what would students be doing instead of homework

Alternatives To Homework: A Chart For Teachers

Homework can be useful to help students learning, but isn’t always the best strategy. Here are alternatives to homework: a chart for teachers.

Alternatives To Homework In Chart Form

by TeachThought Staff

Part of rethinking learning means rethinking the bits and pieces of the learning process–teaching strategies, writing pieces, etc.–w hich is what makes the following chart from Kathleen Cushman’s  Fires in the Mind   compelling.

Rather than simply a list of alternatives to homework, it instead contextualizes the  need  for work at home (or, ‘homework’). It does this by taking typical classroom situations–the introduction of new material, demonstrating a procedure, etc.), and offering alternatives to traditional homework assignments. In fact, most of them are alternatives to homework altogether, including group brainstorming, modeling/think-alouds, or even the iconic pop quiz.

So, similar to our alternatives to asking students ‘what’d you do in school today?,’ here are some possible alternatives to homework to help you–and your students–in the classroom this year.

Alternatives To Homework: A Chart For Teachers 

TeachThought is an organization dedicated to innovation in education through the growth of outstanding teachers.

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30+ activities your kids can do instead of homework

Too much homework for kids can be harmful. Here are other ways for your children to learn at home.

By Jessica Smock and Beau Brink Updated August 10, 2022

There are many aspects of my more than decade-long career as a teacher that I’m proud of. My reputation for  giving lots and lots of homework —sometimes over two hours’ worth—is not one of them. My intentions were good: I, like their parents, didn’t want my students to fall behind.

However, when I entered a doctoral program in education policy, I learned that some research suggests homework is not good for elementary school-aged kids. Not only does it fail to improve the academic performance of elementary students,  but it might actually be damaging to kids’ attitudes toward school , and to their physical health.

Related: Is school stressing out your child? 10 ways to tell—and help them feel better

After hours spent sitting and engaging in mostly adult directed activities , children’s minds and bodies need other kinds of experiences when they get home, not more academics. It’s not just that homework itself has few academic benefits for little kids (and may even be harmful), it’s also that homework is replacing other fun, developmentally appropriate and valuable after school activities—activities that help children grow into healthy, happy adults.

Who invented homework, anyway?

Modern homework was invented by Johann Gottlieb Fichte, who created a compulsory school system that was meant to support the effort to unify Germany (it had originally been a set of city-states, and reached unification in 1871). For Fichte, homework was a way for students to be involved in patriotism: They attended state-sponsored schools and spent their free time doing assignments related to their state-sponsored education. It was brought to America by Horace Mann, a pioneer of  public education in the United States , in the 1840s.

However, in the interim, a lot has changed in education. With time and research, educators are learning more and more about how children learn best and what kinds of work are developmentally appropriate at different ages and stages.

What does the research say about homework for kids?

While researchers think that homework  is  beneficial for academic achievement, the amount and type of homework makes a difference. One study published in the  Journal of Experimental Education  found that excessive homework leaves kids stressed, sleep deprived, and lacking balance for social and family activities even when those students come from upper-middle class families and go to top-performing schools—and many students  don’t  have those advantages.

Then there’s the issue of whether homework is actually effective at changing academic outcomes. Education researchers generally agree that kids get more benefit from homework the older they get, but one 2020 Rutgers study found that homework has become less effective at reinforcing classroom learning as smartphone use has become widespread. Kids use their phones to complete their assignments and get good grades on homework, but then don’t perform well on exams.

Here are a few ideas for after school activities for kids

1. spend time with family.

Many parents have daily battles with their elementary-aged kids over homework, and for many it negatively affects their relationships. Instead of parents nagging their overtired kids to do homework,  families can spend much more time talking together  about their day. In fact, conversation is the best way for all of us—especially young children—to learn about our world and cultivate empathy.

Encouraging  multigenerational relationships  can also yield many lessons for kids. By spending time with Grandma and Grandpa, they can learn how other adult role models in their lives who love them handle conflict, create and negotiate rules and routines, and embrace family traditions.

Suggested activities:

• Talking to parents
• Helping out with dinner
• Hanging out at grandma’s
• Reading a book together

2. Self care

Just like adults, kids  need time to take care of themselves  so that they can perform well in school. And also like adults, a lot of kids don’t have self-care basics in their routine.

Take sleep, for instance.  The National Sleep Foundation  estimates that between 25 and 50 percent of children aren’t getting enough sleep. Lack of sleep can cause all sorts of problems in kids, including poor attention, behavior problems, academic difficulties, irritability and weight gain. But even small amounts of additional sleep can have big impacts. One study found that only 20 additional minutes of sleep can improve kids’ grades.

Other self care activities benefit children, too: Reading aloud to a child helps them  build their vocabulary , having a bedtime routine  improves children’s social and behavioral habits  and having some relaxing downtime recharges their  ability to pay attention and concentrate .

• Building a consistent bedtime routine
• Cleaning their room
• Listening to classical music

3. Independent activities

Solitary activities—those that children can do  on their own, without the help of adults —build kids’ confidence and help them to relax. Plus, if there’s an element of learning, like your child acquiring a new skill on their own, it can  improve their motivation and memory in the long run .

Kids benefit in different ways from different independent activities. According to the National Literacy Trust,  reading for pleasure has a greater impact on children’s achievement  in school than their family’s economic status and not only builds vocabulary and comprehension but builds confidence. Knitting and crochet build fine motor skills, and gardening helps kids apply what they’re learning in their science and math classes to the real world.

• Independent reading
• Working on a puzzle
• Learning to knit
• Conducting a science experiment
• Planting a garden

An important part of how young kids’ minds develop is  through free, self-directed play . According to David Elkind, Ph.D., author of  The Power of Play: How Spontaneous, Imaginative Activities Lead to Happier, Healthier Children , free play is more critical now than ever, as recesses are shortened or eliminated and kids’ calendars are busier than ever.

There are a lot of different kinds of play: Risky play, sensory play, parallel play, constructive play, cooperative play, and more. All types of play have benefits for children, like building social skills, increasing creativity, improving problem-solving skills, and providing opportunities to explore the world in new ways. It’s even good for parents: As the  American Academy of Pediatrics  says, “Play offers parents a wonderful opportunity to engage fully with their children.”

• Go up a slide backward
• Dig in the dirt
• Play with a friend in a sandbox
• Play dress-up
• Create a collage
• Play Simon Says
• Make a fort

5. Physical activity

Kids who are physically active —as well as adults— have stronger hearts, lungs, and bones . They are less likely to develop cancer or be overweight and more likely to feel good about themselves. Even rough-housing can be beneficial. Rough and tumble play is not the same as aggression. It’s vigorous, freeform, whole body, energetic, happy play. Kids learn decision making skills, relieve stress, improve their ability to read social cues, and enhance their cardiovascular health.

And walking the dog counts: Kids who  help take care of family pets  may be less anxious, less likely to develop allergies and asthma, and are more active.

• Jumping rope
• Riding a bike
• Walking the dog
• Setting up an obstacle course in your living room
• Have a dance party

6. Volunteering

Through volunteering , kids can become  more grateful, empathetic, and feel more connected  to the wider community. Volunteering at an animal shelter can be especially enriching for children. Even kids who don’t have pets at home can benefit from being around animals. The emotional and psychological benefits of being around animals can also be found when kids care for injured animals and take on care-taking responsibilities for other people’s pets.

• Playing with animals at a shelter
• Bringing flowers to seniors in nursing homes
• Organizing or contributing to a toy drive
• Donating clothes to a shelter
• Picking up litter in the neighborhood

7. Creative expression

According to the  American Psychological Association , creative expression has incredible benefits for children’s mental health. Various studies have found that  engaging in creative expression  while experiencing negative emotions like anger and sadness helps people, including children, to process those emotions healthily. It doesn’t matter what kind of creative expression it is: Drawing, acting, writing, playing music and more can all build resilience along with improving kids’ imaginations, fine motor skills, and communication.

• Practice an instrument
• Draw a picture
• Write a story
• Take pictures
• Create with slime, play dough or kinetic sand

No homework? No problem

Homework takes away from the time available to engage in endless other forms of learning, such as social, physical, and emotional, as well as rest. And in any case, the learning done in school is only one form of learning.

Our kids deserve a chance to spend all their other hours outside of school doing their most important job of all:  being a kid .

With additional reporting by Beau Brink and Diva Anwari. 

A version of this post was originally published on Parent.com . It has been updated.

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9 better alternatives to homework

by Katrina | Aug 31, 2022 | Lesson Ideas

Traditionally homework has been school work that students complete outside of the classroom and outside of school hours. This usually consists of textbook questions, worksheets, or research tasks.

