obliged them.

Of course, you can’t look over students’ shoulders while they’re doing homework, so you’ll need to identify in class those homework questions most students need you to review. And here’s a great way to do this:

As you wrap up the class opener, show the answers to homework on your interactive whiteboard or projector screen. Then give students five minutes or so to check their answers and troubleshoot their errors, while you circulate to identify questions worth reviewing as a class (i.e., those most students struggled with)--and identify students to present the correct solutions to the class.

This process not only saves time, but also improves student learning. By working backward from the correct answers, students often figure out where they went wrong, and have a better grasp of the material as a result. And in the end, you’ll have fewer questions to review as a class, and a more captive audience for those questions you do need to review--as captive as any DJ could hope for!

Image provided by GECC, LLC with permission

The opinions expressed in Coach G’s Teaching Tips are strictly those of the author(s) and do not reflect the opinions or endorsement of Editorial Projects in Education, or any of its publications.

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Teaching with Jennifer Findley

Upper Elementary Teaching Blog

How To Make Spiral Review Work for You and Your Students

Spiral review is truly the most powerful thing I do in my classroom to help my students master skills, retain skills, and make connections between the topics they are learning. In this post, I will break down all the ways I make spiral review work for me to help it work for you and your students.

Why Use Spiral Review?

Recently, I had a conversation with a teacher about pacing. She was asking me how I was able to get all of my standards taught every year, even with struggling students. My initial thought was, “I just do it.” But, I realized that was not helpful, so I thought a bit more about what made me okay with moving through the standards and knowing that my students would be okay. I finally realized it was spiral reviewing in ALL subjects.

By using spiral review, I am able to confidently move on after teaching a standard that my students still need more practice with. I know I will hit that standard again and again throughout the year. And sometimes coming back to a difficult standard two weeks or two months later makes all of the difference.

Spiral review also helps the students retain all the information they have learned form week to week and month to month. They learn to make connections and store information for later use.

Read on to learn some ways to make spiral review the most effective it can be for all of your students.

How to Make Spiral Review Work for Your Class

1. make sure it is a true review..

Here are some ways to ensure it is a true review:

1.) Create it yourself based on what you know your students have been taught and what you know they need to review.

2.) Use domain-specific reviews after you have taught a specific domain. For example, I created four weeks’ worth of review for the Number and Operations: Base Ten domain of the 5th Grade Common Core standards. Each standard is reviewed daily, and then I also have a Friday assessment that aligns perfectly with the review.  I wait until after I have taught all seven standards, and then the next four weeks, we use this for our spiral review.

You can see this spiral review and assessment (it includes an editable version!) by clicking here.  Links to the Fraction Domain and Measurement Domain are in the description (bundle coming soon!).

3.) Use skill-specific reviews for the big skills in your curriculum. I use these “of the day” math review printables regularly to spiral some of our key math skills. The versatility of these printables allows me to use them for math centers, morning work, homework, independent work, or even during a small group re-teaching lesson.

Here are some examples of the ones I use and love:

Decimal of the Day ( see it in my TeachersPayTeachers store by clicking here ):

Area of the Day ( see it in my TeachersPayTeachers store by clicking here ):

Number of the Day ( see it in my TeachersPayTeachers store by clicking here ):

Click here to see all of my “Of the Day” printables, including FOUR free sets!

2. Ensure your students  have an entry point to all of the problems or a reference to use.

Here are some ways to help with this:

1.) Have anchor charts posted or available for reference.

2.) Create interactive student notebooks that serve as references for your students.

I have this expectation in my room:

If you are working on review, then your interactive notebook is out on your desk ready for if/when you need it.

3.) Differentiate as needed. This doesn’t have to be difficult or time-consuming. You can simply cross out a problem or two, write in a quick note or tip, or even pull a small group to do the review together.

3. Think beyond morning work and homework.

Spiral review can (and should, in many cases) also be incorporated in:

• math centers
• reading centers
• small group lessons
• guided reading lessons (more about how I organize this in Tip #4)

Definitely think outside the box and look for opportunities in your schedule and instruction to regularly work in spiral review.

4. Stay organized.

Being organized will help ensure you consistently review some of your power standards (standards that are assessed more, standards that your students struggle with, or standards that really lay the foundation for other skills).

Here is one *easy* way I ensure I regularly spiral my reading standards through guided reading lessons.

I use these forms (one for literature and one for informational) to keep track of when we discuss our reading standards through our guided reading groups. I have five dates for each standard because it was nice and even that way, but I definitely review some skills more than others. And some are embedded in every lesson (word meanings for example), but I mark the date for times when I really focus on that skill.

Click here to download the Guided Reading Standards Tracking form.

Here is another form that I use after giving unit or quarterly assessments. With this form, I am able to keep track of which standards need to be spiraled after large assessments (and which need to be re-taught).

Click here to learn more about my data tracking forms and grab this form, as well as several others.

5. Not just for math!

Spiral review and math just seem to go hand-in-hand. However, I use spiral review in all content areas. Here is how:

Science and Social Studies: My homework is the spiral review. I just type up and give 2-3 questions each day, and we quickly go over them before instruction. Tip: I use interactive notebooks in my classroom, so when I am making my homework, I grab my INB and type my questions directly from there. This way I know all of my students have the answer if they don’t automatically recall it.

In addition to using homework to spiral review science and social studies, I also regularly fill extra time and transitions with questions from previous lessons in science and social studies. I typically start every lesson with a quick review from recent lessons or lessons that at not so recent to keep them fresh.

Reading : I spiral my reading standards two ways. First, I spiral my reading standards through guided reading, as I mentioned above. I use the checklist I mentioned in Tip #4 to ensure I am consistently bringing up the standards throughout the year as they fit with our reading books.

The other way that I spiral my reading standards is through my reading review pages . I have fiction and informational reading review printables that review the “big” reading skills (theme, point of view, and text structures, to name a few). I usually use 1-2 weeks after we have learned a skill, and then save the other two weeks for later on in the year to bring those skills back up. This can be used for homework, reading practice, small group instruction, daily reading review, and even literacy centers.

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4th and 5th Grade Reading Review

Language : I do my language review a bit differently, since my language instruction time is so limited. I spiral review my language through language centers once a week and then 20 days before my state assessment ( I use this resource to spiral my standards ). Click here to see the language centers I use to consistently practice and review 5th grade language skills.

Other grammar needs that are not addressed in my language standards are regularly spiraled through writing workshop via writing mini-lessons, writing conferences, and revising and editing lessons.

6. Make sure all students have ample time to complete the review.

This was a mistake that I made for a couple of years because I was so focused on staying on schedule and getting everything in. I realized I wasn’t allowing my reluctant students time to actually complete the review, and they were definitely taking advantage of that. They knew that I would go ahead and start going over review with or without them. Here is what I do now:

• Review is started as homework the night before or immediately when we start a new subject, and I teach my reluctant students that if they think they will not have time to get it done in the 10-15 minutes I give them, then they need to get a jump start on it (by taking it home, starting it when they finish another task, or just hustling to get started). Note: Any students who legitimately struggle (without or without an IEP) are given fewer problems to complete.
• Teach the students how to skip a tricky or time-consuming one to get the most done in the time given. This doubles as a good test prep strategy, too.
• Teach the students how to use their resources to complete the review.
• While I am circulating, I zone in on my struggling or reluctant students and ensure they have entry points for the problems, are using their resources, or are skipping ones they truly need help on.

Here are how I define the terms used in this section:

Struggling Students : Students who legitimately struggle with the skill, either because of a learning disability or another issue.

Reluctant Students : Students who are fully capable of completing grade level work but don’t have the drive, grit, or perseverance to get the work done quickly.

7. Review previous grade level standards when you get to related grade level standards.

Now, this may not work for every teacher and every student, but I want to share a different perspective with you. A lot of 5th grade teachers have their first month’s review be 4th grade skills, and so do I, but I do it a bit differently.

I don’t review all of the fourth grade standards at once in one fell swoop. At the beginning of the year, I review place value, multiplication, division, and word problems, because those are closely related to the standards I will be teaching first. Then, right before we start decimals, I throw in the 4th grade decimal skills as review. I do the same for fractions, measurement, and geometry.

I have found this to be much more effective because it is related to my content, and it is reviewing the skills they will directly need for the next few weeks’ lessons. This helps make the connection between the review and the current learning.

How do you use spiral review in your classroom? Do you have any tips to share to maximizing the effectiveness of review? Let us know in the comments!

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Reader interactions.

March 28, 2018 at 9:25 pm

Hi Jennifer, I am loving your blog! I was just wondering when you say you use Language Review once per week, would you put one of each activity from your Language Bundle and have groups all working on Language Centers once per week? I am new to fifth grade and working on centers and guided reading. I was thinking of including a Language Center in my rotation but was just looking to see how you do this. Thanks for all of the helpful info here!!

November 8, 2018 at 4:21 pm

I absolutely love the worksheets that are titled, Math Review. I am in need of a 4th and 5th grade workbook that I can you with the children I tutor. I have looked all over your website and can find everything but the Math Review sheets. Please help and I’d love to order them asap.

Thank you so much!

Lori Taylor

November 8, 2018 at 4:23 pm

I absolutely love the worksheets that are titled, Math Review. I am in need of a 4th and 5th grade workbook that I can you with the children I tutor. I have looked all over your website and can find everything but the Math Review sheets. Please help and I’d love to order them asap. They’re wonderful!

Example: Worksheet 1 has Algebraic Thinking, Base Ten Numbers, Fractions, Measurement and Data and Geometry.

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Welcome Friends!

I’m Jennifer Findley: a teacher, mother, and avid reader. I believe that with the right resources, mindset, and strategies, all students can achieve at high levels and learn to love learning. My goal is to provide resources and strategies to inspire you and help make this belief a reality for your students.

Homework: Facts and Fiction

• Living reference work entry
• First Online: 09 November 2021
• Cite this living reference work entry

• Rubén Fernández-Alonso 4 , 5 &
• José Muñiz 6  

Part of the book series: Springer International Handbooks of Education ((SIHE))

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Homework is a universal student practice. Despite this universality, the role that homework plays in student academic performance is complex and open to various interpretations. This chapter reviews the current available evidence about the relationships between homework and achievement. We begin by examining the differences between countries and follow that by reviewing the influence of variables related to student homework behavior, teaching practices around assigning homework, and the role of the family in helping with homework. The results indicate that the relationship between time spent on homework and school results is curvilinear, and the best results are seen to be associated with moderate amounts of daily homework. With regard to student homework behavior, there is abundant evidence indicating that the “how” is much more important than the “how much.” Commitment and effort, the emotions prompted by the task, and autonomous working are three key aspects in predicting academic achievement. Effective teaching practice around homework is determined by setting it daily and systematic review. Although family involvement in the educational process is desirable, in the case of homework, direct help has doubtful effects on student achievement.

• Academic achievement
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Fernández-Alonso, R., Muñiz, J. (2021). Homework: Facts and Fiction. In: Nilsen, T., Stancel-Piątak, A., Gustafsson, JE. (eds) International Handbook of Comparative Large-Scale Studies in Education. Springer International Handbooks of Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38298-8_40-1

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The Importance of Reviewing Homework

Academic Development

Editing and reviewing your homework after completing it is very important. Most people will edit an essay, because this is customary and a lot of the times is done in class with peer editing. Teachers always encourage students to edit essays, but editing and reviewing other homework is rarely mentioned. It’s very seldom for a student to review his or her math homework after completing it. Most of the time, the student finishes the homework and then tucks it away in their binder or backpack until they turn it in. However, reviewing your homework is extremely important to learning, and it is one essential tool you can use as a student to better learn the subject.

If there is time, you should also try to review daily homework assignments, even for subjects like math and chemistry. There are certain occasions when there is no time and you are struggling to just finish the assignments. However, if there’s some downtime, review your homework before they are due. This is especially important if you completed it days in advance. You don’t want to forget the material by turning in the homework and then having to relearn everything the day before the exam. Reviewing what you’ve done will keep the information fresh in your mind so that at most you will have to review the concepts and then do some practice when exam time comes around. This will result in retaining information better for long term use.

So, even the night before your homework is due, if you have it completed, go through a few problems and say the steps in your head. Pick out two to three questions and redo them. This only takes about 5-10 minutes and can save you massive amounts of time from having to relearn the material in the future. If you have started to forget the material already, go back and review your notes or your textbook and then pick out a few more problems to do. It’s much easier to relearn material now, little by little, than to learn an entire chapter or multiple chapters’ worth of material the night before a test.

Reviewing homework will save you time, energy, and most importantly, stress, which can be a huge, unnecessary burden for you as a student.

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Difference between REVIEW and REVISE

600 Confusing English Words Explained

Today we’re going to talk about the differences between the words review and revise . This can be super confusing because they’re used slightly differently in American English vs. British English. But by the end of the lesson you’ll understand clearly when to use each one.

There are so many confusing words like this in the English language, and that’s why I wrote a book about them – it’s called 600+ Confusing English Words Explained and everything inside it comes from questions asked by students like you. So if you have a question about a pair of confusing words, you’ll likely find the answer and explanation inside this e-book.

How to use the word REVIEW in English

All right, let’s begin with the word review . It has a couple different uses:

One is when you take something you previously learned and you study it again.

For example, if there’s a big final exam at the end of the semester, you would spend a few days reviewing everything you learned during the semester. Or if you have a big presentation to give and you’ve previously prepared some notes, then a few minutes before the presentation you might review the notes to remind yourself of the main details you want to cover in your presentation. The action of reviewing helps bring things back to your mind, it helps you remember better.

