What Is Effective Homework?

Cathy Vatterott

Let's look at the guiding principles of what makes a well-made homework assignment and how to pair those principles with sound homework policy that complements the overall effectiveness of homework.

Four Homework Design Do's

The quality of a homework task affects the student's motivation to approach the task and her perseverance to complete it. So, what do high-quality homework tasks look like?

First, they have a clear academic purpose—no busy work! Homework should be used not for new learning, but to enhance classroom learning. The ultimate goal of the assignment—prelearning, checking for understanding, practice, or processing—should be easily understood by the student (Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2001).

High-quality tasks are doable—they help students feel positive about themselves as learners (Darling-Hammond & Ifill-Lynch, 2006; Sagor, 2002). Homework that cannot be done without help is not good homework and is demotivating to students (Vatterott, 2007). In fact, when students feel unsuccessful approaching homework tasks, they often avoid the tasks completely as a way to protect their self-esteem (Past, 2006).

Also, whenever possible, homework should be personally relevant and customized to promote student ownership. If we claim we want students to take responsibility for homework, we must give them more control over what they learn, how they learn it, and how they show that they've learned it. Homework should be designed to give students choices and opportunities to personalize their work (Tomlinson, 2003; Vatterott, 2007). As a teacher once said, "I've never heard of a child not doing his work; it's our work he's not doing."

Some ways to invite student customization (and personal relevance) in homework assignments:

• Ask students how they would explain how to use a triple beam balance to their parents.
• Give students multiple choices of focus within a genre or historical period.
• Have students draw a map to scale of their neighborhood, complete with legend and landmarks, to illustrate their understanding of map skills.
• In art class, ask students to create a sketch to illustrate their experiences with bullying.
• Have students studying the Reconstruction keep a journal pretending to be a person living at the time. 

Last, it is preferable if homework tasks are aesthetically pleasing. The presentation of homework—the way it looks on paper, whether it appears easy or hard, fun or tedious, interesting or boring—is probably most important to younger students and academically challenged students. For instance, learning disabled students often react more positively to assignments that are visually uncluttered. They may be easily overwhelmed by spaces too small to write in or by too much information on a page. Homework can be made more appealing by the use of color or pictures and by decreasing the amount of writing or copying that students have to do.

Sound Homework Policies: Time

Although a small amount of homework may be good for learning, overloading children with hours of homework can actually decrease achievement (Cooper, 2007). So we need to set reasonable homework time limits. Children as well as adults have a limit to how much mental work they can accomplish in a day's time, before the brain needs downtime (Jensen, 2000). The 10-minute rule, supported by the research and endorsed by the National Education Association and the Parent Teacher Association, recommends the maximum amount of nightly homework should not exceed 10 minutes per grade level per night, all subjects combined (Cooper, 2007). That is, a 1st grader should have no more than 10 minutes of homework per night, a 6th grader no more than 60 minutes per night, and a 12th grader no more than 120 minutes per night. But we know that students differ in their "working speed." A 20-minute assignment for one student could be a 60-minute assignment for another student. When slower students are expected to take that additional time to complete the same homework task as other students, they can quickly become overburdened. One solution is to make homework time-based: "Do as many problems as you can in 20 minutes."

Differences in working speed alone show us that one-size-fits-all homework just doesn't make sense (Eisner, 2004). We can address this inequity by differentiating homework to fit individual needs. Homework tasks can be differentiated by length, by difficulty, or by which concepts specific students need help understanding. Homework can also be differentiated by how students demonstrate learning. For instance, learning disabled students may explain their understanding of a concept by using a tape recorder instead of writing their response.

Sound Homework Policies: Grading and Support

When students fail to complete homework, many teachers approach the problem more like discipline than like learning. That is, remedies for students who don't do their homework tend to focus on punitive solutions as the key to changing behavior—consequences like points off, failing grades, or missing recess or lunch to complete homework. But harsh late policies can contribute to failing grades and can discourage students from completing work. What percentage of Ds and Fs each semester are due to incomplete homework? Do those Ds and Fs represent a lack of learning or a lack of compliance? Educators can decriminalize homework grading by providing more lenient late policies or mandatory homework support programs focus on learning by requiring that all homework be completed.

When homework is not completed, teachers should attempt to diagnose why and provide help. Lack of homework completion may stem from academic problems such as task difficulty, learning gaps, working speed, or learning style. Completion problems may also be due to organizational or logistical problems, such as when the child fails to write down homework, forgets their book, or completes work but loses it.

Homework should not cause students to fail. Concerned with the high failure rate from homework, many schools are limiting the percentage homework may count in a student's grade to 10 percent or less. If homework counts too heavily in a student's grade, they may fail even though they have demonstrated mastery on tests and in-class assignments. The failing grade is then not an accurate reflection of learning. The focus of homework should be to check for understanding and for formative feedback, not summative grading.

Support programs during the school day (e.g., during an academic lab period) or after school can help students who are either unwilling or unable to complete homework at home. The most successful homework support programs provide mandatory early intervention (e.g., students must attend when missing three assignments) and voluntary drop-in service for students who prefer the school environment for homework.

One good example of a multifaceted homework support program is Project Aspire, in use at the Dodgeland School District in Juneau, Wisc. The program has supportive study halls, voluntary after-school programs, and mandatory extended-day programs at the elementary, middle, and secondary levels.

It's important for students and teachers to see the true purpose of homework. It's not a punishment or simply a matter of course. Homework is a meaningful opportunity to practice or prepare for new learning in a relatively low-stakes way. The best approaches to homework combine clear and engaging design with policies that focus on bringing students closer to their learning objectives.

References

Cooper, H. (2007). The battle over homework: Common ground for administrators, teachers, and parents. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Darling-Hammond, L., & Ifill-Lynch, O. (2006). If they'd only do their work! Educational Leadership, 63(5), 8–13.

Eisner, E. W. (2004). "Preparing for today and tomorrow." Educational Leadership, 61(4), 6–11.

Jensen, E. (2000). Brain-based learning. San Diego: CA: The Brain Store.

Marzano, R. J., Pickering, D. J., & Pollock, J. E. (2001). Classroom instruction that works: Research-based strategies for increasing student achievement. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Past, R. J. (2006). Homework that helps. Principal Leadership, 7(1),8–9.

Sagor, R. (2002). Lessons from skateboarders. Educational Leadership, 60(1), 34–38.

Tomlinson, C. A. (2003). Deciding to teach them all. Educational Leadership, 61(2), 7–11.

Vatterott, C. (2007). Becoming a middle level teacher: Student focused teaching of early adolescents. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Cathy Vatterott is Associate Professor of Education at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, and future ASCD author of the book tentatively titled, "Homework That Works."