Studies have been inconsistent in providing concrete evidence for the benefits of homework, and the effectiveness of set homework tasks depends greatly on the task itself.

This list of 9 alternatives to homework will help you give students a break from the norm while still impacting their learning and character development. 

alternatives to homework in middle school

Disclaimer: This blog post, ‘9 better alternatives to homework’, may contain affiliate links. This means I may receive a small commission on qualifying purchases. This is of no extra cost to you and it helps me to continue writing awesome content for you! Read full disclaimer here .

Alternatives to homework

It is worth noting that I don’t use the word ‘homework’. Why? Because it has such a deeply ingrained negative connotation for both students and parents.

Terms I prefer to use instead include:

• At home learning
• Daily / Weekly Practice
• Consolidation

These terms don’t have the same negative connotation as ‘homework’ and help the students think about the tasks in a more positive way. 

Before I get into my suggestions, here are some benefits of using alternatives to homework:

1. You don’t have to mark them. These activities are designed to be able to be marked simple as participated or not. Not all home learning tasks need to add to your workload!

2. They encourage the development of character traits and skills – not just academic ones.

3. They are simple and easy to assign to almost any topic – and in fact, they don’t need to be specifically linked to a topic at all.

4. The nature of the tasks remind students to maintain balance between school / study and home life. 

5. They can be easily differentiated to cater for the variation of student situations.

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1. Baking from a recipe

Following instructions is very important in life as well as most subjects. For example, in subjects, such as science, students need to be able to work safely in a laboratory.

Setting a home task where students need to bake something following a recipe is a great alternative that allows students to practice these skills in a fun way.

Have students either bring you a photo of them in action baking, or evidence of the product itself!

Be mindful: Check any food allergies of your students if you want students to bring in the treats they bake.

2. Photo challenge 

Having students take a photo of their learning as applied in real life. This is a great way to help students practice being observant and also see the relevance of their learning outside of the classroom.

Be mindful: Students may not have access to a camera or smartphone. They could just write a short description of what they saw and where they saw it.

3. Play a board/card game 

Playing board games or card games requires students to practice their social and problem-solving skills. These are skills that are essential in the classroom and also in the real world. 

I love alternatives to homework that help build student character in addition to academic skills. 

Be mindful: Depending on your context, students may not have access to board games or they may not have family members around each day to play a board game with. Often school libraries contain games that can be rented out.

4. Home learning / flipped learning

Flipped learning is different from homework in that rather than practicing a skill they have learned in class, they learn the skill so they come to class ready to practice the skill.

This is usually done with the teacher filming a short tutorial to be watched at home before the upcoming lesson.

Flipped learning helps to develop autonomy and allows students to take their learning at their own pace since they can pause, rewind and rewatch the video as many times as they need to. 

The videos are usually less than 10 minutes in length so it is also a nice quick learning opportunity. 

Be mindful: Ensure all students have access to the technology required to watch the video.

5. Activities that apply their learning 

Activities that focus on applying their learning in practical ways are effective alternatives to homework tasks of a traditional sense.

For example, have you taught students about the unit cost in maths? The home task could be going shopping with a parent and photographing different options and calculating the best buy option.

Or maybe you’ve been learning about density in science? Have students compare the density of various household items in water at home. 

6. Reflect on learning

Asking students to write a small paragraph to reflect on the things they learned in your class that day or week is a really valuable use of their time and a great alternative to homework.

Reflecting and writing it down helps their brain to recognize the information as important. 

Are you reading this thinking ‘yeah but its so annoying to mark’. 

Then don’t! Just mark it as a participation home task. Whether students submit their paragraph on Google Classroom or hold up their book in class for you to tick off ‘complete’, it doesn’t have to be an onerous task for you.

7. Interview someone

Interviewing someone can be as simple as giving the students 3 questions to ask someone at home. It could be about their own views on a topic, where they see the usefulness of your subject, or about their career. 

This activity builds student skills in communication and listening whilst also providing an opportunity to build or deepen connections with people.

Be mindful: Some students may not have access to someone to interview every day. Try to give a few days so students have the opportunity. If they don’t have anyone at home you could suggest they interview a teacher, another student or even the bus driver. 

8. Call someone you haven’t spoken to in a while

Promoting the continuation and building of connections during term time is important for students to maintain balance in their lives. Some students struggle to do this themselves and so may feel the need to have ‘permission’ from their teacher. 

Be mindful: Some students may not have access to a phone or enough credit to make long calls. Provide alternatives such as chatting with a neighbour in person. 

9. Spend time with family

If a student spends 60 minutes completing homework, then for a family whose parents don’t get home from work until after 5pm, and who go to bed around 9pm, that is one quarter of their family time taken away by homework every day. Add in an extracurricular activity or sport and students are missing out on significant family time.

The simple act of not setting any homework or task can make a significant difference in the home lives of our students. 

Encouraging them to spend quality time with their family instead is a valuable alternative to homework. 

Homework is not bad and it does have its benefits. However, having a range of alternatives to the typical homework tasks allows for students to enjoy a balanced life while also building skills other than just the academic ones. 

Have you tried any of these alternatives to homework?

Comment below!

Written by Katrina

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November 8, 2010 / 8 Comments

15 things kids can do instead of homework

If you are a parent (or a teacher who wants to give a recommendation to an interested parent), and you believe the arguments against homework (see my previous post: 25 Myths of Homework ) then you might be asking yourself now, okay so my kid isn’t doing homework: what else should they do instead? These are some suggestions although I highly recommend doing these activities with your child and giving them as much choice in the activity as you can. I also recommend that you approach these suggestions from a perspective of balance rather than a list of "things I must do with my child every night." Claw back the time you spend on homework so you can spend more time with your children or so that children can have more time to self-direct themselves. Obviously there are lots of other things you can do…

Here’s an example of my son learning how to ride a bicycle. Tell me this isn’t more valuable than any homework assignment he could be given.

Kids need to learn how to cook somehow. I’m so glad my mom taught me how to cook. I will admit that I forgot this skill when I hit adolescence because it was no longer cool, but when I became a bachelor and now that I am married, this is a very valuable skill.

Whether this means a local farm, a full sized zoo, or even just a walk in the right section of the woods, it is important that our kids learn about animals from first hand experience.

Kids need play time. Nuff said.

While I’ll admit this isn’t a daily or even weekly activity for us, it is an awesome opportunity for our son to see a completely different part of the world than his everyday experience.

This could be something as simple as some pillows from the couch propped together, or when your kids are a bit older they can work with you and build something more permanent. If you build something outside, it’s also a great opportunity for your kid’s friends to come over and help out!

Music is enriching part of our lives and is unfortunately being cut from many schools as budgets are being slashed during the economic recession. Fortunately you can always learn how to play an instrument, and I would recommend learning an instrument at the same time as your kid.

I’m lucky enough to live in a cooperative housing complex in Vancouver which according to my wife is set up much differently than a co-op in the USA. I don’t know about co-ops elsewhere in the world, but one of the huge benefits of our "community mandated time" is that we know our neighbours in the building. We have five potential babysitters in our building alone and lots of kids with whom our son can play.

Our own parents are an excellent source of fun and enjoyment for our kids. They can share some of their ideas, and explain how the world used to be, or they can just have fun.

According to relatively recent research , less than 50% of all parents read to their children regularly before the age of 5. This hopefully has nothing to do with the amount of homework they are receiving, but does set them up for future success in literacy. It is also a fun thing to do! We find it is a great way to calm our son down for a bit and get him to sit still because he loves stories.

You may not have a backyard or a garden yourself, but most cities and towns do have community gardens. There are also opportunities to volunteer in a garden in most cities.

This one I think is obvious and the benefits of creating artwork are awesome. At the very least it can be a really welcome gift for your relatives.

Science is fun! You can find lots of websites which will give you simple experiments you can do at home. Here’s part of a video I taped of my son and I learning about reasons why things float or sink. 

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Add yours →

Janet Wees says:

Play dress up using various hats to be various characters, or other clothing. Hats are good to make a statement. Write a book. Make a giant scribble on drawing paper and color in the spaces with different colors. Look at everything around the house and yard with an octoscope. Dance to ABBA. Make up funny songs. Do something nice for people from making them something or giving them something – instill the sense of charity early – older kids can work with you at the food bank. Write a letter to someone and mail it in a mailbox. Or make fridge art if you are not writing yet. (Hint, hint!) Go to the library.