Another way we use “review” is a little more general, it’s used beyond the specific context of studying – and that is to look back on past things, consider them, and maybe evaluate or analyze them .

At the end of the year, a lot of people like to review the events that happened – so we think about these past events, maybe we consider whether they were good or bad, and how they affected us.

At work, managers often give employees a performance review – this means the manager considers the employee’s past work in general, and identifies some strong points, weak points, and things to improve or change.

And when it comes to movies, books, music, theater, and things like that, there are people who review or write reviews of these artistic productions. Meaning they watch or read, and then they reflect, describe, and analyze the movie, play, or book. So you’ll often hear people say “that book got great reviews” if a lot of people have written positive observations of it.

OK so review is used for studying something again to remind yourself of it, as well as for looking back and reflecting on something in order to evaluate it.

How to use the word REVISE in English

Now let’s look at revise .

If we revise a text, it means we make changes, adjustments, or improvements to it. If I write an article, the first draft (first version) of my article might be okay, but not great – so later, I would revise it, I’d make changes to it and improve it, so that it can become better.

You can revise plans or procedures – maybe your company starts using a new technology, so you need to update the procedures at work. You can also revise an estimate or projection , so if you had predicted that sales would be $50 million dollars for the year, but the economy goes badly so fewer people are buying things, then you might need to revise that projection, change it, and make it lower.

Scientists often revise theories as new information is discovered – when we find out something new, we change or adjust the theory.

So in American English:

• when we review something, we only look at it and think about it
• when we revise something, we change it to make it better

However, in British English , the word revise is also used for studying something again. In American English we would always say “review for a text/exam” and in British English you could say “revise for a text/exam.” Again, that use of revise to mean “study again” is specific to British English.

Let me know if you have any further questions about revise and review, and again make sure to check out my 600+ Confusing English Words Explained E-Book to get lots of clear answers and examples for words like these. It’ll really help you understand the English language better and use the correct words more confidently.

Learn to understand the differences between confusing words:

More Espresso English Lessons:

About the author.

Shayna Oliveira

Shayna Oliveira is the founder of Espresso English, where you can improve your English fast - even if you don’t have much time to study. Millions of students are learning English from her clear, friendly, and practical lessons! Shayna is a CELTA-certified teacher with 10+ years of experience helping English learners become more fluent in her English courses.

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“Homework Should Be…but We Do Not Live in an Ideal World”: Mathematics Teachers’ Perspectives on Quality Homework and on Homework Assigned in Elementary and Middle Schools

Pedro rosário.

1 Departamento de Psicologia Aplicada, Escola de Psicologia, Universidade do Minho, Braga, Portugal

Jennifer Cunha

Tânia nunes, ana rita nunes, tânia moreira, josé carlos núñez.

2 Departamento de Psicología, Universidad de Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain

Associated Data

Existing literature has analyzed homework characteristics associated with academic results. Researchers and educators defend the need to provide quality homework, but there is still much to be learned about the characteristics of quality homework (e.g., purposes, type). Acknowledging that teachers play an important role in designing and assigning homework, this study explored teachers’ perspectives regarding: (i) the characteristics of quality homework and (ii) the characteristics of the homework tasks assigned. In the current study, mathematics teachers from elementary and middle schools ( N = 78) participated in focus group discussions. To enhance the trustworthiness of the findings, homework tasks assigned by 25% of the participants were analyzed for triangulation of data purposes. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis for elementary and middle school separately. Teachers discussed the various characteristics of quality homework (e.g., short assignments, adjusted to the availability of students) and shared the characteristics of the homework tasks typically assigned, highlighting a few differences (e.g., degree of individualization of homework, purposes) between these two topics. Globally, data on the homework tasks assigned were consistent with teachers’ reports about the characteristics of the homework tasks they usually assigned. Findings provide valuable insights for research and practice aimed to promote the quality of homework and consequently students’ learning and progress.

Introduction

The extensive literature on homework suggests the importance of completing homework tasks to foster students’ academic achievement (e.g., Trautwein and Lüdtke, 2009 ; Hagger et al., 2015 ; Núñez et al., 2015a ; Valle et al., 2016 ; Fernández-Alonso et al., 2017 ). However, existing research also indicate that the amount of homework assigned is not always related to high academic achievement ( Epstein and Van Voorhis, 2001 ; Epstein and Van Voorhis, 2012 ). In the words of Dettmers et al. (2010) “homework works if quality is high” (p. 467). However, further research is needed to answer the question “What is quality homework?”.

Teachers are responsible for designing and assigning homework, thus our knowledge on their perspectives about this topic and the characteristics of the homework typically assigned is expected to be a relevant contribution to the literature on the quality of homework. Moreover, data on the characteristics of homework could provide valuable information to unveil the complex network of relationships between homework and academic achievement (e.g., Cooper, 2001 ; Trautwein and Köller, 2003 ; Trautwein et al., 2009a ; Xu, 2010 ).

Thus, focusing on the perspective of mathematics teachers from elementary and middle school, the aims of the present study are twofold: to explore the characteristics of quality homework, and to identify the characteristics of the homework tasks typically assigned at these school levels. Findings may help deepen our understanding of why homework may impact differently the mathematics achievement of elementary and middle school students (see Fan et al., 2017 ).

Research Background on Homework Characteristics

Homework is a complex educational process involving a diverse set of variables that each may influence students’ academic outcomes (e.g., Corno, 2000 ; Trautwein and Köller, 2003 ; Cooper et al., 2006 ; Epstein and Van Voorhis, 2012 ). Cooper (1989 , 2001 ) presented a model outlining the factors that may potentially influence the effect of homework at the three stages of the homework process (i.e., design of the homework assignment, completion of homework and homework follow-up practices). At the first stage teachers are expected to consider class characteristics (e.g., students’ prior knowledge, grade level, number of students per class), and also variables that may influence the impact of homework on students’ outcomes, such as homework assignment characteristics. In 1989, Cooper (see also Cooper et al., 2006 ) presented a list of the characteristics of homework assignments as follows: amount (comprising homework frequency and length), purpose, skill area targeted, degree of individualization, student degree of choice, completion deadlines, and social context. Based on existing literature, Trautwein et al. (2006b) proposed a distinct organization for the assignment characteristics. The proposal included: homework frequency (i.e., how often homework assignments are prescribed to students), quality, control, and adaptivity. “Homework frequency” and “adaptivity” are similar to “amount” and “degree of individualization” in Cooper’s model, respectively. Both homework models provide a relevant theoretical framework for the present study.

Prior research has analyzed the relationship between homework variables, students’ behaviors and academic achievement, and found different results depending on the variables examined (see Trautwein et al., 2009b ; Fan et al., 2017 ). For example, while homework frequency consistently and positively predicted students’ academic achievement (e.g., Trautwein et al., 2002 ; Trautwein, 2007 ; Fernández-Alonso et al., 2015 ), findings regarding the amount of homework assigned (usually assessed by the time spent on homework) have shown mixed results (e.g., Trautwein, 2007 ; Dettmers et al., 2009 ; Núñez et al., 2015a ). Data indicated a positive association between the amount of homework and students’ academic achievement in high school (e.g., OECD, 2014a ); however, this relationship is almost null in elementary school (e.g., Cooper et al., 2006 ; Rosário et al., 2009 ). Finally, other studies reported a negative association between time spent on homework and students’ academic achievement at different school levels (e.g., Trautwein et al., 2009b ; Rosário et al., 2011 ; Núñez et al., 2015a ).

Homework purposes are among the factors that may influence the effect of homework on students’ homework behaviors and academic achievement ( Cooper, 2001 ; Trautwein et al., 2009a ; Epstein and Van Voorhis, 2012 ; Rosário et al., 2015 ). In his model Cooper (1989 , 2001 ) reported instructional purposes (i.e., practicing or reviewing, preparation, integration and extension) and non-instructional purposes (i.e., parent-child communication, fulfilling directives, punishment, and community relations). Depending on their nature, homework instructional purposes may vary throughout schooling ( Muhlenbruck et al., 2000 ; Epstein and Van Voorhis, 2001 ). For example, in elementary school, teachers are likely to use homework as an opportunity to review the content taught in class, while in secondary school (6th–12th grade), teachers are prone to use homework to prepare students for the content to be learned in subsequent classes ( Muhlenbruck et al., 2000 ). Still, studies have recently shown that practicing the content learned is the homework purpose most frequently used throughout schooling (e.g., Xu and Yuan, 2003 ; Danielson et al., 2011 ; Kaur, 2011 ; Bang, 2012 ; Kukliansky et al., 2014 ). Studies using quantitative methodologies have analyzed the role played by homework purposes in students’ effort and achievement ( Trautwein et al., 2009a ; Rosário et al., 2015 , 2018 ), and reported distinct results depending on the subject analyzed. For example, Foyle et al. (1990) found that homework assignments with the purposes of practice and preparation improved the performance of 5th-grade students’ social studies when compared with the no-homework group. However, no statistical difference was found between the two types of homework purposes analyzed (i.e., practice and preparation). When examining the homework purposes reported by 8th-grade teachers of French as a Second Language (e.g., drilling and practicing, motivating, linking school and home), Trautwein et al. (2009a) found that students in classes assigned tasks with high emphasis on motivation displayed more effort and achieved higher outcomes than their peers. On the contrary, students in classes assigned tasks with high drill and practice reported less homework effort and achievement ( Trautwein et al., 2009a ). A recent study by Rosário et al. (2015) analyzed the relationship between homework assignments with various types of purposes (i.e., practice, preparation and extension) and 6th-grade mathematics achievement. These authors reported that homework with the purpose of “extension” impacted positively on students’ academic achievement while the other two homework purposes did not.

Cooper (1989 , 2001 ) identified the “degree of individualization” as a characteristic of homework focused on the need to design homework addressing different levels of performance. For example, some students need to be assigned practice exercises with a low level of difficulty to help them reach school goals, while others need to be assigned exercises with high levels of complexity to foster their motivation for homework ( Trautwein et al., 2002 ). When there is a disparity between the level of difficulty of homework assignments and students’ skills level, students may have to spend long hours doing homework, and they may experience negative emotions or even avoid doing homework ( Corno, 2000 ). On the contrary, when homework assignments meet students’ learning needs (e.g., Bang, 2012 ; Kukliansky et al., 2014 ), both students’ homework effort and academic achievement increase (e.g., Trautwein et al., 2006a ; Zakharov et al., 2014 ). Teachers may also decide on the time given to students to complete their homework ( Cooper, 1989 ; Cooper et al., 2006 ). For example, homework may be assigned to be delivered in the following class (e.g., Kaur et al., 2004 ) or within a week (e.g., Kaur, 2011 ). However, research on the beneficial effects of each practice is still limited.

Trautwein et al. (2006b) investigated homework characteristics other than those previously reported. Their line of research analyzed students’ perception of homework quality and homework control (e.g., Trautwein et al., 2006b ; Dettmers et al., 2010 ). Findings on homework quality (e.g., level of difficulty of the mathematics exercises, Trautwein et al., 2002 ; homework “cognitively activating” and “well prepared”, Trautwein et al., 2006b , p. 448; homework selection and level of challenge, Dettmers et al., 2010 ; Rosário et al., 2018 ) varied regarding the various measures and levels of analysis considered. For example, focusing on mathematics, Trautwein et al. (2002) concluded that “demanding” exercises improved 7th-grade students’ achievement at student and class levels, while “repetitive exercises” impacted negatively on students’ achievement. Dettmers et al. (2010) found that homework assignments perceived by students as “well-prepared and interesting” (p. 471) positively predicted 9th- and 10th-grade students’ homework motivation (expectancy and value beliefs) and behavior (effort and time) at student and class level, and mathematics achievement at class level only. These authors also reported that “cognitively challenging” homework (p. 471), as perceived by students, negatively predicted students’ expectancy beliefs at both levels, and students’ homework effort at student level ( Dettmers et al., 2010 ). Moreover, this study showed that “challenging homework” significantly and positively impacted on students’ mathematics achievement at class level ( Dettmers et al., 2010 ). At elementary school, homework quality (assessed through homework selection) predicted positively 6th-grade students’ homework effort, homework performance, and mathematics achievement ( Rosário et al., 2018 ).

Finally, Trautwein and colleagues investigated the variable “homework control” perceived by middle school students and found mixed results. The works by Trautwein and Lüdtke (2007 , 2009 ) found that “homework control” predicted positively students’ homework effort in mathematics, but other studies (e.g., Trautwein et al., 2002 , 2006b ) did not predict homework effort and mathematics achievement.

The Present Study

A vast body of research indicates that homework enhances students’ academic achievement [see the meta-analysis conducted by Fan et al. (2017) ], however, maladaptive homework behaviors of students (e.g., procrastination, lack of interest in homework, failure to complete homework) may affect homework benefits ( Bembenutty, 2011a ; Hong et al., 2011 ; Rosário et al., 2019 ). These behaviors may be related to the characteristics of the homework assigned (e.g., large amount of homework, disconnect between the type and level of difficulty of homework assignments and students’ needs and abilities, see Margolis and McCabe, 2004 ; Trautwein, 2007 ).

Homework is only valuable to students’ learning when its quality is perceived by students ( Dettmers et al., 2010 ). Nevertheless, little is known about the meaning of homework quality for teachers who are responsible for assigning homework. What do teachers understand to be quality homework? To our knowledge, the previous studies exploring teachers’ perspectives on their homework practices did not relate data with quality homework (e.g., Xu and Yuan, 2003 ; Danielson et al., 2011 ; Kaur, 2011 ; Bang, 2012 ; Kukliansky et al., 2014 ). For example, Kukliansky et al. (2014) found a disconnect between middle school science teachers’ perspectives about their homework practices and their actual homework practices observed in class. However, results were not further explained.

