by Aimee Schrader

Created on: January 26, 2009

If you really want to bring tears to the eyes of a child, all you have to say is the word "homework". To most students this means time away from sports, play, Wii, X-Box, or any other activity they had planned for after school. The question is, does this activity that so greatly diminishes our students' social time, really have merit in today's schools? The answer is yes, if homework is handled correctly. Before we get into that, though, let's look at what homework is, and what its function is truly meant to be.

Homework, or work done away from the classroom setting, was created as a means for students to continue to practice skills at a time when they were not in a structured environment. It was an extension of the classroom, a way to continue learning. But though time, this was taken too far. Teachers began to assign more homework than was necessary, either because they weren't getting enough material covered in class, or because they were looking for ways to keep students busy. Many used homework as a punishment, creating larger and more time consuming assignments as a way to bully students into behaving better in class. Unfortunately, some of this still happens today. This is where the homework idea began to lose its credibility, because students started seeing homework more and more as a punishment, instead of a tool for learning.

So how is it that we erase the stigma of homework, and start using it again as a way to extend the classroom and increase learning opportunities? Do we do away with homework altogether? No, I don't think that is the answer. The answer instead is to decrease the amount of homework that we assign, and make sure that what we are assigning is relevant to the learning objectives that a particular lesson covers. Educational research tells us that 10 items or less is all that is necessary to increase ability in a certain skill. Any more than that, and we begin to see silly mistakes. Remember, a child's focus on one particular thing is really only good for about 5-10 minutes, and so those 10 items should really take no longer than that amount of time. APL Associates (2007) is very clear that homework should be short and to the point. Quality focus is the key. It is also stated that homework should be started in the classroom, so that students have a chance to ask questions of the teacher if they are still unsure about a concept. This gives them an even greater push for getting work completed. Not only that, but starting the homework in class guarantees that the students will come to the class the next day with at least SOMETHING done, instead of nothing.

When put to the test against traditional methods of homework assignment, teachers giving short amounts of quality homework noticed immediately that more students were coming to school with more homework completed, and showed a greater knowledge of the skills presented. Not only that, but teachers had a lot less to grade at the end of the day, which is a plus, too! Teachers, we have to start putting the idea that homework must be long and tedious out of way. Instead, let's embrace shorter assignments with greater educational advantages, that in the end will create better learners, and less work for us!

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