November 9, 2010 — 12:22 am

Anonymous says:

Sometimes we write together as a family. Each person grabs a notebook and pencil, and we scatter throughout the house, working each on our own, but knowing that our home is full of everyone writing. One person may write a poem, another may work on a long story, another an article. After 30-40 minutes pass, we come back together in the living room, and anyone who would like to share reads aloud. It is beautiful to see the encouragement and excitement about the different projects, and such independent work also builds a sense that writing can help us understand our lives and give us joy! Through these writing times, my husband and I have come to know things about our children we might not have learned otherwise, and they expand their writing interests and possibilities beyond the assignments given to them in school.

December 7, 2010 — 12:07 pm

@pmcash says:

What you suggest is applicable to all students. I can only imagine the benefits to our society if we did half of your suggestions with teenaged students!

January 1, 2011 — 11:11 am

@famousmistered says:

Great ideas. My daughter loves to help me cook. I also use it as a hands-on way to practice fractions — I try to use as few spoons or cups as possible and add them up to the required measurements.

September 4, 2011 — 7:56 am

Shine says:

I just love this post! I enjoyed the pictures. As a mother of 5 boys, I realized that spending time with my kids is not just playing with them but also teaching them while having fun. Kids like to learn new things.

October 10, 2011 — 2:13 am

Amara says:

Hi there! When I saw your site I was really cute looking all the good time you shared with your boy. Well I have also a kid and she is a girl. We make sure that we do always have a quality time for her. We usually do role playing co’z she loves acting.And she is really an artist co’z she will cry if I am going to pretend dead.lol..

March 2, 2012 — 8:18 am

Peter L.Griffiths says:

On the whole hobbies are badly neglected in our schools. This does give an opportunity in the homes which are substantially covered in the previous comments. I would emphasise wood-work, photography, musical instruments (with the consent of the neighbours), gardening, looking after animals, sewing and dress making for girls (possibly tailoring or even knitting for boys). Some of these activities may require experienced teachers which our educational institutions are failing to provide, or even encourage.

April 9, 2012 — 12:46 pm

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250+ Fun Activities For Kids To Do Instead of Homework

By Tim on Jan 25, 2019

Read Time: 7 minutes

I’m an elementary school teacher in Southern California. For 25 years, I have to admit that I was staunchly pro-homework, until one day I had a revelation. Here’s why I stopped giving my students homework, and my list of 250+ fun activities for kids to try instead.

A Teacher Who Doesn’t Believe in Homework

For 25 years I was pro-homework. I gave it to teach my students responsibility and good study habits. And it worked! At least it helped my students to reach higher levels of academic achievement…or so it seemed.

Meanwhile, my brother (also a teacher) had made homework optional. Students and parents alike both loved the concept. This got me thinking about homework, and whether it was even necessary all for elementary kids. I thought…if I gave no homework, I’d be giving them something even more beneficial. Here’s what I came to discover.

What Kids Get When You Take Away Homework

• More Free Time. When kids don’t have to spend hours on homework, they’re free to play and interact with their families and friends. For some kids, this means they got their life back.
• A Positive Attitude Toward School. I remember hating school because of all the homework. When kids first start school, they’re excited to learn. By the end of elementary school, they’re sick of school… and of learning. When I removed homework from my classroom, my students suddenly started liking school a lot more. And when we like something, they put more energy into it.
• Less Stress. We know kids are feeling more stressed than ever these days, and homework is one cause. Over my 30-year career I have had many parent conferences. Two topics have dominated these: behavior and homework. By eliminating homework, I eliminated much of the problem for kids and thereby eliminated much of their stress.

Generally, kids and parents both cheer when I announce my no-homework policy. But occasionally, parents will ask what their kids should do with all that free time. In response, I came up with this list of fun activities for kids.

250+ Fun Activities For Kids To Do Instead Of Homework

• Build a robot out of cardboard.
• Ride your bike.
• Plant a garden.
• Maintain your garden.
• Make a compost pile/bin.
• Make a water catch basin.
• Harvest your garden.
• Share your harvest with those in need.
• Make a fruit stand and sell your harvest.
• Organize a backyard carnival for the neighborhood kids.
• Play football.
• Play with action figures or dolls.
• Make a cardboard fort.
• Make a fort out of sofa cushions and blankets.
• Go for a hike.
• Read just for fun.
• Paint a picture.
• Paint something a new color.
• Organize your room.
• Organize your drawers.
• Pull weeds.
• Play baseball.
• Play video games.
• Watch a movie that was made before there were ratings.
• Make a movie.
• Write a song.
• Dance to music.
• Write a letter and mail it.
• Talk on the phone.
• Bury a treasure.
• Make a map to a buried treasure.
• Write a story.
• Write in a journal.
• Build something out of PVC pipes.
• Roll down a hill.
• Build a bike jump.
• Build a go-cart.
• Play a board game.
• Create a board game.
• Do your laundry.
• Clean the bathroom.
• Jump on the bed.
• Fly a kite.
• Make a kite.
• Build a model.
• Do a friend’s hair or nails.
• Plant a tree or bush.
• Trim a bush.
• Dig a hole.
• Water the plants.
• Pick fruit.
• Throw rocks.
• Climb a tree.
• Build a treehouse.
• Build an outdoor fort.
• Play with a pet.
• Teach your dog to do tricks.
• Pick up dog poop.
• Walk the dog.
• Help an elderly neighbor.
• Walk to the store.
• Take photos.
• Build with Legos, blocks, or Kinects.
• Make an electrical circuit.
• Make your bed.
• Make a list (favorite movies, friends names, bucket list, etc.).
• Play bowling with household items.
• Play bounce back with a tennis ball and brick wall.
• Shoot baskets.
• Throw a ball up and try to hit it.
• Mow the lawn.
• Wash the car.
• Vacuum the car.
• Vacuum the house.
• Learn a foreign language.
• See how many objects you can stack.
• Play darts.
• Play with pill bugs.
• Eat something healthy.
• Play jacks.
• Play marbles.
• Learn to juggle.
• Play ping-pong.
• Go on a swing.
• Build a swing.
• Play tennis.
• Play hula hoop.
• Play with a Kendama.
• Tell jokes.
• Oil something that squeaks.
• Take out the trash.
• Learn to throw a lasso.
• Play handball.
• Play kick the can.
• Race a friend.
• Go to church/temple etc.
• Play school.
• Play catch.
• Chase butterflies.
• Imagine what the clouds resemble.
• Play a musical instrument.
• Create a musical instrument.
• Create a play or musical.
• Create something using an App.
• Count your money.
• Play miniature golf.
• Learn to ride a bike without holding on.
• Play a computer game.
• Watch YouTube videos.
• Talk in strange voices.
• Play with water balloons.
• Throw a frisbee.
• Make funny faces.
• Run in the sprinklers.
• Go swimming.
• Go for a jog.
• Play with toy cars.
• Build a marble track.
• Make a waterfall.
• Play hide n seek.
• Play with an RC car.
• Make an RC car track.
• Build an obstacle course.
• Time yourself doing the obstacle course.
• Take something old apart (clock, radio, etc.).
• Sew something (pillow, clothes, etc.).
• Play with stuffed animals.
• Rearrange your room.
• Plan a trip.
• Play cards.
• Learn a card trick.
• Build a house of cards.
• Learn a magic trick.
• Create your own card game.
• Play dodgeball.
• Watch a documentary.
• Watch a sporting event on TV.
• Watch cars drive by.
• Play invisible ball catch.
• Play dress up.
• Do a puzzle.
• Decorate your mirror with dry erase markers.
• Paint a design on a rock.
• Fix something that’s broken.
• Skateboard.
• Rollerblade.
• Ride a scooter.
• Play hockey.
• Pull something with your bike.
• Ride a plastic toy vehicle.
• Ride an electric toy vehicle.
• Create a tournament.
• Take a nap.
• Have a pillow fight.
• Do exercises (push-ups, sit-ups, squats, etc.).
• Organize trading cards.
• Trade trading cards.
• Play trading card games.
• Make up your own trading card game.
• Play soccer.
• Play kickball.
• Play with makeup.
• Play house.
• Wash the windows.
• Change a lightbulb.
• Play a game in the pool (Marco Polo).
• Play with pool noodles.
• Clean out the refrigerator.
• Play tic-tac-toe, five in a row, or dots.
• Play on a play set.
• Go to the park.
• Play swords.
• Climb a pole/rope.
• Read a book to a younger person.
• Crochet or knit.
• Do a needlepoint.
• Carve something out of wood/soap/potato.
• Build with clay/play dough.
• Play cops and robbers.
• Draw funny things on top of photos (mustaches, missing teeth, etc.).
• Make your face look funny with objects (spoon on nose, tape face, chopstick teeth, etc.) Take pictures.
• Learn strange human tricks (catch coins off elbow, etc.).
• Write secret messages.
• Start a charity.
• Go to the library.
• Listen to a podcast.
• Make recycle art.
• Paper wad trash basket toss.
• Research a topic that interests you.
• Drive nails.
• Decorate the ground with sidewalk chalk.
• Catch and release insects.
• Walk on something narrow and keep your balance.
• Make a cardboard arcade game.
• Play 20 questions.
• Lie on your bed.
• Play Pickle with two others.
• Make and fly paper airplanes.
• Make a pile of leaves and jump in it.
• Make a lemonade stand.
• Sweep the gutter.
• Blow bubbles.
• Lick donuts (Ariana Grande fans only.)
• Pick up trash in your neighborhood.
• Help serve food in a homeless shelter.
• Do a scavenger hunt (maybe even in the house!).
• Decorate a can or jar.
• Make a gift for someone. Wrap it.
• Create something with paper mache.
• Play with cornstarch & water.
• Go camping/picnicking in the backyard.
• Have a tea party.
• Make a flower arrangement from wild flowers or yard flowers.
• Visit an elderly relative.
• Start a collection.
• Organize a collection.
• Draw a picture of something around the house.
• Make a leaf pressing.
• Have an upside down or inside out party.
• Make up a chant or a cheer.
• Cut out paper dolls, snowflakes, etc.
• Do origami.
• Put snow in a sensory table and change the color with food coloring.
• Offer to help snow shovel your neighbor’s yard…especially if they are elderly.
• Melt ice with salt.
• Go sledding.
• Build an igloo.
• Go fishing.
• Float on a raft, inner tube, etc.
• Have a snowball fight.
• Play tug of war (even in the snow).
• Pin the nose on the snowman.
• Make mud pies and other mud fun.
• Start a business (pulling weeds, washing cars, babysitting, etc.).
• Learn to balance objects.
• Do cartwheels or other gymnastic moves.
• Fly a toy/RC plane.
• Frame some artwork.
• Bat around a balloon.
• Make a balloon powered car.
• Hold an egg drop contest (protective egg container).
• Play table football (with a paper triangle).
• Play table soccer (with 3 coins).