The current study aims to explore teachers’ perspectives on the characteristics of quality homework, and on the characteristics underlying the homework tasks assigned. Findings are expected to shed some light on the role of teachers in the homework process and contribute to maximize the benefits of homework. Our results may be useful for either homework research (e.g., by informing new quantitative studies grounded on data from teachers’ perspectives) or educational practice (e.g., by identifying new avenues for teacher training and the defining of guidelines for homework practices).

This study is particularly important in mathematics for the following reasons: mathematics is among the school subjects where teachers assign the largest amount of homework (e.g., Rønning, 2011 ; Xu, 2015 ), while students continue to yield worrying school results in the subject, especially in middle and high school ( Gottfried et al., 2007 ; OECD, 2014b ). Moreover, a recent meta-analysis focused on mathematics and science homework showed that the relationship between homework and academic achievement in middle school is weaker than in elementary school ( Fan et al., 2017 ). Thus, we collected data through focus group discussions with elementary and middle school mathematics teachers in order to analyze any potential variations in their perspectives on the characteristics of quality homework, and on the characteristics of homework tasks they typically assign. Regarding the latter topic, we also collected photos of homework tasks assigned by 25% of the participating teachers in order to triangulate data and enhance the trustworthiness of our findings.

Our exploratory study was guided by the following research questions:

• simple (1) How do elementary and middle school mathematics teachers perceive quality homework?
• simple (2) How do elementary and middle school mathematics teachers describe the homework tasks they typically assign to students?

Materials and Methods

The study context.

Despite recommendations of the need for clear homework policies (e.g., Cooper et al., 2006 ; Bembenutty, 2011b ), Portugal has no formal guidelines for homework (e.g., concerning the frequency, length, type of tasks). Still, many teachers usually include homework as part of students’ overall grade and ask parents to monitor their children’s homework completion. Moreover, according to participants there is no specific training on homework practices for pre-service or in-service teachers.

The Portuguese educational system is organized as follows: the last two years of elementary school encompass 5th and 6th grade (10 and 11 years old), while middle school encompasses 7th, 8th, and 9th grade (12 to 14 years old). At the two school levels mentioned, mathematics is a compulsory subject and students attend three to five mathematics lessons per week depending on the duration of each class (270 min per week for Grades 5 and 6, and 225 min per week for Grades 7–9). All students are assessed by their mathematics teacher (through continuous assessment tests), and at the end of elementary and middle school levels (6th and 9th grade) students are assessed externally through a national exam that counts for 30% of the overall grade. In Portuguese schools assigning homework is a frequently used educational practice, mostly in mathematics, and usually counts toward the overall grade, ranging between 2% and 5% depending on school boards ( Rosário et al., 2018 ).

Participants

In the current study, all participants were involved in focus groups and 25% of them, randomly selected, were asked to submit photos of homework tasks assigned.

According to Morgan (1997) , to maximize the discussion among participants it is important that they share some characteristics and experiences related to the aims of the study in question. In the current study, teachers were eligible to participate when the following criteria were met: (i) they had been teaching mathematics at elementary or middle school levels for at least two years; and (ii) they would assign homework regularly, at least twice a week, in order to have enough experiences to share in the focus group.

All mathematics teachers ( N = 130) from 25 elementary and middle schools in Northern Portugal were contacted by email. The email informed teachers of the purposes and procedures of the study (e.g., inclusion criteria, duration of the session, session videotaping, selection of teachers to send photos of homework tasks assigned), and invited them to participate in the study. To facilitate recruitment, researchers scheduled focus group discussions considering participants’ availability. Of the volunteer teachers, all participants met the inclusion criteria. The research team did not allocate teachers with hierarchical relationships in the same group, as this might limit freedom of responses, affect the dynamics of the discussion, and, consequently, the outcomes ( Kitzinger, 1995 ).

Initially we conducted four focus groups with elementary school teachers (5th and 6th grade, 10 and 11 years old) and four focus groups with middle school teachers (7th, 8th, and 9th grade, 12, 13 and 14 years old). Subsequently, two additional focus group discussions (one for each school level) were conducted to ensure the saturation of data. Finally, seventy-eight mathematics teachers (61 females and 17 males; an acceptance rate of 60%) from 16 schools participated in our study (see Table 1 ). The teachers enrolled in 10 focus groups comprised of seven to nine teachers per group. Twenty teachers were randomly selected and asked to participate in the second data collection; all answered positively to our invitation (15 females and 5 males).

Participants’ demographic information.

According to our participants, in the school context, mathematics teachers may teach one to eight classes of different grade levels. In the current research, participants were teaching one to five classes of two or three grade levels at schools in urban or near urban contexts. The participants practiced the mandatory nationwide curriculum and a continuous assessment policy.

Data Collection

We carried out this study following the recommendations of the ethics committee of the University of Minho. All teachers gave written informed consent to participate in the research in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. The collaboration involved participating in one focus group discussion, and, for 25% of the participants, submitting photos by email of the homework tasks assigned.

In the current study, aiming to deepen our comprehension of the research questions, focus group interviews were conducted to capture participants’ thoughts about a particular topic ( Kitzinger, 1995 ; Morgan, 1997 ). The focus groups were conducted by two members of the research team (a moderator and a field note-taker) in the first term of the school year and followed the procedure described by Krueger and Casey (2000) . To prevent mishandling the discussions and to encourage teachers to participate in the sessions, the two facilitators attended a course on qualitative research offered at their home institution specifically targeting focus group methodology.

All focus group interviews were videotaped. The sessions were held in a meeting room at the University of Minho facilities, and lasted 90 to 105 min. Before starting the discussion, teachers filled in a questionnaire with sociodemographic information, and were invited to read and sign a written informed consent form. Researchers introduced themselves, and read out the information regarding the study purpose and the focus group ground rules. Participants were ensured of the confidentiality of their responses (e.g., names and researchers’ personal notes that might link participants to their schools were deleted). Then, the investigators initiated the discussion (see Table 2 ). At the end of each focus group discussion, participants were given the opportunity to ask questions or make further contributions.

Focus group questions.

After the focus group discussions, we randomly selected 25% of the participating teachers (i.e., 10 teachers from each school level), each asked to submit photos of the homework tasks assigned by email over the course of three weeks (period between two mathematics assessment tests). This data collection aimed to triangulate data from focus groups regarding the characteristics of homework usually assigned. To encourage participation, the research team sent teachers a friendly reminder email every evening throughout the period of data collection. In total, we received 125 photos (51% were from middle school teachers).

Data Analysis

Videotapes were used to assist the verbatim transcription of focus group data. Both focus group data and photos of the homework assignments were analyzed using thematic analysis ( Braun and Clarke, 2006 ), assisted by QSR International’s NVivo 10 software ( Richards, 2005 ). In this analysis there are no rigid guidelines on how to determine themes; to assure that the analysis is rigorous, researchers are expected to follow a consistent procedure throughout the analysis process ( Braun and Clarke, 2006 ). For the current study, to identify themes and sub-themes, we used the extensiveness of comments criterion (number of participants who express a theme, Krueger and Casey, 2000 ).

Firstly, following an inductive process one member of the research team read the first eight focus group transcriptions several times, took notes on the overall ideas of the data, and made a list of possible codes for data at a semantic level ( Braun and Clarke, 2006 ). Using a cluster analysis by word similarity procedure in Nvivo, all codes were grouped in order to identify sub-themes and themes posteriorly. All the themes and sub-themes were independently and iteratively identified and compared with the literature on homework ( Peterson and Irving, 2008 ). Then, the themes and sub-themes were compared with the homework characteristics already reported in the literature (e.g., Cooper, 1989 ; Epstein and Van Voorhis, 2001 ; Trautwein et al., 2006b ). New sub-themes emerged from participants’ discourses (i.e., “adjusted to the availability of students,” “teachers diagnose learning”), and were grouped in the themes reported in the literature. After, all themes and sub-themes were organized in a coding scheme (for an example see Table 3 ). Finally, the researcher coded the two other focus group discussions, no new information was added related to the research questions. Given that the generated patterns of data were not changed, the researcher concluded that thematic saturation was reached.

Examples of the coding scheme.

An external auditor, trained on the coding scheme, revised all transcriptions, the coding scheme and the coding process in order to minimize researchers’ biases and increase the trustworthiness of the study ( Lincoln and Guba, 1985 ). The first author and the external auditor examined the final categorization of data and reached consensus.

Two other members of the research team coded independently the photos of the homework assignments using the same coding scheme of the focus groups. To analyze data, the researchers had to define the sub-themes “short assignments” (i.e., up to three exercises) and “long assignments” (i.e., more than three exercises). In the end, the two researchers reviewed the coding process and discussed the differences found (e.g., some exercises had several sub questions, so one of the researchers coded it as “long assignments”; see the homework sample 4 of the Supplementary Material ). However, the researchers reached consensus, deciding not to count the number of sub questions of each exercise individually, because these types of questions are related and do not require a significant amount of additional time.

Inter-rater reliability (Cohen’s Kappa) was calculated. The Cohen’s Kappa was 0.86 for the data analysis of the focus groups and 0.85 for data analysis of the photos of homework assignments, which is considered very good according to Landis and Koch (1977) . To obtain a pattern of data considering the school levels, a matrix coding query was run for each data source (i.e., focus groups and photos of homework assignments). Using the various criteria options in NVivo 10, we crossed participants’ classifications (i.e., school level attribute) and nodes and displayed the frequencies of responses for each row–column combination ( Bazeley and Jackson, 2013 ).

In the end of this process of data analysis, for establishing the trustworthiness of findings, 20 teachers (i.e., ten participants of each grade level) were randomly invited, and all agreed, to provide a member check of the findings ( Lincoln and Guba, 1985 ). Member checking involved two phases. First, teachers were asked individually to read a summary of the findings and to fill in a 5-point Likert scale (1, completely disagree; 5, completely agree) with four items: “Findings reflect my perspective regarding homework quality”; “Findings reflect my perspective regarding homework practices”; “Findings reflect what was discussed in the focus group where I participated”, and “I feel that my opinion was influenced by the other teachers during the discussion” (inverted item). Secondly, teachers were gathered by school level and asked to critically analyze and discuss whether an authentic representation was made of their perspectives regarding quality homework and homework practices ( Creswell, 2007 ).

This study explored teachers’ perspectives on the characteristics of quality homework, and on the characteristics of the homework tasks typically assigned. To report results, we used the frequency of occurrence criterion of the categories defined by Hill et al. (2005) . Each theme may be classified as “General” when all participants, or all except one, mention a particular theme; “Typical” when more than half of the cases mention a theme; “Variant” when more than 3, and less than half of the cases mention a theme; and “Rare” when the frequency is between 2 and 3 cases. In the current study, only general and typical themes were reported to discuss the most salient data.

The results section was organized by each research question. Throughout the analysis of the results, quotes from participants were presented to illustrate data. For the second research question, data from the homework assignments collected as photographs were also included.

Initial Data Screening

All participating teachers defended the importance of completing homework, arguing that homework can help students to develop their learning and to engage in school life. Furthermore, participants also agreed on the importance of delivering this message to students. Nevertheless, all teachers acknowledged that assigning homework daily present a challenge to their teaching routine because of the heavy workload faced daily (e.g., large numbers of students per class, too many classes to teach, teaching classes from different grade levels which means preparing different lessons, administrative workload).

Teachers at both school levels talked spontaneously about the nature of the tasks they usually assign, and the majority reported selecting homework tasks from a textbook. However, participants also referred to creating exercises fit to particular learning goals. Data collected from the homework assigned corroborated this information. Most of participating teachers reported that they had not received any guidance from their school board regarding homework.

How do Elementary and Middle School Teachers Perceive Quality Homework?

Three main themes were identified by elementary school teachers (i.e., instructional purposes, degree of individualization/adaptivity, and length of homework) and two were identified by middle school teachers (i.e., instructional purposes, and degree of individualization/adaptivity). Figure 1 depicts the themes and sub-themes reported by teachers in the focus groups.

Characteristics of quality homework reported by mathematics teachers by school level.

In all focus group discussions, all teachers from elementary and middle school mentioned “instructional purposes” as the main characteristic of quality homework. When asked to further explain the importance of this characteristic, teachers at both school levels in all focus group talked about the need for “practicing or reviewing” the content delivered in class to strengthen students’ knowledge. A teacher illustrated this idea clearly: “it is not worth teaching new content when students do not master the material previously covered” (P1 FG3). This idea was supported by participants in all focus groups; “at home they [students] have to work on the same content as those taught in class” (P1 FG7), “students have to revisit exercises and practice” (P2 FG9), “train over and over again” (P6 FG1), “practice, practice, practice” (P4 FG2).

While discussing the benefits of designing homework with the purpose of practicing the content learned, teachers at both school levels agreed on the fact that homework may be a useful tool for students to diagnose their own learning achievements while working independently. Teachers were empathetic with their peers when discussing the instrumentality of homework as a “thermometer” for students to assess their own progress. This idea was discussed in similar ways in all focus group, as the following quotation illustrates:

P2 FG1: Homework should be a bridge between class and home… students are expected to work independently, learn about their difficulties when doing homework, and check whether they understood the content.

When asked to outline other characteristics of quality homework, several elementary school teachers in all focus group mentioned that quality homework should also promote “student development” as an instructional purpose. These participants explained that homework is an instructional tool that should be designed to “foster students’ autonomy” (P9 FG4), “develop study habits and routines” (P1 FG8), and “promote organization skills and study methods” (P6 FG7). These thoughts were unanimous among participants in all focus groups. While some teachers introduced real-life examples to illustrate the ideas posited by their colleagues, others nodded their heads in agreement.

In addition, some elementary school teachers observed that homework tasks requiring transference of knowledge could help develop students’ complex thinking, a highly valued topic in the current mathematics curriculum worldwide. Teachers discussed this topic enthusiastically in two opposite directions: while some teachers defended this purpose as a characteristic of quality homework, others disagreed, as the following conversation excerpt illustrates:

P7 FG5: For me good homework would be a real challenge, like a problem-solving scenario that stimulates learning transference and develops mathematical reasoning … mathematical insight. It’s hard because it forces them [students] to think in more complex ways; still, I believe this is the type of homework with the most potential gains for them.

P3 FG5: That’s a good point, but they [students] give up easily. They just don’t do their homework. This type of homework implies competencies that the majority of students do not master…

P1 FG5: Not to mention that this type of homework takes up a lot of teaching time… explaining, checking…, and we simply don’t have time for this.

Globally, participants agreed on the potential of assigning homework with the purpose of instigating students to transfer learning to new tasks. However, participants also discussed the limitations faced daily in their teaching (e.g., number of students per class, students’ lack of prior knowledge) and concluded that homework with this purpose hinders the successful development of their lesson plans. This perspective may help explain why many participants did not perceive this purpose as a significant characteristic of quality homework. Further commenting on the characteristics of quality homework, the majority of participants at both school levels agreed that quality homework should be tailored to meet students’ learning needs. The importance of individualized homework was intensely discussed in all focus groups, and several participants suggested the need for designing homework targeted at a particular student or groups of students with common education needs. The following statements exemplifies participants’ opinions:

P3 FG3: Ideally, homework should be targeted at each student individually. For André a simple exercise, for Ana a more challenging exercise … in an ideal world homework should be tailored to students’ needs.

P6 FG6: Given the diversity of students in our classes, we may find a rainbow of levels of prior knowledge… quality homework should be as varied as our students’ needs.

As discussed in the focus groups, to foster the engagement of high-achievers in homework completion, homework tasks should be challenging enough (as reported previously by P3 FG3). However, participants at both school levels observed that their heavy daily workload prevents them from assigning individualized homework:

P1 FG1: I know it’s important to assign differentiated homework tasks, and I believe in it… but this option faces real-life barriers, such as the number of classes we have to teach, each with thirty students, tons of bureaucratic stuff we have to deal with… All this raises real-life questions, real impediments… how can we design homework tasks for individual students?

Considering this challenge, teachers from both school levels suggested that quality homework should comprise exercises with increasing levels of difficulty. This strategy would respond to the heterogeneity of students’ learning needs without assigning individualized homework tasks to each student.

While discussing individualized homework, elementary school teachers added that assignments should be designed bearing in mind students’ availability (e.g., school timetable, extracurricular activities, and exam dates). Participants noted that teachers should learn the amount of workload their students have, and should be aware about the importance of students’ well-being.

P4 FG1: If students have large amounts of homework, this could be very uncomfortable and even frustrating… They have to do homework of other subjects and add time to extracurricular activities… responding to all demands can be very stressful.

P4 FG2: I think that we have to learn about the learning context of our students, namely their limitations to complete homework in the time they have available. We all have good intentions and want them to progress, but if students do not have enough time to do their homework, this won’t work. So, quality homework would be, for example, when students have exams and the teacher gives them little or no homework at all.

The discussion about the length of homework found consensus among the elementary school teachers in all focus group in that quality homework should be “brief”. During the discussions, elementary school teachers further explained that assigning long tasks is not beneficial because “they [students] end up demotivated” (P3 FG4). Besides, “completing long homework assignments takes hours!” (P5 FG4).

How do Elementary and Middle School Teachers Describe the Homework Tasks They Typically Assign to Students?

When discussing the characteristics of the homework tasks usually assigned to their students four main themes were identified by elementary school teachers (i.e., instructional purposes, degree of individualization/adaptivity, frequency and completion deadlines), and two main themes were raised by middle school (i.e., instructional purposes, and degree of individualization/adaptivity). Figure 2 gives a general overview of the findings. Data gathered from photos added themes to findings as follows: one (i.e., length) to elementary school and two (i.e., length and completion deadlines) to middle school (see Figure 3 ).

Characteristics of the homework tasks usually assigned as reported by mathematics teachers.

Characteristics of the homework tasks assigned by mathematics teachers.

While describing the characteristics of the homework tasks usually assigned, teachers frequently felt the need to compare the quality homework characteristics previously discussed with those practices. In fact, at this stage, teachers’ discourse was often focused on the analysis of the similarities and potential discrepancies found.

The majority of teachers at both school levels in all focus group reported that they assign homework with the purpose of practicing and reviewing the materials covered earlier. Participants at both school levels highlighted the need to practice the contents covered because by the end of 6th- and 9th-grade students have to sit for a national exam for which they have to be trained. This educational context may interfere with the underlying homework purposes teachers have, as this quotation illustrates:

P3 FG3: When teaching mathematics, we set several goals, but our main focus is always the final exam they [students] have to take. I like students who think for themselves, who push themselves out of their comfort zone. However, I’m aware that they have to score high on national exams, otherwise… so, I assign homework to practice the contents covered.

Beyond assigning homework with the purpose of practicing and reviewing, middle school teachers also mentioned assigning homework with the purpose of diagnosing skills and personal development (see Figure 2 ). Many teachers reported that they use homework as a tool to diagnose students’ skills. However, several recognized that they had previously defended the importance of homework to help students to evaluate their own learning (see Figure 1 ). When discussing the latter point, participants observed the need to find out about whether students had understood the content taught in class, and to decide which changes to teaching style, homework assigned, or both may be necessary.

Participant teachers at middle school in all focus groups profusely discussed the purpose of personal development when assigning homework. In fact, not many teachers at this school level mentioned this purpose as a characteristic of quality homework (it was a variant category, so it was not reported), yet it was referred to as a cornerstone in their homework practice. Reflecting on this discrepancy, middle school teachers explained in a displeased tone that their students were expected to have developed study habits and manage their school work with autonomy and responsibility. However, this “educational scenario is rare, so I feel the need to assign homework with this aim [personal development]” (P4 FG9).

Moving further in the discussion, the majority of teachers at both school levels reported to assign whole-class homework (homework designed for the whole class with no focus on special cases). “Individualized homework requires a great amount of time to be monitored” (P1 FG6), explained several participants while recalling earlier comments. Teachers justified their position referring to the impediments already mentioned (e.g., large number of students per class, number of classes from different grade levels which means preparing different lessons). Besides, teachers discussed the challenge of coping with heterogeneous classes, as one participant noted: “the class is so diverse that it is difficult to select homework tasks to address the needs of every single student. I would like to do it…but we do not live in an ideal world” (P9 FG4).

Moreover, teachers at both school levels (see Figure 2 ) reported to assign homework according to the availability of students; still, only elementary school teachers had earlier referred to the importance of this characteristic in quality homework. When teachers were asked to elaborate on this idea, they defended the need to negotiate with students about specific homework characteristics, for example, the amount of homework and submission deadline. In some classes, matching students’ requests, teachers might assign a “weekly homework pack” (P7 FG10). This option provides students with the opportunity to complete homework according to their availability (e.g., choosing some days during the week or weekend). Teachers agreed that ‘negotiation’ fosters students’ engagement and homework compliance (e.g., “I do not agree that students do homework on weekends, but if they show their wish and actually they complete it, for me that’s okay”, P7 FG10). In addition, teachers expressed worry about their students’ often heavy workload. Many students stay in school from 8.30 am to 6.30 pm and then attend extracurricular activities (e.g., soccer training, private music lessons). These activities leave students very little free time to enjoy as they wish, as the following statement suggests:

P8 FG4: Today I talked to a group of 5th-graders which play soccer after school three times a week. They told me that sometimes they study between 10.00 and 11.00 p.m. I was astonished. How is this possible? It’s clearly too much for these kids.

Finally, elementary school teachers in all focus group referred frequency and completion deadlines as characteristics of the homework they usually assign. The majority of teachers informed that they assign homework in almost every class (i.e., teachers reported to exclude tests eves of other subjects), to be handed in the following class.

The photos of the homework assignments (see some examples in Supplementary Material ) submitted by the participating teachers served to triangulate data. The analysis showed that teachers’ discourses about the characteristics of homework assigned and the homework samples are congruent, and added information about the length of homework (elementary and middle schools) and the completion deadlines (middle school) (see Figure 3 ).

Discussion and Implications for Practice and Research

Homework research have reported teachers’ perspectives on their homework practices (e.g., Brock et al., 2007 ; Danielson et al., 2011 ; Kaur, 2011 ; Bang, 2012 ; Kukliansky et al., 2014 ), however, literature lacks research on the quality of homework. This study adds to the literature by examining the perspectives of teachers from two school levels regarding quality homework. Moreover, participants described the characteristics of the homework assignments they typically assign, which triggered the discussion about the match between the characteristics of quality homework and the tasks actually assigned. While discussing these key aspects of the homework process, the current study provides valuable information which may help deepen our understanding of the different contributions of homework to students’ learning. Furthermore, findings are expected to inform teachers and school administrators’ homework practices and, hopefully, improve the quality of students’ learning.

All teachers at both school levels valued homework as an important educational tool for their teaching practice. Consistent with the literature, participants indicated practicing or reviewing the material covered in class as the main purpose of both the homework typically assigned ( Danielson et al., 2011 ; Kaur, 2011 ) and quality homework. Despite the extended use of this homework purpose by teachers, a recent study conducted with mathematics teachers found that homework with the purpose of practicing the material covered in class did not impact significantly the academic achievement of 6th-grade students; however, homework designed with the purpose of solving problems did (extension homework) ( Rosário et al., 2015 ). Interestingly, in the current study only teachers from elementary school mentioned the homework purpose “extension” as being part of quality homework, but these teachers did not report to use it in practice (at least it was not a typical category) (see Figure 2 ). Extension homework was not referenced by middle school teachers either as quality homework or as a characteristic of homework assigned. Given that middle school students are expected to master complex math skills at this level (e.g., National Research Council and Mathematics Learning Study Committee, 2001 ), this finding may help school administrators and teachers reflect on the value and benefits of homework to students learning progress.

Moreover, teachers at both school levels stressed the use of homework as a tool to help students evaluate their own learning as a characteristic of quality homework; however, this purpose was not said to be a characteristic of the homework usually assigned. If teachers do not explicitly emphasize this homework purpose to their students, they may not perceive its importance and lose opportunities to evaluate and improve their work.

In addition, elementary school teachers identified personal development as a characteristic of quality homework. However, only middle school teachers reported assigning homework aiming to promote students’ personal development, and evaluate students’ learning (which does not imply that students evaluate their own learning). These findings are important because existing literature has highlighted the role played by homework in promoting students’ autonomy and learning throughout schooling ( Rosário et al., 2009 , 2011 ; Ramdass and Zimmerman, 2011 ; Núñez et al., 2015b ).

Globally, data show a disconnect between what teachers believe to be the characteristics of quality homework and the characteristics of the homework assigned, which should be further analyzed in depth. For example, teachers reported that middle school students lack the autonomy and responsibility expected for this school level, which translates to poor homework behaviors. In fact, contrary to what they would expect, middle school teachers reported the need to promote students’ personal development (i.e., responsibility and autonomy). This finding is consistent with the decrease of students’ engagement in academic activities found in middle school (e.g., Cleary and Chen, 2009 ; Wang and Eccles, 2012 ). This scenario may present a dilemma to middle school teachers regarding the purposes of homework. On one hand, students should have homework with more demanding purposes (e.g., extension); on another hand, students need to master work habits, responsibility and autonomy, otherwise homework may be counterproductive according to the participating teachers’ perspective.

Additionally, prior research has indicated that classes assigned challenging homework demonstrated high mathematics achievement ( Trautwein et al., 2002 ; Dettmers et al., 2010 ). Moreover, the study by Zakharov et al. (2014) found that Russian high school students from basic and advanced tracks benefited differently from two types of homework (i.e., basic short-answer questions, and open-ended questions with high level of complexity). Results showed that a high proportion of basic or complex homework exercises enhanced mathematics exam performance for students in the basic track; whereas only a high proportion of complex homework exercises enhanced mathematics exam performance for students in the advanced track. In fact, for these students, a low proportion of complex homework exercises was detrimental to their achievement. These findings, together with our own, may help explain why the relationship between homework and mathematics achievement in middle school is lower than in elementary school (see Fan et al., 2017 ). Our findings suggest the need for teachers to reflect upon the importance of assigning homework to promote students’ development in elementary school, and of assigning homework with challenging purposes as students advance in schooling to foster high academic outcomes. There is evidence that even students with poor prior knowledge need assignments with some degree of difficulty to promote their achievement (see Zakharov et al., 2014 ). It is important to note, however, the need to support the autonomy of students (e.g., providing different the types of assignments, opportunities for students to express negative feelings toward tasks, answer students’ questions) to minimize the threat that difficult homework exercises may pose to students’ sense of competence; otherwise an excessively high degree of difficulty can lead to students’ disengagement (see Patall et al., 2018 ). Moreover, teachers should consider students’ interests (e.g., which contents and types of homework tasks students like) and discuss homework purposes with their students to foster their understanding of the tasks assigned and, consequently, their engagement in homework ( Xu, 2010 , 2018 ; Epstein and Van Voorhis, 2012 ; Rosário et al., 2018 ).

We also found differences between teachers’ perspectives of quality homework and their reported homework practices concerning the degree of individualization when assigning homework. Contrary to the perspectives that quality homework stresses individual needs, teachers reported to assign homework to the whole class. In spite of the educational costs associated with assigning homework adjusted to specific students or groups of students (mentioned several times by participants), research has reported benefits for students when homework assignments match their educational needs (e.g., Cooper, 2001 ; Trautwein et al., 2006a ; Zakharov et al., 2014 ). The above-mentioned study by Zakharov et al. (2014) also shed light on this topic while supporting our participants’ suggestion to assign homework with increasing level of difficulty aiming to match the variety of students’ levels of knowledge (see also Dettmers et al., 2010 ). However, teachers did not mention this idea when discussing the characteristic of homework typically assigned. Thus, school administrators may wish to consider training teachers (e.g., using mentoring, see Núñez et al., 2013 ) to help them overcome some of the obstacles faced when designing and assigning homework targeting students’ individual characteristics and learning needs.

Another interesting finding is related to the sub-theme of homework adjusted to the availability of students. This was reported while discussing homework quality (elementary school) and characteristics of homework typically assigned (elementary and middle school). Moreover, some elementary and middle school teachers explained by email the reasons why they did not assign homework in some circumstances [e.g., eves of assessment tests of other subjects, extracurricular activities, short time between classes (last class of the day and next class in the following morning)]. These teachers’ behaviors show concern for students’ well-being, which may positively influence the relationship between students and teachers. As some participants mentioned, “students value this attitude” (P1 FG5). Thus, future research may explore how homework adjusted to the availability of students may contribute to encouraging positive behaviors, emotions and outcomes of students toward their homework.

Data gathered from the photos of the assigned homework tasks allowed a detailed analysis of the length and completion deadlines of homework. Long assignments did not match elementary school teachers’ perspectives of quality homework. However, a long homework was assigned once and aimed to help students practice the material covered for the mathematics assessment test. Here, practices diverged. Some teachers assigned this homework some weeks before and others assign it in last class before the test. For this reason, the “long term” completion deadline was not a typical category, hence not reported. Future research could consider studying the impact of this homework characteristic on students’ behaviors and academic performance.

Finally, our findings show that quality homework, according to teachers’ perspectives, requires attention to a combination of several characteristics of homework. Future studies may include measures to assess characteristics of homework other than “challenge” and “selection” already investigated ( Trautwein et al., 2006b ; Dettmers et al., 2010 ; Rosário et al., 2018 ); for example, homework adjusted to the availability of students.

Strengths and Limitations of the Study

The current study analyzed the teachers’ perspectives on the characteristics of quality homework and of the homework they typically assigned. Despite the incapability to generalize data, we believe that these findings provide important insights into the characteristics that may impact a homework assignment’s effectiveness, especially at middle school level. For example, our results showed a disconnect between teachers’ perspectives about the characteristics of quality homework and the characteristics of the homework they assign. This finding is relevant and emphasizes the need to reflect on the consistency between educational discourses and educational practices. Teachers and school administrators could consider finding opportunities to reflect on this disconnect, which may also occur in other educational practices (e.g., teacher feedback, types of questions asked in class). Present data indicate that middle school teachers reported to assign homework with the major purpose of practicing and reviewing the material, but they also aim to develop students’ responsibility and autonomy; still they neglect homework with the purpose of extension which is focused on encouraging students to display an autonomous role, solve problems and transfer the contents learned (see discussion section). Current findings also highlight the challenges and dilemmas teachers face when they assign homework, which is important to address in teachers’ training. In fact, assigning quality homework, that is, homework that works, is not an easy task for teachers and our findings provide empirical data to discuss and reflect upon its implications for research and educational practice. Although our findings cannot be generalized, still they are expected to provide important clues to enhance teachers’ homework practices in different contexts and educational settings, given that homework is among the most universal educational practices in the classroom, is a topic of public debate (e.g., some arguments against homework are related to the characteristics of the assignments, and to the malpractices in using this educational tool) and an active area of research in many countries ( Fan et al., 2017 ).

Moreover, these findings have identified some of the most common obstacles teachers struggle with; such data may be useful to school administrators when designing policies and to teacher training. The administrative obstacles (e.g., large number of students per class) reported by teachers may help understand some of the discrepancies found between teachers’ definition of quality homework and their actual homework practices (e.g., degree of individualization), and also identify which problems related to homework may require intervention. Furthermore, future research could further investigate this topic by interviewing teachers, videotaping classroom activities and discussing data in order to design new avenues of homework practices.

We share the perspective of Trautwein et al. (2006b) on the importance of mapping the characteristics of homework positively associated with students’ homework behaviors. Data from this study may inform future studies analyzing these relationships, promote adaptive homework behaviors and enhance learning.

Methodologically, this research followed rigorous procedures to increase the trustworthiness of findings, improving the validity of the study (e.g., Lincoln and Guba, 1985 ) that should be accounted for. Data from two data sources (i.e., focus groups and the homework assignments photographed) were consistent, and the member checking conducted in both phases allowed the opportunity to learn that the findings of the focus group seem to accurately reflect the overall teachers’ perspectives regarding quality homework and their homework practices.

Despite the promising contributions of this study to the body of research regarding homework practices, this specific research provides an incomplete perspective of the homework process as it has only addressed the perspectives of one of the agents involved. Future research may consider analyzing students’ perspectives about the same topic and contrast data with those of teachers. Findings are expected to help us identify the homework characteristics most highly valued by students and learn about whether they match those of teachers.

Furthermore, data from homework assignments (photos) were provided by 25% of the participating teachers and for a short period of time (i.e., three weeks in one school term). Future research may consider conducting small-scale studies by collecting data from various sources of information aiming at triangulating data (e.g., analyzing homework assignments given in class, interviewing students, conducting in-class observations) at different times of the school year. Researchers should also consider conducting similar studies in different subjects to compare data and inform teachers’ training.

Finally, our participants’ description does not include data regarding the teaching methodology followed by teachers in class. However, due to the potential interference of this variable in results, future research may consider collect and report data regarding school modality and the teaching methodology followed in class.

Homework is an instructional tool that has proved to enhance students’ learning ( Cooper et al., 2006 ; Fernández-Alonso et al., 2015 ; Valle et al., 2016 ; Fan et al., 2017 ; Rosário et al., 2018 ). Still, homework is a complex process and needs to be analyzed thoroughly. For instance, when planning and designing homework, teachers need to choose a set of homework characteristics (e.g., frequency, purposes, degree of individualization, see Cooper, 2001 ; Trautwein et al., 2006b ) considering students’ attributes (e.g., Cooper, 2001 ), which may pose a daily challenge even for experienced teachers as those of the current study. Regardless of grade level, quality homework results from the balance of a set of homework characteristics, several of which were addressed by our participants. As our data suggest, teachers need time and space to reflect on their practices and design homework tasks suited for their students. To improve the quality of homework design, school administrators may consider organizing teacher training addressing theoretical models of homework assignment and related research, discussing homework characteristics and their influence on students’ homework behaviors (e.g., amount of homework completed, homework effort), and academic achievement. We believe that this training would increase teachers’ knowledge and self-efficacy beliefs to develop homework practices best suited to their students’ needs, manage work obstacles and, hopefully, assign quality homework.

Ethics Statement

This study was reviewed and approved by the ethics committee of the University of Minho. All research participants provided written informed consent in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.

Author Contributions

PR and TN substantially contributed to the conception and the design of the work. TN and JC were responsible for the literature search. JC, TN, AN, and TM were responsible for the acquisition, analysis, and interpretation of data for the work. PR was also in charge of technical guidance. JN made important intellectual contribution in manuscript revision. PR, JC, and TN wrote the manuscript with valuable inputs from the remaining authors. All authors agreed for all aspects of the work and approved the version to be published.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Fuensanta Monroy and Connor Holmes for the English editing of the manuscript.

Funding. This study was conducted at Psychology Research Centre, University of Minho, and supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology and the Portuguese Ministry of Education and Science through national funds and when applicable co-financed by FEDER under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement (UID/PSI/01662/2013). PR was supported by the research projects EDU2013-44062-P (MINECO) and EDU2017-82984-P (MEIC). TN was supported by a Ph.D. fellowship (SFRH/BD/80405/2011) from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT).

Supplementary Material

The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00224/full#supplementary-material

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Definition of homework noun from the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary

• I always do my homework on the bus.
• physics/geography/French, etc. homework
• I still haven't done my geography homework.
• How much homework do you get?
• for homework I have to write up the notes for homework.
• (especially North American English) I have to finish this homework assignment .
• acquire/​get/​lack (an) education/​training/ (British English) (some) qualifications
• receive/​provide somebody with training/​tuition
• develop/​design/​plan a curriculum/ (especially British English) course/ (North American English) program/​syllabus
• give/​go to/​attend a class/​lesson/​lecture/​seminar
• hold/​run/​conduct a class/​seminar/​workshop
• sign up for/​take a course/​classes/​lessons
• go to/​start preschool/​kindergarten/​nursery school
• be in (North American English) the first, second, etc. grade/ (British English) year 1, 2. etc. (at school)
• study/​take/​drop history/​chemistry/​German, etc.
• (British English) leave/​finish/​drop out of/ (North American English) quit school
• (North American English) graduate high school/​college
• be the victim/​target of bullying
• (British English) play truant from/ (both British English, informal) bunk off/​skive off school (= not go to school when you should)
• (both especially North American English) skip/​cut class/​school
• (British English) cheat in/ (North American English) cheat on an exam/​a test
• get/​be given a detention (for doing something)
• be expelled from/​be suspended from school
• do your homework/ (British English) revision/​a project on something
• work on/​write/​do/​submit an essay/​a dissertation/​a thesis/​an assignment/ (North American English) a paper
• finish/​complete your dissertation/​thesis/​studies/​coursework
• hand in/ (North American English) turn in your homework/​essay/​assignment/​paper
• study/​prepare/ (British English) revise/ (North American English) review/ (North American English, informal) cram for a test/​an exam
• take/ (both British English) do/​sit a test/​an exam
• (especially British English) mark/ (especially North American English) grade homework/​a test
• (British English) do well in/ (North American English) do well on/ (especially North American English, informal) ace a test/​an exam
• pass/​fail/ (especially North American English, informal) flunk a test/​an exam/​a class/​a course/​a subject
• apply to/​get into/​go to/​start college/ (British English) university
• leave/​graduate from law school/​college/ (British English) university (with a degree in computer science)
• study for/​take/ (British English) do/​complete a law degree/​a degree in physics
• (both North American English) major/​minor in biology/​philosophy
• earn/​receive/​be awarded/​get/​have/​hold a master’s degree/​a bachelor’s degree/​a PhD in economics
• Have you finished your homework?
• Have you done your physics homework yet?
• I was helping my sister with her maths homework.
• The homework assignments are worth 10% of the final grade.
• I have some homework to do on the Civil War.
• I want you to hand in this homework on Friday.
• The science teacher always gives a lot of homework.
• They get a lot of homework in English.
• They get masses of homework at secondary school.
• We had to write out one of the exercises for homework.
• for homework
• homework  on

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• You could tell that he had really done his homework (= found out all he needed to know) .

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Definition of homework

Examples of homework in a sentence.

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'homework.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

1662, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Dictionary Entries Near homework

Cite this entry.

“Homework.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary , Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/homework. Accessed 30 Mar. 2024.

Kids Definition

Kids definition of homework, more from merriam-webster on homework.

Thesaurus: All synonyms and antonyms for homework

Nglish: Translation of homework for Spanish Speakers

Britannica English: Translation of homework for Arabic Speakers

Britannica.com: Encyclopedia article about homework

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Meaning of homework in English

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• The kids are busy with their homework.
• My science teacher always sets a lot of homework.
• "Have you got any homework tonight ?" "No."
• I got A minus for my English homework.
• For homework I want you to write an essay on endangered species .
• academic year
• access course
• Advanced Placement
• asynchronous
• foundation course
• immersion course
• interdisciplinarity
• on a course
• open admissions
• open classroom
• work placement

homework | American Dictionary

Homework | business english, examples of homework, translations of homework.

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Hippocratic oath

a promise made by people when they become doctors to do everything possible to help their patients and to have high moral standards in their work

Sitting on the fence (Newspaper idioms)

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The importance of regular review for long-term learning

• Teacher Reflection
• Published on: September 12, 2019

Rosenshine’s principles of instruction (2012) offer 10 research-based strategies with suggestions for classroom practice. Here, I discuss how principles one and 10, relating to the importance of regular review for long-term learning, can be used in practice in the modern foreign languages (MFL) classroom – but many of these ideas are applicable across different subject areas, too.

Principle one: Begin each lesson with a short review of previous learning

When learning a modern language, there are a number of grammatical concepts that students need to grasp in order to learn more complex grammatical structures. For example, without a solid understanding of the conjugation of regular present tense verbs, students are unlikely to comprehend the irregulars or other tenses.

A problem is that methods that may seem to rapidly increase student performance in the short term (i.e. in the space of one lesson) can fail to support retention of knowledge in the long term (i.e. over a series of lessons, months or years)(Bjork and Kroll, 2015). It might seem as if students are performing well in the lesson itself, so teachers may think what they are doing is effective, but in reality, students are rapidly forgetting material once they have left the classroom. That which students find easy is not always what is best for their learning (Bjork, 1994).

A review of previous learning at the start of each lesson is one way to strengthen students’ retention of knowledge. If you are teaching, for example, the near future tense in Spanish/French, you may wish to use the review to remind students what they know about the present tense of the verb ir/aller. There are a number of ways in which to do this:

• Brain ‘dump’ – ask students to write everything they can remember about the verb ir/aller without looking at their notes.
• Match up – provide the target language and the English. Students need to match up the two sides.
• Fill in the blanks – provide a table with the whole verb paradigm for ir/aller in the present tense. Remove some of the content and ask students to fill it back in.
• Thinking quilt – an idea found on Twitter from @KKNTeachLearn and adapted for MFL by @morganMFL. Create a table like the one in Table 1, with the whole present tense paradigm of the verb mixed with one or more other verbs. Students need to highlight the verb aller in one colour and the others in another.
• A memory challenge task, where pupils are asked to, for example, recall words, select the odd one out from a list of words, conjugate a verb, or translate a series of words, can be used to get students to not only recognise the language they will need in the lesson but also work on how to form it.
• Knowledge retrieval tasks, where students are asked to recall a mixture of key vocabulary from last lesson, last week, last month or even last year, can be used to combine the knowledge you need students to reactivate (aller/ir) with other useful vocabulary they have studied in the past.

Examples and templates of the above activities can be downloaded from: http://learninglinguist.co.uk/ mfl-starters-incorporating-retrieval-practice. Students may struggle with these kinds of activities at first, but the benefits of this initial struggle will be realised over the longer term. As well as improving retention of knowledge, these kinds of activities can also support formative assessment, providing the teacher with useful information about gaps and areas of strength.

Principle 10: Engage students in weekly and monthly review

Reviewing previous learning isn’t just about reviewing things from the previous lesson; Rosenshine also reminds us of the importance of reviewing over time, engaging students in weekly and monthly review (Rosenshine, 2012) once they have started to forget things – ‘forgetting’ is a really important step in the learning process, and recalling content after a gap helps to strengthen our ability to remember it in the longer term (Weinstein et al., 2019).

It is also particularly important that we continue to bring previous learning to mind so that students can apply this knowledge to a new context. Take, for example, learning to use the words ‘ya no’(no longer) and ‘todavia’ (still) in Spanish. In one of the major textbooks, these are taught to students in the context of sports and what they used to do in their free time. Without encouraging students to apply these structures to topics such as school, holidays, family, work, etc., these structures will only be associated with the original context in which they were learned. Frequent review allows us to encourage students to link these structures to a range of contexts.

One way of doing this might be to begin each lesson with a task that requires students to relate their knowledge of these grammatical structures to different topics, as well as the one they have just been learning. We can encourage this weekly and monthly review either through starter activities in lessons or through homework. We could also consider how we are structuring assessments and whether we are requiring students to retrieve knowledge from modules other than those most recently studied.

Some ideas from a blog post by Mark Enser (HCC Ped Team, 2018) are:

• taking some one-to-one time with students to look over their work from the last few weeks and discuss what they have learned and the progress they have made
• making use of checklists and knowledge organisers to see how each element of learning fits into the bigger picture
• making sure that regular lesson-starter quizzes also include questions that test previous learning.

Homework policies will vary from school to school but, where possible, you could consider structuring homework so that it incorporates plenty of reviewing. This could be through use of tools such as Quizlet to review vocabulary and conjuguemos.com for reviewing grammar, or simply through worksheets. Structuring in this way could take some time. But in the long term it should pay off, as students will be more prepared to work with previously learned language and structures.

We must acknowledge that a lot of regular reviewing happens as a natural part of language learning. There are fundamental parts of language that we constantly come back to and expect students to practise time and time again. However, we do need to schedule opportunities for purposeful review when it comes to topic-specific vocabulary or lesser-used structures that don’t often come up.

It is important to consider what it is that you need students to remember in the long term and make sure that they are frequently being asked to think about exactly that across different contexts, in different types of tasks, and in both the production and comprehension of language. This will support students in developing well-connected and automatic knowledge.

Bjork R (1994) Memory and meta-memory considerations in the training of human beings. In: Metcalfe J and Shimamura AP (eds) Metacognition: Knowing about Knowing . Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 185–205.

Bjork RA and Kroll JF (2015) Desirable difficulties in vocabulary learning. The American Journal of Psychology 128(2): 241–252. Available at: www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/amerjpsyc.128.2.0241 (accessed 12 April 2019).

HCC Ped Team (2018) Putting theory into practice. In: Heathfield Teach Share Blog. Available at: https://heathfieldteachshare.wordpress.com/2018/04/23/putting-theory-into-practice (accessed 7 July 2019).

Rosenshine B (2012) Principles of instruction: Research-based strategies that all teachers should know . American Educator 36(1). Available at: www.aft.org/sites/default/files/periodicals/Rosenshine.pdf (accessed 12 April 2019).

Weinstein Y, Sumeracki M and Caviglioli O (2019) Understanding How We Learn: A Visual Guide . London: Routledge.

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homework review, test review

• Thread starter wsclambertville
• Start date Sep 19, 2014

wsclambertville

Senior member.

• Sep 19, 2014

Salut! How would I express the phrases "homework review" and "test review" meaning that I'm going to go over the material in the homework and on the test in class? Merci! Wendy  

Etude (à domicile) et contrôle (à l'école) des connaissances en... (la matière concernée)  

I thought "controle" was more of a test, no? I mean that I'm going to go through the questions from the homework and the test and explain them, have a discussion about them, in class. Would I say "revision des devoirs, de l'examen"? or does that mean I'm making changes to these? Merci! Wendy  

Alors : " Préparation à domicile et à l'école du contrôle (des connaissances)".  

• Oct 13, 2014

My question: If I have already given the test and graded it, I am returning the tests to the students so they may see their performance, and we are going to discuss, for example, how many points I deducted for certain errors. In English we would say we are "going over" the test or "reviewing" the test, i.e. returning to it and reflecting upon it. What is the correct verb to use in this case?  

To wsclambertville Literally: Nous allons lire/relire le test/les devoirs ensemble et l'/les expliquer. nous allons passer le test/les question en revue (going over) préparer is okay , too. to pitseleh Nous allons revoir le test ensemble (once it has been graded and returned) Adding ''ensemble'' is important, I think. That brings the idea of accompaniment in going over the test or homework.  

BETAPLUME said: To wsclambertville Literally: Nous allons lire/relire le test/les devoirs ensemble et l'/les expliquer. nous allons passer le test/les question en revue (going over) préparer is okay , too. to pitseleh Nous allons revoir le test ensemble (once it has been graded and returned) Adding ''ensemble'' is important, I think. That brings the idea of accompaniment in going over the test or homework. Click to expand...

You're welcome. But perhaps someone can still give you better answers.  

1- correction du travail à la maison (homework review) 2-Je disais: "Nous allons reprendre ensemble le contrôle (les parties du contrôle qui ont posé problème)." (test review)  

Reprendre is okay, too. I should have thought of it.  

If it is before the students do the test I would say: "révision en vue du contrôle" or "préparation du contrôle". If it is when you return the tests, my suggestion is in post 9.  

• Nov 24, 2014

Thank you all for your helpful suggestions!  

In my days, we would "faire/donner la correction/ le corrigé du devoir", as in go over each question and say what were the good answers (not as grading, it was already graded at that point). Although it works better for Q&A or science stuff, French or Philosophy teachers didn't like the idea of "correction/corrigé" as it's not like there is only 1 essay you can write about a given subject.  

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Review: ‘3 Body Problem’ Is a Galaxy-Brained Spectacle

The Netflix sci-fi adaptation has done its physics homework, even if it sometimes falls short on the humanities.

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By James Poniewozik

The aliens who menace humankind in Netflix’s “3 Body Problem” believe in doing a lot with a little. Specifically, they can unfold a single proton into multiple higher dimensions, enabling them to print computer circuits with the surface area of a planet onto a particle smaller than a pinprick.

“3 Body Problem,” the audacious adaptation of a hard-sci-fi trilogy by Liu Cixin, is a comparable feat of engineering and compression. Its first season, arriving Thursday, wrestles Liu’s inventions and physics explainers onto the screen with visual grandeur, thrills and wow moments. If one thing holds it back from greatness, it’s the characters, who could have used some alien technology to lend them an extra dimension or two. But the series’s scale and mind-bending turns may leave you too starry-eyed to notice.

David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, partnering here with Alexander Woo ( “The Terror: Infamy” ), are best known for translating George R.R. Martin’s incomplete “A Song of Ice and Fire” fantasy saga into “Game of Thrones.” Whatever your opinions of that series — and there are plenty — it laid out the duo’s strengths as adapters and their weaknesses as creators of original material.

Beginning with Martin’s finished novels, Benioff and Weiss converted the sprawling tomes into heady popcorn TV with epic battles and intimate conversations. Toward the end, working from outlines or less, they rushed to a finish and let visual spectacle overshadow the once-vivid characters.

In “3 Body,” however, they and Woo have a complete story to work with, and it’s a doozy. It announces its sweep up front, opening with a Chinese scientist’s public execution during Mao’s Cultural Revolution, then jumping to the present day, when a wave of notable physicists are inexplicably dying by suicide.

The deaths may be related to several strange phenomena. Experiments in particle accelerators around the world suddenly find that the last several decades’ worth of research is wrong. Brilliant scientific minds are being sent futuristic headsets of unknown provenance that invite them to join an uncannily realistic virtual-reality game. Oh, also, one night all the stars in the sky start blinking on and off.

It all suggests the working of an advanced power, not of the cuddly E.T. variety. What starts as a detective mystery, pursued by the rumpled intelligence investigator Clarence Da Shi (Benedict Wong), escalates to a looming war of the worlds. What the aliens want and what they might do to get it is unclear at first, but as Clarence intuits, “Usually when people with more advanced technology encounter people with more primitive technology, doesn’t work out well for the primitives.”

Most of the first season’s plot comes straight from Liu’s work. The biggest changes are in story structure and location. Liu’s trilogy, while wide-ranging, focused largely on Chinese characters and had specifically Chinese historical and political overtones. Benioff, Weiss and Woo have globalized the story, shifting much of the action to London, with a multiethnic cast. (Viewers interested in a more literal rendition of Liu’s story can watch last year’s stiff but thorough Chinese adaptation on Peacock.)

They’ve also given Liu’s heavy science a dose of the humanities. Liu is a brilliant novelist of speculative ideas, but his characters can read like figures from story problems. In the series, a little playful dialogue goes a long way toward leavening all the Physics 101.

So does casting. Wong puffs life into his generically hard-boiled gumshoe. Liam Cunningham (Davos Seaworth in “Thrones”) stands out as Thomas Wade, a sharp-tongued spymaster, as does Rosalind Chao as Ye Wenjie, an astrophysicist whose brutal experience in the Cultural Revolution makes her question her allegiance to humanity. Zine Tseng is also excellent as the young Ye.

More curious, if understandable, is the decision to shuffle and reconfigure characters from throughout Liu’s trilogy into a clique of five attractive Oxford-grad prodigies who carry much of the narrative: Jin Cheng (Jess Hong), a dogged physicist with personal ties to the dead-scientists case; Auggie Salazar (Eiza González), an idealistic nanofibers researcher; Saul Durand (Jovan Adepo), a gifted but jaded research assistant; Will Downing (Alex Sharp), a sweet-natured teacher with a crush on Jin; and Jack Rooney (John Bradley of “Thrones”), a scientist turned snack-food entrepreneur and the principal source of comic relief.

The writers manage to bump up Liu’s one-dimensional characterizations to two-ish, but the “Oxford Five,” with the exception of Jin, don’t feel entirely rounded. This is no small thing; in a fantastical series like “Thrones” or “Lost,” it is the memorable individuals — your Arya Starks and your Ben Linuses — who hold you through the ups and downs of the story.

The plot, however, is dizzying and the world-building immersive, and the reportedly galactic budget looks well and creatively spent on the screen. Take the virtual-reality scenes, through which “3 Body” gradually reveals its stakes and the aliens’ motives. Each character who dons the headset finds themselves in an otherworldly version of an ancient kingdom — China for Jin, England for Jack — which they are challenged to save from repeating cataclysms caused by the presence of three suns (hence the series’s title).

“3 Body” has a streak of techno-optimism even at its bleakest moments, the belief that the physical universe is explicable even when cruel. The universe’s inhabitants are another matter. Alongside the race to save humanity is the question of whether humanity is worth saving — a group of alien sympathizers, led by a billionaire environmentalist (Jonathan Pryce), decides that Earth would benefit from a good cosmic intervention.

All this attaches the show’s brainiac spectacle to big humanistic ideas. The threat in “3 Body” is looming rather than imminent — these are not the kind of aliens who pull up quick and vaporize the White House — which makes for a parallel to the existential but gradual threat of climate change. Like “Thrones,” with its White Walkers lurking beyond the Wall, “3 Body” is in part a collective-action problem.

It is also morally provocative. Liu’s novels make an argument that in a cold, indifferent universe, survival can require a hard heart; basing decisions on personal conscience can be a kind of selfishness and folly. The series is a bit more sentimental, emphasizing relationships and individual agency over game theory and determinism. But it’s willing to go dark: In a striking midseason episode, the heroes make a morally gray decision in the name of planetary security, and the consequences are depicted in horrifying detail.

Viewers new to the story should find it exciting on its own. (You do not need to have read the books first; you should never need to read the books to watch a TV series.) But the book trilogy does go to some weird, grim — and presumably challenging to film — places, and it will be interesting to see if and how future seasons follow.

For now, there’s flair, ambition and galaxy-brain twists aplenty. Sure, this kind of story is tough to pull off beginning to end (see, again, “Game of Thrones”). But what’s the thrill in creating a headily expanding universe if there’s no risk of it collapsing?

James Poniewozik is the chief TV critic for The Times. He writes reviews and essays with an emphasis on television as it reflects a changing culture and politics. More about James Poniewozik

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‘Tommy’ is a strange Broadway show. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t see it.

A new revival of the pete townshend musical based on his rock opera feels like it takes place in the multiverse.

NEW YORK — “The Who’s Tommy” is one weird show. In terms of head-spinning “ whaaaaa? ” moments, I would venture that, among mainstream musicals, it’s bested only by “Cats.”

After all, it’s about a little boy who shuts out the world around him after a traumatic experience, somehow grows up into a pinball god and acquires legions of adoring followers in the process. Tragedy and catharsis expressed through often surreal tableaux and great rock songs — it’s a wild ride.

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Even by the show’s wackadoo standards, Des McAnuff’s alt-futuristic revival , which just opened on Broadway after playing at Chicago’s Goodman Theater in the summer, has a casual relationship with coherence. Does Tommy become a cult leader, a proto-influencer, a tyrant, a victim or all of the above? Does he somehow stop aging in his 20s? My head!

But by the time your brain catches up with the inconsistencies, McAnuff’s production has moved on, carried by one earworm after another and wall-to-wall (literally) kinetic projections. A tale of sensory deprivation told through sensory overload makes counterintuitive sense.

McAnuff certainly has an intimate connection with the show. He adapted the Who’s 1969 rock opera, “Tommy,” with the band’s leader, Pete Townshend, and directed the musical’s original version — which won five of the 11 Tony Awards it was nominated for in 1993.

The main action kicks off in London in 1945, when 4-year-old Tommy (Cecilia Ann Popp at the performance I caught) sees his father, Captain Walker (Adam Jacobs), kill his wife’s lover (Nathan Lucrezio). While Mrs. Walker (Alison Luff) shrugs off this drama — I suppose that’s what they mean by stiff upper lip — the shock renders the child “deaf, dumb and blind,” as the 55-year-old lyrics bluntly put it.

Years pass and we enter the 1950s, when 10-year-old Tommy (Quinten Kusheba at the performance I attended) is abused by Uncle Ernie (John Ambrosino) and tormented by Cousin Kevin (Bobby Conte). Reflecting on the events is the adult Tommy, played by Ali Louis Bourzgui, a heartthrob who cuts a slightly aloof, dreamlike presence in a mock turtleneck and balances finesse and power as a singer .

The original album, and Ken Russell’s film adaptation from 1975 , summoned a version of Townshend’s postwar years that’s simultaneously grounded and fantastical. But this “Tommy,” the program informs us, takes place in the “past, present and future.” When the title character becomes an idol, the show doubles down on a sleek dystopian aesthetic that made me wonder whether we had been in a multiverse Britain all along. Sarafina Bush’s costumes nod to the rockers and mods of the 1950s and ’60s, but they also incorporate neo-fascist military garb. Occasionally, ensemble members wear individuality-denying masks that make them look as if Daft Punk had taken up fencing.

The grayscale palette, with splashes of yellow as Tommy’s signature color, creates an oppressive mood that’s reinforced by Amanda Zieve’s stark lighting, David Korins’s stylized set and Peter Nigrini’s projections.

At the same time, the production is not as radical as this description may suggest and recycles many artistic decisions that have calcified over the decades. Christina Sajous’s “Acid Queen,” for instance, is a tepid version of what Tina Turner served up in the movie. (It would be interesting to see a different physical take on this one number, or hear a performer lean more toward Merry Clayton’s menacing slow burn from the London Symphony Orchestra’s 1972 recording of the original album.)

Still, the songs, which are often bite-size, remain as distinctive as they’ve ever been (which is why “The Who’s Tommy” can also be effective in a semi-staged format, as evidenced by Josh Rhodes’s production at the Kennedy Center five years ago). The score was very theatrical for a chart-topping rock band in the late ’60s, but it’s also very rock by Broadway standards, even now. The company walks that line, at least vocally, better than the one from 1993, which was more Broadwayfied, and the orchestra, which is as loud as it needs to be, plays with a precision that does not forsake energy and the joys of riffage. What this “Tommy” is preaching might be a little murky, but when the entire cast lines up to face the audience and belts the “Listening to You” finale, by golly, you believe.

The Who’s Tommy , ongoing at the Nederlander Theatre in New York. 2 hours, 10 minutes. tommythemusical.com .

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‘Dogman’ Gives a Whole New Meaning to the Word ‘Absurd’

You’ll be shocked how literal this movie’s title is.

Nick Schager

Entertainment Critic

Briarcliff Entertainment

Dogman is Joker by way of Robin Hood , Air Bud, and RuPaul's Drag Race , and arguably the most absurd film of this, or any recent, year. Whether it’s offensive is also certainly up for debate. Yet the prime calling card of The Fifth Element director Luc Besson ’s latest, which premieres March 29 in theaters following its debut at last year’s Venice International Film Festival , is its unabashed and laugh-out-loud goofiness, which is amplified by the seriousness with which it takes itself. Part superhero villain origin story, part religiously minded character study, and part The Professional­ -esque action thriller, it appears destined for the unintentional comedy hall of fame.

On a rainy highway near Trenton, New Jersey, a truck is forced to stop at a police checkpoint. In the driver’s seat, an officer discovers Douglas (Caleb Landry Jones), a man who’s dolled up like Marilyn Monroe in her “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” outfit, complete with a pink dress and matching sleeves, sparkling jewelry around his neck and wrists, and a platinum blonde wig atop his head. This naturally surprises the cop, as does Douglas’ cargo: an enormous pack of dogs, who “won’t hurt you so long as you don’t hurt me.” Taking his advice, law enforcement chooses to simply arrest the mystery man, and at a detention center, he’s questioned by Dr. Evelyn Decker (Jojo T. Gibbs), a thoroughly bland psychiatrist and single mother who’s presently dealing with an out-of-control ex.

Douglas has bandaged wounds on his back and his brow, and in his first sit-down with Evelyn, he discusses his fondness for disguises (which fostered his process of “becoming” someone else), his love of dogs (“my babies”), and his canine friends’ sole flaw (“they trust humans”). There isn’t a line spoken during this exchange that doesn’t sound written—and tailor-made for a theatrical trailer—and that phoniness infects the remainder of Besson’s original script. In the duo’s ensuing conversations, Douglas recounts his path to this present moment with a smirking, eye-twinkling smugness that’s meant to be at once charmingly playful and imposingly (if not dementedly) confident.

While Jones has a history of dialing things up to 11, he lets loose like never before in Dogman , delivering a raft of quasi-feminine affectations (be it eye rolls, hand gestures, or soft vocal intonations) that are exacerbated by his Joker-ish complexion (pale skin contrasted with cropped red hair) and his physical disability, since chain-smoking Douglas is generally confined to a wheelchair and can only temporarily walk courtesy of Forrest Gump -style leg braces.

Dogman is allergic to subtlety, and if that isn’t apparent from its initial dialogue, it’s made abundantly clear by its flashbacks to teen Douglas’ (Lincoln Powell) upbringing with a monstrous father who earned a living via dog fighting, and who—upon discovering that his son was sneaking the abused pooches food from the dinner table—permanently locked his son in the dogs’ cage.

“This is your family now!” screams Douglas’ dad, and yet they quickly become something even more than that, given that Douglas and his dogs share love as well as a means of intelligently communicating with each other. Douglas’ psycho brother rants at him about Jesus and salvation while hanging a banner outside his cage that reads “In the Name of God,” and because he’s on the other side of it, Douglas reads “God” as “Dog”—a conflation that Besson treats with a gravity that inspires disbelieving chuckles.

During his imprisonment, Douglas discovers a stack of his “weak” mom’s ladies’ magazines, and his feminization continues when—after being shot by his dad (thus crippling him) and successfully ordering his dogs to track down the police—he’s sent to a boarding school where he flourishes under the guidance of drama teacher Salma (Grace Palma), who has him play every role in the Shakespearean canon. Though his creepy stalker love for Salma goes unrequited, the adult Douglas finds a new home, and calling, at a Jersey drag cabaret where he becomes an instant star by performing as Edith Piaf. This showstopper, as well as everything else about Dogman , is staged and shot with maximum over-the-top flair, and the incongruity of Besson’s blockbuster aesthetics and tone, and the sheer silliness of the action at hand, is so profound that it’s difficult to comprehend how no one noticed, in real time, what a fiasco they were fashioning.

Dogman never stops with the lunacy, so Douglas is soon shacking up in an abandoned school that he outfits with an assortment of clever booby traps and where he perpetually sits at a makeshift vanity (modeled distinctively after Joker ) donning his make-up as his dogs patiently sit by his side awaiting his next command, such as fetching ingredients for a cake (because, you see, his mom also loved to cook). By day, he works as a de facto savior for the powerless, as when he employs his pets to menace a scary Latino gang. At night, he sends his companions out on covert missions to rob the wealthy, which he validates to Evelyn by stating, “I believe in the redistribution of wealth.” On and on the inanity goes, with Douglas using his dogs to protect the innocent, punish the wicked (like his brother), and bring about some sort of (preposterous, and hypocritical) justice for the marginalized and downtrodden.

Late conflicts with both an insurance agent (Christopher Denham) who’s on to his illicit enterprise (“This is the work of an artist,” he marvels) and the aforementioned Hispanic baddies allow for much talk about right and wrong, God and the Devil. And to its credit, Dogman makes it all equally, deliriously daft. "Dog eat dog—it's just a simple law of nature, isn't it?" remarks Douglas as his canines feast upon a victim, and by the time he’s breaking out of jail thanks to Beethoven -grade hijinks and emerging from the station in a knock-off Clown Prince of Crime tuxedo, the film has devolved into abject ridiculousness. It’s as big a swing as any in Besson’s career, and consequently, when it wholly and embarrassingly misses, the blow back is borderline overpowering.

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Professor T, series 3, review: a show as awkward as Ben Miller’s sleuth

Professor T (ITV1) is a strange series about an odd fish. It’s back for a third run, which must mean that quite a few people watch it, and I can only think they’re viewers who miss Ben Miller in Death in Paradise and will watch him in anything.

The character of Prof Jasper Tempest is intriguing, on paper at least: a criminologist who suffers from obsessive compulsive disorder, and whose mental-health condition causes discomfort while also proving helpful in his line of work. He is also on the autistic spectrum. But this all sits awkwardly – as awkward as the Prof himself – within the framework of a bog standard detective show .

We pick up where the last series left off and the Prof is being escorted to prison for discharging an unlicensed shotgun in a police station. For a man whose OCD manifests itself as a germ phobia, this presents many challenges. When a friend prepares to send him a package, it includes wipes, gloves, soap and antibacterial spray alongside the shiitake mushrooms, macadamia nuts and lapsang souchong.

At one point, he gets beaten up in his cell and threatened at knifepoint, and his reaction is: “If you kill me, this unpleasantness ends. If you do not, I have a captivating anecdote for my memoirs.” Subsequently offered a move to the vulnerable prisoners unit, Prof T declines: “As a criminologist, I have been gifted a unique opportunity. I shall remain in the belly of the beast.”

While there, he solves a crime – a man has been murdered, it seems, over some dodgy car parts – but in the most perfunctory way because the plotline about his prison woes leaves very little time for anything else. The accused man, he decides, could not have been the killer because he was a boxer: “Boxers don’t do frenzied attacks, they conserve energy.”

I imagine there are real-life cases to disprove that particular theory, but never mind. The Prof identifies the real killer by observing him in the prison visiting room and relays this insight in his idiosyncratic way: “My hippocampus is telling me…”

The junior police detectives who require the Prof’s help are another weakness of this show, so bland as to be instantly forgettable. Whereas Frances de la Tour – as Tempest’s mother – is a big character, but the script doesn’t know quite what to do with her and she just pops up here and there, along with flashbacks to Tempest’s traumatic childhood. None of these elements fit neatly together. The original version of this drama is Belgian, and something seems to have been lost in translation during the transfer.

Series 3 of Professor T begins tonight on ITV1 at 9pm; all episodes are available now on ITVX

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Experts release 50-plus ideas for improving domestic violence response after Bobbie Lou Schoeffling murder

After a Milwaukee woman who repeatedly sought help from authorities was killed by her abusive ex-boyfriend , a multi-agency team has released more than 50 recommendations to prevent a similar tragedy from happening again.

The Milwaukee Homicide Review Commission convened representatives from Milwaukee police, the district attorney’s office, the state Department of Corrections, victim service providers, advocates and other organizations to examine the case of Bobbie Lou Schoeffling .

Schoeffling, a 31-year-old mother of two, was shot and killed in July 2022. Her death was the subject of a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel investigation published last April. 

The news organization found police, probation agents and prosecutors missed the full scope of an escalating series of domestic violence allegations in the final 10 months of her life. Nicholas Howell , her ex-boyfriend, had two open warrants unrelated to domestic violence during that time, but was not arrested until after her death.

Last month, Howell was convicted of first-degree intentional homicide and other felony counts in her death and sentenced to life in prison .

After the Journal Sentinel published its investigation, the Milwaukee Police Department asked the Homicide Review Commission to lead what’s known as a “sentinel review” to examine gaps in the criminal justice system and propose solutions.

The resulting 22-page report released Thursday is “not intended to place blame, but rather to identify where there are opportunities for change and improvement,” the document says. 

The suggested recommendations, if implemented, “have the potential to prevent the same outcome for similar situations in the future,” according to the report.

“This is not one of those situations where we’re intending to put a report on a shelf and walk away from it,” said Constance Kostelac, who leads the  Homicide Review Commission  at the Medical College of Wisconsin and authored the report.

She spoke Thursday before the Milwaukee Common Council’s Public Safety and Health Committee . The committee's chairman, Ald. Scott Spiker, had pushed for answers after Schoeffling's case became public and observed the review process.

Read the full report: Domestic Violence Sentinel Review of Bobbie Lou Schoeffling case

Milwaukee Police Inspector Paul Lough and Capt. Erin Mejia also took questions from council members. Lough said the department is taking the recommendations "very seriously."

“We’re ready to move forward to make whatever changes we can to make sure something like this doesn’t slip through the cracks again,” Lough said.

Here are key takeaways:

Expand the county's Domestic Violence High-Risk Team

The top recommendation was to expand the county’s Domestic Violence High-Risk Team . The multi-agency team based out of the Sojourner Family Peace Center works to prevent domestic violence homicides by trying to hold offenders accountable and protect victims.

From 2017 through 2022, the team took on more than 4,100 cases, with only one ending in a homicide. The effort received $1 million to review more cases last year, but as the report notes, that funding is relatively short-term and more is needed to sustain the operations next year.

A second recommendation is for trained advocates and/or survivors of domestic violence to accompany police officers on domestic abuse calls so they can work directly with victims at a crime scene. A pilot project is underway in Police District 4 on the city's northwest side that sends a team with an officer, prosecutor, forensic nurse and victim advocate to those calls three days a week.

Make more effort to arrest domestic violence suspects with active warrants

Another recommendation called for stronger efforts to find and arrest people who have been convicted of or involved in domestic or intimate partner violence incidents and have outstanding warrants or on community supervision by the Department of Corrections.

Howell was on community supervision during the time Schoeffling was reporting abuse allegations against him. He also had two open warrants, one related to violating the terms of that supervision.

The report cited the Milwaukee Collaborative Offender Re-entry Program as a resource. The program is a specialty unit of police and Department of Corrections agents that tries to reduce re-offending among people on supervision.

Any cases the Domestic Violence High-Risk Team flags for the unit should be followed up on within a week, the report says. If a suspect with an active felony warrant cannot be found, the unit should refer the case to the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Taskforce.

Secure additional funding to support housing for victims

Domestic violence victims often cite housing instability as one obstacle to leaving an abusive relationship or cooperating in a criminal investigation against their abuser.

Throughout the report, there are calls to secure additional funding to support short-term and long-term housing options for victims. It also noted victims often were not aware of existing funding options for emergency housing, such as a short hotel stay, and urged police, advocates and others to make sure victims are aware of those opportunities as soon as possible when they call for help.

Consider broadening the definition of domestic violence and abuse

Domestic abuse is narrowly defined in Wisconsin law as involving people who are or have been married, who have a child together or who live or have lived together. It does not include people who were current or former dating partners, a gap known as the "dating loophole."

Police and other agencies have specific protocols for handling domestic violence incidents such as mandatory reporting, requirements to call advocacy hotlines and enhanced penalties on criminal charges. But with the narrow definition, cases of intimate partner violence can fall through the gap and those victims can miss out on services.

The report calls for researching other states that have expanded their definitions and closed the loophole and considering additional resources that might be needed if such a change were made, as that would lead to more cases.

Council members pushed for more accountability

During the meeting, Common Council President José Pérez, Ald. Michael Murphy and Spiker pressed officials about who would be responsible for making sure the recommendations moved forward.

"We've had other initiatives driven by this committee approach and when something happens, then no one is responsible," Pérez said.

Kostelac underscored that each recommendation was tied to specific agencies that had the power to make those changes.

Spiker, who said he would ask for an update in the coming months, called the homicide review process "eye-opening."

“It did give me hope for real progress," he said.

Where to find help

• The National Domestic Violence Hotline is 800-799-7233.
• The Sojourner Family Peace Center in Milwaukee operates a 24-hour confidential hotline at (414) 933-2722.
• We Are Here Milwaukee provides information on culturally specific organizations at  weareheremke.org .
• The Haus Of Peace provides housing, transportation, mental health counseling and other resources to women and children in Jefferson County who have experienced homelessness or abuse. It can be reached at (920) 285-7179 or at  www.hausofpeacewi.org .
• The Women’s Center in Waukesha has a 24-hour hotline at (262) 542-3828. 
• The Asha Project, which provides culturally specific services for African American women and others in Milwaukee, provides a crisis line from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at (414) 252-0075.
• The UMOS Latina Resource Center in Milwaukee offers bilingual, bicultural, domestic violence, sexual assault and anti-human trafficking supportive services and operates a 24-hour hotline at (414) 389-6510.
• The Gerald L. Ignace Indian Health Center offers culturally sensitive, trauma-informed services for those who have experienced domestic or sexual violence and can be reached at (414) 383-9526.
• Our Peaceful Home, which serves Muslim families and is a program of the Milwaukee Muslim Women’s Coalition, operates a crisis line at (414) 727-1090.
• The Hmong American Women’s Association, which serves the Hmong and Southeast Asian community, has advocates available at (414) 930-9352 from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday.
• End Domestic Abuse Wisconsin has a statewide directory of resources at  endabusewi.org/get-help .

Ashley Luthern can be reached at  [email protected] . 

What to Know About Donald Trump’s New $60 Bible

“all americans need a bible in their home, and i have many. it’s my favorite book.”.

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Mother Jones illustration; Shealah Craighead/White House/ZUMA

One month after releasing a line of gilded high-tops for $399, Donald Trump revealed on Tuesday a new item: the Bible. “All Americans need a Bible in their home, and I have many,” the former president explained in a video promoting the country singer Lee Greenwood’s version of a King James translation, the “God Bless the USA Bible.”

“It’s my favorite book,” Trump added.

Throughout the rest of the clip, as if daring us into a collective disgust, Trump swerved through random opportunities to rail against bureaucrats and a country under threat—all while hawking a holy text.

But his latest sales pitch also prompted some legitimate questions. Such as: What the hell is going on? And: Excuse me? Here, we try to answer some of the queries.

So, that first question—what the hell—but more formally: What exactly is Trump promoting and how much will it cost me to shell out for this? 

Trump is encouraging his supporters to buy a Bible endorsed by himself and Lee Greenwood. It costs $59.99, without taxes or shipping included. That seems to sit on the more expensive end of Bibles on sale at Barnes & Noble . But those books presumably don’t include copies of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the handwritten lyrics to the chorus of Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA.”

The “God Bless the USA Bible” does include these items .

Trump is in a serious cash crunch . So is he going to make money with this Bible?

According to the book’s official site , the God Bless the USA Bible has nothing to do with Trump’s campaign. It is “not owned, managed, or controlled by Donald J. Trump, The Trump Organization, CIC Ventures LLC, or any of their respective principals or affiliates.” Instead, Trump’s “name, likeness, and image” are being used “under paid license from CIC Ventures LLC.”

Wait, what is CIC Ventures LLC, though?

Okay, so CIC Ventures LLC is, according to the  Washington Post , basically a pipeline to Trump:

In [Trump’s] financial disclosure released last year, he’s identified as the [CIC Ventures LLC’s] “manager, president, secretary and treasurer” and the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust is identified as a 100 percent owner of the business. The same entity also receives royalties from his book “A MAGA Journey” and speaking engagements.

In case it’s not already obvious: if you look at the company’s documents, you’ll find the principal address for CIC Ventures LLC is 3505 Summit Boulevard, West Palm Beach, Florida. That is a Trump golf course . Moreover, in a 2022 disclosure, Nick Luna is listed as a manager. Luna was Trump’s personal assistant and body man.

So, I’m sorry, but let me ask again: Is Trump making money off this?

The New York Times reports that “according to a person familiar” (classic) Trump will receive royalties from sales.

You could have just said that.

I wanted to tell you about the other stuff I found. Any other questions?

Yes. Who is Lee Greenwood?

The country singer who wrote “God Bless the USA.” Greenwood is a fierce MAGA guy who otherwise made news after pulling out of an NRA concert in response to the Uvalde, Texas, mass shooting.

Does Greenwood have a Christmas album with an oddly sexual cover?

Yes. Look at this .

Perfect sweater. Anyway, I feel like I’m experiencing deja vu. Hasn’t Trump made headlines before with a Bible?

You’re probably recalling that despicable photo-op when Trump held up a Bible in front of St. John’s Church, which had been a location of racial justice protests in the days prior. There was a complicated saga, afterward, about whether or not Trump deployed the police to clear protesters to get to the church. An Inspector General’s report ultimately concluded that he did not.  

Man, it’s pretty rough remembering all the awful shit we went through with him as president.

Yep. If you ever want to wallow in political depression, check out this quick compilation .

But wait. Wasn’t there another time Trump and the Bible made waves for something far more stupid?

Christian nationalists adore Trump, so there have probably been many times that Trump has referenced the Bible. But you might also be thinking of this incredible clip of Trump attempting to name his favorite verse .

Has a presidential candidate ever partnered on a holy text sale with a country musician?

Not to my knowledge. But this is from a dude who just last week seemed to compare his current legal jeopardy with the persecution of Jesus Christ. Happy Easter!

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What is Good Friday? What the holy day means for Christians around the world

Christians around the world observe Good Friday two days before Easter, but what is it, and why do they commemorate the holy day?

The holiday is part of Holy Week, which leads up to Easter Sunday. Palm Sunday kicks off the series of Christian holy days that commemorate the Crucifixion and celebrate Jesus Christ's resurrection.

"Good Friday has been, for centuries now, the heart of the Christian message because it is through the death of Jesus Christ that Christians believe that we have been forgiven of our sins," Daniel Alvarez, an associate teaching professor of religious studies at Florida International University, told USA TODAY.

What is Holy Saturday? What the day before Easter means for Christians around the world

When is Good Friday?

Good Friday is always the Friday before Easter. It's the second-to-last day of Holy Week.

In 2024, Good Friday will fall on March 29.

What is Good Friday?

Good Friday is the day Christ was sacrificed on the cross. According to Britannica , it is a day for "sorrow, penance, and fasting."

"Good Friday is part of something else," Gabriel Radle, an assistant professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame, previously told USA TODAY. "It's its own thing, but it's also part of something bigger."

Are Good Friday and Passover related?

Alvarez says that Good Friday is directly related to the Jewish holiday, Passover.

Passover , or Pesach, is a major Jewish holiday that celebrates the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt.

"The whole Christian idea of atoning for sin, that Jesus is our atonement, is strictly derived from the Jewish Passover tradition," said Alvarez.

How is that possible?

According to the professor, Passover celebrates the day the "Angel of Death" passed over the homes of Israelites who were enslaved by the Egyptians. He said that the Bible states when the exodus happened, families were told to paint their doors with lamb's blood so that God would spare the lives of their firstborn sons.

Alvarez says this is why Christians call Jesus the "lamb of God." He adds that the symbolism of the "blood of the lamb" ties the two stories together and is why Christians believe God sacrificed his firstborn son. Because, through his blood, humanity is protected from the "wrath of a righteous God that cannot tolerate sin."

He adds that the stories of the exodus and the Crucifixion not only further tie the stories together but also emphasize just how powerful the sacrifice of the firstborn and the shedding of blood are in religion.

"Jesus is the firstborn, so the whole idea of the death of the firstborn is crucial," said Alvarez.

He adds that the sacrifice of the firstborn, specifically a firstborn son, comes from an ancient and "primitive" idea that the sacrifice unleashes "tremendous power that is able to fend off any kind of force, including the wrath of God."

Why Is Good Friday so somber?

Alavarez says people might think this holiday is more depressing or sad than others because of how Catholics commemorate the Crucifixion.

"I think [it's] to a level that some people might think is morbid," said Alvarez.

He said Catholics not only meditate on Jesus' death, but primarily focus on the suffering he faced in the events that led up to his Crucifixion. That's what makes it such a mournful day for people.

But, the professor says that Jesus' suffering in crucial to Christianity as a whole.

"The suffering of Christ is central to the four Gospels," said Alvarez. "Everything else is incidental."

According to the professor, statues that use blood to emphasize the way Jesus and Catholic saints suffered is very common in Spanish and Hispanic Countries, but not as prevalent in American churches.

Do you fast on Good Friday?

Father Dustin Dought, the executive director of the Secretariat of Divine Worship of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, previously told USA TODAY that Good Friday and Ash Wednesday are the two days in the year that Roman Catholics are obliged to fast.

"This practice is a way of emptying ourselves so that we can be filled with God," said Dought.

What do you eat on Good Friday?

Many Catholics do not eat meat on any Friday during Lent. Anything with flesh is off-limits. Dought says this practice is to honor the way Jesus sacrificed his flesh on Good Friday.

Meat that is off limits includes:

Instead, many Catholics will eat fish. According to the Marine Stewardship Council , this is allowed because fish is considered to be a different type of flesh.

Contributing: Jordan Mendoza ; USA TODAY