As teachers, we are supposed to assign our students homework. Right? Every night? How long should a homework assignment take? Some teachers might have answered questions like these, to themselves. Most probably have not. We assign homework because we are “supposed to.” We assign homework because we were assigned homework when we were students. We assign homework because, if we do not, there are some parents who will question why their child has no school work to complete. We, teachers need to form a common understanding of why homework is necessary, and what it should look like. We must assign homework, if it is to be assigned at all, that motivates and guides students to critical thinking about their own understanding of content, and to their education in total.

In my History classes, in the first years of my teaching, I believed that homework must be assigned four nights a week, and each assignment was to take between fifteen and thirty minutes to complete, I would compile various photocopied handouts or short readings of the lowest order. I told my students that these assignments would help them understand better what we are learning class (hopefully they did). Each day at the end of class the work was assigned, and the next day collected, from those who completed the work. I would get to grade pile after pile of boring handouts with answers regurgitated directly from bland readings.

I began to reflect. I enjoyed grading these papers just as much as my students enjoyed completing them. Very, very little. So why did I need to keep assigning the dreaded homework?

Teachers often argue that students must complete homework to fully grasp what is being taught in class. Now I say to that – Why? Shouldn’t the activities and strategies done in class lead to the deepest understanding of content? Why rely on homework? Of course, time in class can be painfully short for certain assignments. Let the homework then be the continuation of the valued class activity.

Ask teachers what is a major cause of their heading to the staff cafeteria to grumble and complain, and undoubtedly you will hear about students “who will just not do the homework.” It should come as no shock to us as teachers, or as former students ourselves, that kids would rather be doing just about anything else in the world possible, than boring homework. Yet we continue to assign it. And bitch and moan when it does not get completed. What if we began assigning homework students actually wanted to do? An assignment students look forward to investigating. What might that look like? How excited will we as teachers be to grade this?

I am continually challenging myself. I am still striving to create a new type of homework. I will use this blog as a way to describe these different types of new homework assignments. I believe this new homework must be guided by certain principles:

  1. Work must be rigorous. No more photocopied question and answer recall worksheets.    The assignment must be based around a critical reading of a source, or high level thinking, writing, artistic expression, etc.
  2. Work must be meaningful. Students need to be shown the value of each assignment. We cannot rely on old standby expressions like “The homework will help you understand the topic.” We must show, not tell our students this.
  3. Choice must be incorporated. To increase student buy-in, homework should involve some sense of choice for the students. Options that can be selected. Different ways to demonstrate understanding.
  4. When possible, homework needs to value technology. Our students, each year, are increasingly digital, at younger and younger ages. As teachers, we too must develop our technological literacy and invite technology both into our classes and our homework assignments.
  5. Assignments must be relevant. In order to change the perception of homework, students need to see that the work does matter, to them, to their education, and to their life beyond the walls of the classroom.

Do you have any other suggestions for principles to guide our new homework assignment?