Other Ways To Replace Homework

Teachers, looking for other ways to replace homework with something more meaningful? Try the Let Grow Project ! Kids are sent home with one homework assignment: Do something on your own you’ve never done before. For example, they could cook dinner for the family, ride their bike to school. or take a walk in the woods. There are all sorts of fun activities for kids to try on their own for the first time. Kids, parents, and teachers all love how this program empowers kids with responsibility and independence!

At Let Grow, we believe in the power of unstructured free play, and that sometimes it’s okay to let kids be bored. But if you need a little help finding fun activities for kids to do, snag our free “I’m Bored” Kit . It offers over one hundred fun things to do, along with a Bingo game and colorful poster.

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• BookWidgets Teacher Blog

20+ creative alternative homework ideas for teachers

When giving homework, it must always be based on learning goals your students have to reach, just like in your lessons. But it’s sad to see that lots of teachers are using homework as extra lesson time. Of course, as a teacher, you’re on a clock. But that doesn’t mean your students have to suffer from it and keep working on those boring textbooks and worksheets at home.

Consider goals like attitudes, real-life experiences, and practice, physical exercise, social encounters, creative solutions, and philanthropy as crucial as your lesson goals. These are things students don’t just pick up in your classroom. These are things they pick up in life.

In this blog post, I’ll give you some innovative homework ideas that will engage your students more. These alternatives to traditional homework will thereby also teach your students new things that can’t be taught in the classroom. You will find a variety of homework ideas: online and offline.

I will mention homework alternatives for primary school and high school. Some of these ideas can be changed a little bit, so they are the perfect fit for the right audience.

20 Creative homework ideas

You can divide homework tasks into the following themes or categories:

• Crafts & arts
• Outdoor activities & outings
• Games and activities
• Physical activities
• Digital or computer activities
• Philanthropy & social work

💡 Good to know : all the ready-to-use homework activities are created with BookWidgets . You can easily create activities like these yourself or duplicate an activity below for free, edit it if needed, and share it with your students. You can do so in the examples separately, or you can find all the homework examples in the BookWidgets Blog group folder .

Crafts and arts homework

1. prepare a dish from a recipe book.

2. Make a board game

3. Create a birdhouse

4. Transform a fictional book character into a hand puppet

Outdoor homework activities and outings

5. coupon game.

Students can also go grocery shopping with their parents. Here, they have to read the ingredients of the products and help their parents choose the healthiest products for the best prices, figure out the best deal between the sizes of items, …

6. Visit the zoo

7. Visit the local dumping ground or container park

8. Build a tree house

Games and activities as homework

9. bookwidgets games.

10. Minecraft

11. Play Cards

12. Play Zoo Tycoon or Rollercoaster Tycoon

Physical homework activities

13. rope skipping.

Many rope-skipping songs let your students do different tricks while rope-skipping. This is an excellent opportunity for homework as well. Ask your students to transform a rope skipping song into a song with lesson content. Let them count or spell or even sum up the different states or capitals. To engage their lifestyles even harder, you can additionally give them the assignment to create a TikTok in which they are jumping and singing.

Click here to see how you can get Tiktok more involved in the classroom.

14. Walking quest

If there aren’t any walking quests in the neighborhood, you could ask your students to create a walking quest like this for their fellow students. What a fun day it will be!

15. Obstacle Quiz

In order for students to answer the questions, they have to run and pass a challenging parkour. This is a fun homework exercise, and in the end, it’s a great lesson starter or lesson end.

16. Swimming games

After the activity, they can fill out an Exit Slip:

Digital or computer homework activities

17. create a picture album.

This teaches them to handle the online software, add pictures and write without spelling mistakes. And of course, creating memories is so much fun!

18. Video job application

19. Your life in 10 minutes - video

20. Email pen-pals

Is it still too complicated? Read the messages from your students, before they send them, and provide them with some feedback.

Philanthropy and social homework

21. grow a community garden.

22. Help in a retirement home

23. Help at a homeless shelter

24. Collect litter

Here’s another homework tip: Don’t call homework “homework”. Call it a challenge. Homework has become a negative word for students, and I bet they start rolling their eyes as you even mention the word.

Still looking for more inspiration? Check out the blog on short films and lesson activities that spice up your Google Classroom . Tip: even if you don’t use Google Classroom, there is a lot of inspiration back here.

Above you have read single assignments. But, you also have the option to involve your homework in a project. Find out more here .

So, as I mentioned earlier, there are many fun alternatives to traditional homework. Now it’s up to you to apply this in the classroom as well. In this folder , you will find all the examples you have come across.

Which idea do you or perhaps your students like the most? Let us know on Twitter . Of course, there are many more alternatives. If you have other ideas, you are always welcome to share it with other teachers in our Facebook group .

One more thing: don’t forget to say hi👋 on LikedIn .

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BookWidgets enables teachers to create fun and interactive lessons for tablets, smartphones, and computers.

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Alternatives to Traditional Homework That Work in Classrooms Around the US

Written by Jeanne Sager

If you’re looking for alternatives to traditional homework, maybe you’re about to jump on the no homework train along with teachers all across the country. Or maybe you’re just looking for some options instead of assigning homework over a weekend or a holiday break.

We can’t tell you if dumping homework outright is right for you, but we can tell you that there are districts from Vermont to Utah that have banned homework on the elementary school level. We took a look at what they’re doing to provide alternatives to homework that might work in your classroom!

Is Homework Bad? What the Research Says

The debate over whether kids should get nightly homework is hardly new — legislators in California first banned homework back in 1901, then loosened the reins on teachers in 1929. Districts have debated the issue off and on ever since, with more and more opting to ban homework in recent years.

Some of the most popular research on the topic comes from a Duke University professor named Harris Cooper whose 2006 meta-analysis of research into homework and achievement over a 16-year span revealed something that might surprise you. Cooper said there was evidence of a positive correlation between homework and student achievement. Yup, the guy most quoted by homework ban proponents says there are benefits.

So what’s the catch? Cooper surmised that the correlation was much stronger for older kids in grades 7 through 12 than for elementary students. The analysis couldn’t pinpoint one specific reason why homework might be less of a boon for younger students but noted that younger students tend to be more distracted in the home environment than their older peers and have less effective study habits, making work they’re doing out of the classroom less effective overall. There’s also some evidence that homework assigned to younger students isn’t always about achievement — sometimes it’s merely about developing time management skills.

Cooper’s not the only one to come to this type of conclusion, either. Australian professors Richard Walker and Mike Horsley reviewed international research on homework and published a book, Reforming Homework, in 2013. In the book, the professors posit that homework for young kids has little to no value — at least when it comes to academic achievement.

What Are Some Alternatives to Homework?

Of course, this all brings us to the big question: What are some alternatives teachers can use to replace traditional homework assignments?

Storytelling

There’s no official homework at the Cambridgeport School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, but kindergartners are encouraged to simply tell their parents stories — with no official due date or grades. Not only does storytelling “homework” inspire students to make purposeful talking a practice, but it can also inspire them to begin writing as they become eager to write down their stories.

Send home fun finger puppets for kids to use to act out their stories:

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Learn a New Word

Instead of assigning a list of spelling words to memorize or vocabulary words to use in sentences, try this homework alternative: Ask your students to choose one “new” word they hear each week and write it down on an index card along with the definition to be turned in to you on Friday.

The word can come from a conversation with a parent, a book they read, a movie they watched … the sky’s the limit! But sometime between hearing it and turning in the card, they need to look it up in a dictionary to find out what it means.

Kids can volunteer to share their word with their classmates, or you can choose a few from the pile to share.

Alternative: Have students write their new words and definitions in a composition notebook. By the year’s end, they’ll have their own mini dictionary.

Board Games

When Cherry Park Elementary in Oregon banned homework , they opted to make sure kids had games to play at home with their families. Not only are they fun and a great way to bond with family members, but board games help teach young kids patience and teamwork.

Print any of these games for kids to choose from — if they don’t bring them back, you can just print another copy!

Alternative: Send home blank game boards , and encourage kids to make up their own games!

Free Reading

Yes, it really can be that simple. This is a popular homework alternative at many of the schools in the US that have banned homework. At the Orchard School, a public pre-K-5th grade elementary school in Vermont, for example, kids are told to “ Read just-right books every night (and have your parents read to you too).”

If you’re officially avoiding homework, avoid tying a reading log to the process. Instead, consider allowing students to “check out” books from your classroom library to share with their families. Assigning a due date teaches responsibility.

Help your students make their book picks:

Unfinished Work

A Texas second-grade teacher went viral in 2016 for her no-homework policy, and you can feel free to borrow Brandy Young’s alternative to homework : Just finish what you didn’t complete in class.

Some schools have initiated an “ownwork” alternative to traditional homework. That means kids get to choose what they want to do on their own (get it?), and log the time spent and amount of time they did it. The task can be anything a child wants — making paper airplanes, playing with LEGO, reading a graphic novel — encouraging kids to see the educational elements in the real world.

Didn’t see a homework alternative that was just right for your classroom? Feel free to keep trying to find the right fit for your classroom. Cooper himself has said teachers should be given “some flexibility to take into account the unique needs and circumstances of their students and families.” After all — you know your kids best!

What is your classroom homework policy?

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Shared Teaching

Systematic Teaching for First and Second Grade

5 Alternatives to Homework

September 7, 2021 | Leave a Comment

Are you tired, stressed out, and need alternatives to homework? Assigning homework can sometimes seem like a pointless task. Students that need the practice don’t complete or turn in homework, and students that generally excel complete the homework. Then there’s the decision to make about grading homework. Can it be a grade if you don’t know who completed it or how much help they received? Is it worth grading when you are so far behind?

At my Title I school I am mindful that not every student has a family member available to help them in the evenings complete homework. For this reason if I assign homework I try to make it something that can be completed independently. Since I teach second grade I might send home first grade reading passages for fluency practice with a multiple choice option for the comprehension section. Math pages might be a game to practice or flashcards to study. 

This year I am not assigning homework. It feels so freeing! Some schools do require homework though so the following is a list of 5 alternatives to homework in an elementary school if you do not have a choice.

No matter what type of homework I use I always tell parents that I recommend 15-20 minutes of nightly reading and a quick 5 minute practice of their sight word and math flash cards. To me reading is one of the best things a student can do to improve in elementary school.

1 - Monthly Family Homework

Having a monthly themed family homework was my favorite homework when I taught first grade. There was little to nothing to grade and students loved getting creative. Each month is a different task and students are given most of the month to complete the homework.

The picture shown was our December holiday homework where students were given a tree outline and asked to decorate their tree using a “hidden holiday pattern.” Students that turned in the homework gave a super short presentation about how they created their pattern and the class guessed the pattern.

During November, the task was to disguise a turkey outline. This is a hilarious (and common) activity to do every year. Some families come up with some amazingly creative ideas. A few other ideas I did throughout the year for family homework was decorating pumpkins as a favorite book character, creating a leprechaun trap, and an all about my family poster.

2 - Choice Boards

Choice Boards are becoming very common for homework. I used choice boards as a gifted education teacher many years ago and brought them back last year when we transitioned to online learning due to COVID-19. It was an easy way to communicate homework with no access to a copy machine or a way to pass out packets.

Catherine, the Brown Bag Teacher, talks about how she uses a choice board in her first grade class as a homework alternative that focuses on non-academic skills her students needed. Click here to read her blog article about homework alternatives .

Fisyrobb also uses a choice sheet (choice board) and has a free, editable version on her website. Click here to find the article and free download.

Choice boards can be assigned for a week or a month depending on how many choices you add. I like to include choices that hit all of the learning styles so students can choose what best interests them. I also like to require that not all squares be completed.

3 - Unhomework Task Cards

This unhomework alternative is one of my favorites I’ve seen lately. I stumbled across this idea by Debbie of live, laugh, love to learn. While task cards are not a new concept I just love how she breaks down the tasks into four main categories: acts of kindness, good habits, create, and real world math and science. 

Debbie’s tasks are super easy for students to complete and she assigns the whole class the same task each week. Students track their task such as how many times in the week they help their family. Then on Fridays the class has a meeting to discuss. Debbie also takes this a step further by compiling the information for a class graph or chart. Click here to go to Debbie’s blog post where she details everything you need to know to get started.

4 - Hands On Activities

Hands-on activities for alternatives to homework can really help your homework completion rate. Young students love doing activities. If you have a school population like mine, asking families to complete hands-on activities might mean going out of pocket to send additional materials home. For that reason, I recommend a Donors Choose project to help offset costs or making the hands-on activities a monthly requirement.

Some of my favorite hands-on activities revolve around spelling and sight word practice. At the beginning of each school year I send all my families my Sight Word Practice at Home booklets . Inside the booklets detail easy ways to practice sight words such as writing words in play dough or shaving cream. 

Hands-on activities are also a great way to introduce families to partner games. One year I sent home photocopies of several math partner games, a die, and a paperclip alongside a sheet protector and a whiteboard marker. After we learned the games in class, students were able to play them again at home. Several families loved learning these games and found it a fun and enjoyable way to get in some math practice.

5 - STEM Projects

My last idea for alternatives to homework is to send home STEM or STEAM projects. I don’t know about you but I rarely have the time in my day to spend on these type of activities. Having students complete them at home with families is a great way of exposing them to the importance of STEM/STEAM but also frees up time in my school day.

Encourage families to take pictures or write a response to what they learned through the completion of their project. If time allows, have students share these pictures and responses during class. Seeing other students completing the projects is a great way to entice others to complete the work.

Last Thoughts for Successful Homework Alternatives

When considering any of these ideas for your year of unhomework, make sure to factor in how you want to make students accountable for completion. Will homework be a grade? Will you be tracking or rewarding students who complete the projects or tasks? Will you be supplying any materials needed to complete the assignment? How much time will you be giving for completing the work outside of class? Will your families be receptive to this new style of homework? Will the activities you send home be meaningful to your class and their learning? What is the main goal with this unhomework?

I hope you were able to get some great ideas for ditching the traditional homework and finding an alternative. I’d love to hear what is working in your classroom for homework. Do you offer homework? Leave me a comment below.

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Student Opinion

Should We Get Rid of Homework?

Some educators are pushing to get rid of homework. Would that be a good thing?

By Jeremy Engle and Michael Gonchar

Do you like doing homework? Do you think it has benefited you educationally?

Has homework ever helped you practice a difficult skill — in math, for example — until you mastered it? Has it helped you learn new concepts in history or science? Has it helped to teach you life skills, such as independence and responsibility? Or, have you had a more negative experience with homework? Does it stress you out, numb your brain from busywork or actually make you fall behind in your classes?

Should we get rid of homework?

In “ The Movement to End Homework Is Wrong, ” published in July, the Times Opinion writer Jay Caspian Kang argues that homework may be imperfect, but it still serves an important purpose in school. The essay begins:

Do students really need to do their homework? As a parent and a former teacher, I have been pondering this question for quite a long time. The teacher side of me can acknowledge that there were assignments I gave out to my students that probably had little to no academic value. But I also imagine that some of my students never would have done their basic reading if they hadn’t been trained to complete expected assignments, which would have made the task of teaching an English class nearly impossible. As a parent, I would rather my daughter not get stuck doing the sort of pointless homework I would occasionally assign, but I also think there’s a lot of value in saying, “Hey, a lot of work you’re going to end up doing in your life is pointless, so why not just get used to it?” I certainly am not the only person wondering about the value of homework. Recently, the sociologist Jessica McCrory Calarco and the mathematics education scholars Ilana Horn and Grace Chen published a paper, “ You Need to Be More Responsible: The Myth of Meritocracy and Teachers’ Accounts of Homework Inequalities .” They argued that while there’s some evidence that homework might help students learn, it also exacerbates inequalities and reinforces what they call the “meritocratic” narrative that says kids who do well in school do so because of “individual competence, effort and responsibility.” The authors believe this meritocratic narrative is a myth and that homework — math homework in particular — further entrenches the myth in the minds of teachers and their students. Calarco, Horn and Chen write, “Research has highlighted inequalities in students’ homework production and linked those inequalities to differences in students’ home lives and in the support students’ families can provide.”

Mr. Kang argues:

But there’s a defense of homework that doesn’t really have much to do with class mobility, equality or any sense of reinforcing the notion of meritocracy. It’s one that became quite clear to me when I was a teacher: Kids need to learn how to practice things. Homework, in many cases, is the only ritualized thing they have to do every day. Even if we could perfectly equalize opportunity in school and empower all students not to be encumbered by the weight of their socioeconomic status or ethnicity, I’m not sure what good it would do if the kids didn’t know how to do something relentlessly, over and over again, until they perfected it. Most teachers know that type of progress is very difficult to achieve inside the classroom, regardless of a student’s background, which is why, I imagine, Calarco, Horn and Chen found that most teachers weren’t thinking in a structural inequalities frame. Holistic ideas of education, in which learning is emphasized and students can explore concepts and ideas, are largely for the types of kids who don’t need to worry about class mobility. A defense of rote practice through homework might seem revanchist at this moment, but if we truly believe that schools should teach children lessons that fall outside the meritocracy, I can’t think of one that matters more than the simple satisfaction of mastering something that you were once bad at. That takes homework and the acknowledgment that sometimes a student can get a question wrong and, with proper instruction, eventually get it right.

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Does Homework Really Help Students Learn?

A conversation with a Wheelock researcher, a BU student, and a fourth-grade teacher

“Quality homework is engaging and relevant to kids’ lives,” says Wheelock’s Janine Bempechat. “It gives them autonomy and engages them in the community and with their families. In some subjects, like math, worksheets can be very helpful. It has to do with the value of practicing over and over.” Photo by iStock/Glenn Cook Photography

Do your homework.

If only it were that simple.

Educators have debated the merits of homework since the late 19th century. In recent years, amid concerns of some parents and teachers that children are being stressed out by too much homework, things have only gotten more fraught.

“Homework is complicated,” says developmental psychologist Janine Bempechat, a Wheelock College of Education & Human Development clinical professor. The author of the essay “ The Case for (Quality) Homework—Why It Improves Learning and How Parents Can Help ” in the winter 2019 issue of Education Next , Bempechat has studied how the debate about homework is influencing teacher preparation, parent and student beliefs about learning, and school policies.

She worries especially about socioeconomically disadvantaged students from low-performing schools who, according to research by Bempechat and others, get little or no homework.

BU Today  sat down with Bempechat and Erin Bruce (Wheelock’17,’18), a new fourth-grade teacher at a suburban Boston school, and future teacher freshman Emma Ardizzone (Wheelock) to talk about what quality homework looks like, how it can help children learn, and how schools can equip teachers to design it, evaluate it, and facilitate parents’ role in it.

BU Today: Parents and educators who are against homework in elementary school say there is no research definitively linking it to academic performance for kids in the early grades. You’ve said that they’re missing the point.

Bempechat : I think teachers assign homework in elementary school as a way to help kids develop skills they’ll need when they’re older—to begin to instill a sense of responsibility and to learn planning and organizational skills. That’s what I think is the greatest value of homework—in cultivating beliefs about learning and skills associated with academic success. If we greatly reduce or eliminate homework in elementary school, we deprive kids and parents of opportunities to instill these important learning habits and skills.

We do know that beginning in late middle school, and continuing through high school, there is a strong and positive correlation between homework completion and academic success.

That’s what I think is the greatest value of homework—in cultivating beliefs about learning and skills associated with academic success.

You talk about the importance of quality homework. What is that?

Quality homework is engaging and relevant to kids’ lives. It gives them autonomy and engages them in the community and with their families. In some subjects, like math, worksheets can be very helpful. It has to do with the value of practicing over and over.

What are your concerns about homework and low-income children?

The argument that some people make—that homework “punishes the poor” because lower-income parents may not be as well-equipped as affluent parents to help their children with homework—is very troubling to me. There are no parents who don’t care about their children’s learning. Parents don’t actually have to help with homework completion in order for kids to do well. They can help in other ways—by helping children organize a study space, providing snacks, being there as a support, helping children work in groups with siblings or friends.

Isn’t the discussion about getting rid of homework happening mostly in affluent communities?

Yes, and the stories we hear of kids being stressed out from too much homework—four or five hours of homework a night—are real. That’s problematic for physical and mental health and overall well-being. But the research shows that higher-income students get a lot more homework than lower-income kids.

Teachers may not have as high expectations for lower-income children. Schools should bear responsibility for providing supports for kids to be able to get their homework done—after-school clubs, community support, peer group support. It does kids a disservice when our expectations are lower for them.

The conversation around homework is to some extent a social class and social justice issue. If we eliminate homework for all children because affluent children have too much, we’re really doing a disservice to low-income children. They need the challenge, and every student can rise to the challenge with enough supports in place.

What did you learn by studying how education schools are preparing future teachers to handle homework?

My colleague, Margarita Jimenez-Silva, at the University of California, Davis, School of Education, and I interviewed faculty members at education schools, as well as supervising teachers, to find out how students are being prepared. And it seemed that they weren’t. There didn’t seem to be any readings on the research, or conversations on what high-quality homework is and how to design it.

Erin, what kind of training did you get in handling homework?

Bruce : I had phenomenal professors at Wheelock, but homework just didn’t come up. I did lots of student teaching. I’ve been in classrooms where the teachers didn’t assign any homework, and I’ve been in rooms where they assigned hours of homework a night. But I never even considered homework as something that was my decision. I just thought it was something I’d pull out of a book and it’d be done.

I started giving homework on the first night of school this year. My first assignment was to go home and draw a picture of the room where you do your homework. I want to know if it’s at a table and if there are chairs around it and if mom’s cooking dinner while you’re doing homework.

The second night I asked them to talk to a grown-up about how are you going to be able to get your homework done during the week. The kids really enjoyed it. There’s a running joke that I’m teaching life skills.

Friday nights, I read all my kids’ responses to me on their homework from the week and it’s wonderful. They pour their hearts out. It’s like we’re having a conversation on my couch Friday night.

It matters to know that the teacher cares about you and that what you think matters to the teacher. Homework is a vehicle to connect home and school…for parents to know teachers are welcoming to them and their families.

Bempechat : I can’t imagine that most new teachers would have the intuition Erin had in designing homework the way she did.

Ardizzone : Conversations with kids about homework, feeling you’re being listened to—that’s such a big part of wanting to do homework….I grew up in Westchester County. It was a pretty demanding school district. My junior year English teacher—I loved her—she would give us feedback, have meetings with all of us. She’d say, “If you have any questions, if you have anything you want to talk about, you can talk to me, here are my office hours.” It felt like she actually cared.

Bempechat : It matters to know that the teacher cares about you and that what you think matters to the teacher. Homework is a vehicle to connect home and school…for parents to know teachers are welcoming to them and their families.

Ardizzone : But can’t it lead to parents being overbearing and too involved in their children’s lives as students?

Bempechat : There’s good help and there’s bad help. The bad help is what you’re describing—when parents hover inappropriately, when they micromanage, when they see their children confused and struggling and tell them what to do.

Good help is when parents recognize there’s a struggle going on and instead ask informative questions: “Where do you think you went wrong?” They give hints, or pointers, rather than saying, “You missed this,” or “You didn’t read that.”

Bruce : I hope something comes of this. I hope BU or Wheelock can think of some way to make this a more pressing issue. As a first-year teacher, it was not something I even thought about on the first day of school—until a kid raised his hand and said, “Do we have homework?” It would have been wonderful if I’d had a plan from day one.

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Sara Rimer A journalist for more than three decades, Sara Rimer worked at the Miami Herald , Washington Post and, for 26 years, the New York Times , where she was the New England bureau chief, and a national reporter covering education, aging, immigration, and other social justice issues. Her stories on the death penalty’s inequities were nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and cited in the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision outlawing the execution of people with intellectual disabilities. Her journalism honors include Columbia University’s Meyer Berger award for in-depth human interest reporting. She holds a BA degree in American Studies from the University of Michigan. Profile

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There are 81 comments on Does Homework Really Help Students Learn?

Insightful! The values about homework in elementary schools are well aligned with my intuition as a parent.

when i finish my work i do my homework and i sometimes forget what to do because i did not get enough sleep

same omg it does not help me it is stressful and if I have it in more than one class I hate it.

Same I think my parent wants to help me but, she doesn’t care if I get bad grades so I just try my best and my grades are great.

I think that last question about Good help from parents is not know to all parents, we do as our parents did or how we best think it can be done, so maybe coaching parents or giving them resources on how to help with homework would be very beneficial for the parent on how to help and for the teacher to have consistency and improve homework results, and of course for the child. I do see how homework helps reaffirm the knowledge obtained in the classroom, I also have the ability to see progress and it is a time I share with my kids

The answer to the headline question is a no-brainer – a more pressing problem is why there is a difference in how students from different cultures succeed. Perfect example is the student population at BU – why is there a majority population of Asian students and only about 3% black students at BU? In fact at some universities there are law suits by Asians to stop discrimination and quotas against admitting Asian students because the real truth is that as a group they are demonstrating better qualifications for admittance, while at the same time there are quotas and reduced requirements for black students to boost their portion of the student population because as a group they do more poorly in meeting admissions standards – and it is not about the Benjamins. The real problem is that in our PC society no one has the gazuntas to explore this issue as it may reveal that all people are not created equal after all. Or is it just environmental cultural differences??????

I get you have a concern about the issue but that is not even what the point of this article is about. If you have an issue please take this to the site we have and only post your opinion about the actual topic

This is not at all what the article is talking about.

This literally has nothing to do with the article brought up. You should really take your opinions somewhere else before you speak about something that doesn’t make sense.

we have the same name

so they have the same name what of it?

lol you tell her

totally agree

What does that have to do with homework, that is not what the article talks about AT ALL.

Yes, I think homework plays an important role in the development of student life. Through homework, students have to face challenges on a daily basis and they try to solve them quickly.I am an intense online tutor at 24x7homeworkhelp and I give homework to my students at that level in which they handle it easily.

More than two-thirds of students said they used alcohol and drugs, primarily marijuana, to cope with stress.

You know what’s funny? I got this assignment to write an argument for homework about homework and this article was really helpful and understandable, and I also agree with this article’s point of view.

I also got the same task as you! I was looking for some good resources and I found this! I really found this article useful and easy to understand, just like you! ^^

i think that homework is the best thing that a child can have on the school because it help them with their thinking and memory.

I am a child myself and i think homework is a terrific pass time because i can’t play video games during the week. It also helps me set goals.

Homework is not harmful ,but it will if there is too much

I feel like, from a minors point of view that we shouldn’t get homework. Not only is the homework stressful, but it takes us away from relaxing and being social. For example, me and my friends was supposed to hang at the mall last week but we had to postpone it since we all had some sort of work to do. Our minds shouldn’t be focused on finishing an assignment that in realty, doesn’t matter. I completely understand that we should have homework. I have to write a paper on the unimportance of homework so thanks.

homework isn’t that bad

Are you a student? if not then i don’t really think you know how much and how severe todays homework really is

i am a student and i do not enjoy homework because i practice my sport 4 out of the five days we have school for 4 hours and that’s not even counting the commute time or the fact i still have to shower and eat dinner when i get home. its draining!

i totally agree with you. these people are such boomers

why just why

they do make a really good point, i think that there should be a limit though. hours and hours of homework can be really stressful, and the extra work isn’t making a difference to our learning, but i do believe homework should be optional and extra credit. that would make it for students to not have the leaning stress of a assignment and if you have a low grade you you can catch up.

Studies show that homework improves student achievement in terms of improved grades, test results, and the likelihood to attend college. Research published in the High School Journal indicates that students who spent between 31 and 90 minutes each day on homework “scored about 40 points higher on the SAT-Mathematics subtest than their peers, who reported spending no time on homework each day, on average.” On both standardized tests and grades, students in classes that were assigned homework outperformed 69% of students who didn’t have homework. A majority of studies on homework’s impact – 64% in one meta-study and 72% in another – showed that take home assignments were effective at improving academic achievement. Research by the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) concluded that increased homework led to better GPAs and higher probability of college attendance for high school boys. In fact, boys who attended college did more than three hours of additional homework per week in high school.

So how are your measuring student achievement? That’s the real question. The argument that doing homework is simply a tool for teaching responsibility isn’t enough for me. We can teach responsibility in a number of ways. Also the poor argument that parents don’t need to help with homework, and that students can do it on their own, is wishful thinking at best. It completely ignores neurodiverse students. Students in poverty aren’t magically going to find a space to do homework, a friend’s or siblings to help them do it, and snacks to eat. I feel like the author of this piece has never set foot in a classroom of students.

THIS. This article is pathetic coming from a university. So intellectually dishonest, refusing to address the havoc of capitalism and poverty plays on academic success in life. How can they in one sentence use poor kids in an argument and never once address that poor children have access to damn near 0 of the resources affluent kids have? Draw me a picture and let’s talk about feelings lmao what a joke is that gonna put food in their belly so they can have the calories to burn in order to use their brain to study? What about quiet their 7 other siblings that they share a single bedroom with for hours? Is it gonna force the single mom to magically be at home and at work at the same time to cook food while you study and be there to throw an encouraging word?

Also the “parents don’t need to be a parent and be able to guide their kid at all academically they just need to exist in the next room” is wild. Its one thing if a parent straight up is not equipped but to say kids can just figured it out is…. wow coming from an educator What’s next the teacher doesn’t need to teach cause the kid can just follow the packet and figure it out?

Well then get a tutor right? Oh wait you are poor only affluent kids can afford a tutor for their hours of homework a day were they on average have none of the worries a poor child does. Does this address that poor children are more likely to also suffer abuse and mental illness? Like mentioned what about kids that can’t learn or comprehend the forced standardized way? Just let em fail? These children regularly are not in “special education”(some of those are a joke in their own and full of neglect and abuse) programs cause most aren’t even acknowledged as having disabilities or disorders.

But yes all and all those pesky poor kids just aren’t being worked hard enough lol pretty sure poor children’s existence just in childhood is more work, stress, and responsibility alone than an affluent child’s entire life cycle. Love they never once talked about the quality of education in the classroom being so bad between the poor and affluent it can qualify as segregation, just basically blamed poor people for being lazy, good job capitalism for failing us once again!

why the hell?

you should feel bad for saying this, this article can be helpful for people who has to write a essay about it

This is more of a political rant than it is about homework

I know a teacher who has told his students their homework is to find something they are interested in, pursue it and then come share what they learn. The student responses are quite compelling. One girl taught herself German so she could talk to her grandfather. One boy did a research project on Nelson Mandela because the teacher had mentioned him in class. Another boy, a both on the autism spectrum, fixed his family’s computer. The list goes on. This is fourth grade. I think students are highly motivated to learn, when we step aside and encourage them.

The whole point of homework is to give the students a chance to use the material that they have been presented with in class. If they never have the opportunity to use that information, and discover that it is actually useful, it will be in one ear and out the other. As a science teacher, it is critical that the students are challenged to use the material they have been presented with, which gives them the opportunity to actually think about it rather than regurgitate “facts”. Well designed homework forces the student to think conceptually, as opposed to regurgitation, which is never a pretty sight

Wonderful discussion. and yes, homework helps in learning and building skills in students.

not true it just causes kids to stress

Homework can be both beneficial and unuseful, if you will. There are students who are gifted in all subjects in school and ones with disabilities. Why should the students who are gifted get the lucky break, whereas the people who have disabilities suffer? The people who were born with this “gift” go through school with ease whereas people with disabilities struggle with the work given to them. I speak from experience because I am one of those students: the ones with disabilities. Homework doesn’t benefit “us”, it only tears us down and put us in an abyss of confusion and stress and hopelessness because we can’t learn as fast as others. Or we can’t handle the amount of work given whereas the gifted students go through it with ease. It just brings us down and makes us feel lost; because no mater what, it feels like we are destined to fail. It feels like we weren’t “cut out” for success.

homework does help

here is the thing though, if a child is shoved in the face with a whole ton of homework that isn’t really even considered homework it is assignments, it’s not helpful. the teacher should make homework more of a fun learning experience rather than something that is dreaded

This article was wonderful, I am going to ask my teachers about extra, or at all giving homework.

I agree. Especially when you have homework before an exam. Which is distasteful as you’ll need that time to study. It doesn’t make any sense, nor does us doing homework really matters as It’s just facts thrown at us.

Homework is too severe and is just too much for students, schools need to decrease the amount of homework. When teachers assign homework they forget that the students have other classes that give them the same amount of homework each day. Students need to work on social skills and life skills.

I disagree.

Beyond achievement, proponents of homework argue that it can have many other beneficial effects. They claim it can help students develop good study habits so they are ready to grow as their cognitive capacities mature. It can help students recognize that learning can occur at home as well as at school. Homework can foster independent learning and responsible character traits. And it can give parents an opportunity to see what’s going on at school and let them express positive attitudes toward achievement.

Homework is helpful because homework helps us by teaching us how to learn a specific topic.

As a student myself, I can say that I have almost never gotten the full 9 hours of recommended sleep time, because of homework. (Now I’m writing an essay on it in the middle of the night D=)

I am a 10 year old kid doing a report about “Is homework good or bad” for homework before i was going to do homework is bad but the sources from this site changed my mind!

Homeowkr is god for stusenrs

I agree with hunter because homework can be so stressful especially with this whole covid thing no one has time for homework and every one just wants to get back to there normal lives it is especially stressful when you go on a 2 week vaca 3 weeks into the new school year and and then less then a week after you come back from the vaca you are out for over a month because of covid and you have no way to get the assignment done and turned in

As great as homework is said to be in the is article, I feel like the viewpoint of the students was left out. Every where I go on the internet researching about this topic it almost always has interviews from teachers, professors, and the like. However isn’t that a little biased? Of course teachers are going to be for homework, they’re not the ones that have to stay up past midnight completing the homework from not just one class, but all of them. I just feel like this site is one-sided and you should include what the students of today think of spending four hours every night completing 6-8 classes worth of work.

Are we talking about homework or practice? Those are two very different things and can result in different outcomes.

Homework is a graded assignment. I do not know of research showing the benefits of graded assignments going home.

Practice; however, can be extremely beneficial, especially if there is some sort of feedback (not a grade but feedback). That feedback can come from the teacher, another student or even an automated grading program.

As a former band director, I assigned daily practice. I never once thought it would be appropriate for me to require the students to turn in a recording of their practice for me to grade. Instead, I had in-class assignments/assessments that were graded and directly related to the practice assigned.

I would really like to read articles on “homework” that truly distinguish between the two.

oof i feel bad good luck!

thank you guys for the artical because I have to finish an assingment. yes i did cite it but just thanks

thx for the article guys.

Homework is good

I think homework is helpful AND harmful. Sometimes u can’t get sleep bc of homework but it helps u practice for school too so idk.

I agree with this Article. And does anyone know when this was published. I would like to know.

It was published FEb 19, 2019.

Studies have shown that homework improved student achievement in terms of improved grades, test results, and the likelihood to attend college.

i think homework can help kids but at the same time not help kids

This article is so out of touch with majority of homes it would be laughable if it wasn’t so incredibly sad.

There is no value to homework all it does is add stress to already stressed homes. Parents or adults magically having the time or energy to shepherd kids through homework is dome sort of 1950’s fantasy.

What lala land do these teachers live in?

Homework gives noting to the kid

Homework is Bad

homework is bad.

why do kids even have homework?

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Too Much Homework Hurts Your Students. Here’s What to Do Instead.

• Post author: The CTTL
• Post published: February 28, 2019
• Post category: Teaching Strategies

At the CTTL , we’re focused on using the best of Mind, Brain, and Education Science research to help teachers maximize their effectiveness and guide students toward their greatest potential. Doing that often means addressing what we like to call “Learning Myths”—those traditional bits of teaching wisdom that are often accepted without question, but aren’t always true. We also like to introduce new insight that can change the classroom for the better. In our Learning Myths series, we’ll explore true-or-false statements that affect teacher and student performance; for each, we’ll dive into the details that support the facts, leaving teachers with actionable knowledge that they can put to work right away.

True or False? Homework should be given every night, as this routine promotes learning.

Answer: False! Nightly homework is unnecessary—and can actually be harmful.

Homework for homework’s sake, or homework that’s not tied into the classroom experience, is a demotivating waste of your students’ time and energy. The Education Endowment Foundation Teaching and Learning Toolkit puts it this way: “Planned and focused activities are more beneficial than homework, which is more regular, but may be routine or not linked with what is being learned in class.”

How might teachers put this insight into action?

Homework, in itself, isn’t a bad thing. The key is to make sure that every homework assignment is both necessary and relevant—and leaves students with some time to rest and investigate other parts of their lives. Here are four key mindsets to adopt as an educator:

Resist the traditional wisdom that equates hardship with learning. Assigning constant homework is often tied into the idea that the more rigorous a class is, the better it is. However, according to research from Duke University’s Professor Harris Cooper, this belief is mistaken: “too much homework may diminish its effectiveness, or even become counterproductive.” A better guideline for homework, Cooper suggests, is to assign 1-2 hours of total homework in high school, and only up to 1 hour in junior high or middle school. This is based on the understanding that school-aged children are developing quickly in multiple realms of their lives; thus, family, outside interests, and sleep all take an unnecessary and damaging hit if students are spending their evenings on busy work. Even for high schoolers, more than two hours of homework was not associated with greater levels of achievement in Cooper’s study.

Remember that some assignments help learning more than others—and they tend to be simple, connected ones. Research suggests that the more open-ended and unstructured assignments are, the smaller the effect they have on learning. The best kind of homework is made of planned, focused activities that help reinforce what’s been happening in class. Using the spacing effect is one way to help students recall and remember what they’ve been learning: for example, this could include a combination of practice questions from what happened today, three days ago, and five days ago. (You can also consider extending this idea by integrating concepts and skills from other parts of your course into your homework materials). Another helpful approach is to assign an exercise that acts as a simple introduction to material that is about to be taught. In general, make sure that all at-home activities are a continuation of the story that’s playing out in class—in other words, that they’re tied into what happened before the assignment, as well as what will happen next.

When it comes to homework, stay flexible. Homework shouldn’t be used to teach complex new ideas and skills. Because it’s so important that homework is closely tied with current learning, it’s important to prepare to adjust your assignments on the fly: if you end up running out of time and can’t cover all of a planned subject on a given day, nix any homework that relies on it.

Never use homework as a punishment. Homework should never be used as a disciplinary tool or a penalty. It’s important for students to know and trust that what they’re doing at home is a vital part of their learning.

Make sure that your students don’t get stuck before they begin. Teachers tend to under-appreciate one very significant problem when it comes to homework: often, students just don’t know how to do the assignment! Being confused by the instructions—and without the means to remedy the situation—is extremely demotivating. If you find (or suspect) that this might be a problem for your students, one helpful strategy is to give students a few minutes in class to begin their homework, so that you can address any clarifying questions that arise.

In order for students to become high academic achievers, they have to be learning in a way that challenges them at the right level— much like the porridge in the Goldilocks story, it’s got to be just right. Homework is a great tool, but it must be used wisely. Part of our role as teachers is to make sure that the time we ask our students to give us after they leave class is meaningful to their learning; otherwise, the stress and demotivation of “just because” homework can be detrimental to their well-being. As the CTTL’s Dr. Ian Kelleher advises, “The best homework assignments are just 20 minutes long, because those are the ones that the teacher has really planned out carefully.” Put simply: quality beats out quantity, every time.

Here at the CTTL, we’re all about quality over quantity. Case in point: our newest endeavor, Neuroteach Global , helps teachers infuse their classroom practices with research-informed strategies for student success—in just 3-5 minutes a day, on a variety of devices.

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More than two hours of homework may be counterproductive, research suggests.

A Stanford education researcher found that too much homework can negatively affect kids, especially their lives away from school, where family, friends and activities matter.   "Our findings on the effects of homework challenge the traditional assumption that homework is inherently good," wrote Denise Pope , a senior lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Education and a co-author of a study published in the Journal of Experimental Education .   The researchers used survey data to examine perceptions about homework, student well-being and behavioral engagement in a sample of 4,317 students from 10 high-performing high schools in upper-middle-class California communities. Along with the survey data, