Today, I got an email from a friend who was in that session. He raises some really thoughtful points about how he (and his colleagues) are wrestling with homework. Here's what he wrote (slightly edited for anonymity):
Dave,
First of all, thanks for being willing and open to share your thoughts on homework at Heartland a couple weeks ago. You’ve done so much research into it and you’re so passionate about the topic, so I really appreciate you sharing what you’ve learned. You and I had emailed back and forth a few times last year about our school and homework, and I am finding myself giving less and less homework each year I teach. I’ve transitioned from {feeling guilty if I don’t give homework} to {feeling guilty if I haven’t thought through why I gave homework}. I truly believe that learning happens through the struggle to understand new concepts, and that I need to be there to guide them through those struggles rather than have them struggle alone without support. You talked about expectations vs. homework, and I think that might be one of our big hangups as a staff. We tried for so long to define what homework is and isn’t, so items like instrument practice, reading, spelling words, and Bible memory work were all divided on whether they were homework or not. To me, they can be considered expectations that every student has every week. They are items that require repetition and practice in order to master.
The big question that remains in my mind is this: What does good homework look like? Is there such a thing?
I think the big hesitation in not knowing how to ditch homework or not give crappy homework is that teachers don’t know what “non-crappy” homework should be. For one teacher, assigning a list of vocab words on a worksheet is valuable homework while for another, its just going to seem like busy work.
Is it possible to come up with a list of homework that is good? Or does it depend on whether or not you’re able to give feedback on it on a regular basis, provide support for students that struggle with it, and provide an “out” for students that don’t need it?
I would love to hear your thoughts if you have some time.
Thanks!
I am always glad to hear from colleagues in K-12 who are thinking things through this way! After some more thought about this, here is how I responded to my friend:
Thanks much for the feedback. I’m just glad to be part of this conversation, and always glad to hear that schools are talking about their policies regarding homework—both at the school-wide level and the classroom level.
You’re raising the right kinds of questions here, I think. I don’t have any tidy answers. Unfortunately, I think you’re right on the money that that is what many teachers want! There are just so many factors to be considered that I’m not sure that there are clear, indisputable guidelines for what makes good or poor homework.
In the presentation at Heartland I got at a few that I think clearly fall into the realm of crappy: word finds, crosswords, and the like are generally time-wasters, rather than actually enhancing learning. I think that coloring usually falls into this category too, because it’s unlikely that “coloring neatly” is going to be part of any standard to be taught. (Okay, maybe as part of art class. But students don’t usually have homework in art classes in my experience…) 😊
Best answer I can give right now is that teachers should be able to:
- clearly state the purpose for the homework,
- articulate how they believe it will help students learn,
- explain how they will give students feedback on the work, and
- articulate a guideline for how much time students should spend on the work (recognizing that kids work at different speeds, and need different things.)
That last point is particularly difficult, I think. It’s often VERY HARD for teachers to estimate how long it should take for students to do a particular task, because we are adults, and we already know the content, and we don’t necessarily have a good handle on what their situation is like once they leave school for the day.
I really like your idea about right-sizing homework by giving kids an “out” if they already understand the concept. I think a lot of teachers struggle with this—“It’s not fair to require some kids to do work and not others!” But I think this is mistaking equality (giving everyone the same thing) for fairness (giving everyone what they need to thrive.) I’ve heard glasses used as an example to illustrate this difference. Equality would be requiring all students to wear glasses of the same prescription whether they need them or not. Fairness would be giving kids who need glasses to correct their vision the appropriate prescription lenses to help them see well: some kids need them, some kids don’t, and not all kids need the same ones.
Is this more work for teachers? At first, probably. But I suspect that once teachers get in the habit of differentiating homework, it becomes less work, because it’s more of a mindset. Even better? Involve students in the process of determining how much practice they need. This will vary at different grade levels, of course, as students develop better metacognitive abilities and become better able to judge their own mastery—and it will definitely take a lot of coaching at first. But I think the payoff could be huge in terms of giving students a voice in their own education, and I’d be shocked if students’ engagement in the classroom and even their love of learning would not increase as a result.
My best thinking for now! I hope we can continue this conversation.
Blessings to you in the work, my friend.
Peace to you,
Dave
What do you think of this response, fellow educators? Are there specific guidelines we can and should be implementing?
I would love to hear your thoughts on this.
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| Word searches for homework? That's the definition of crappy! |
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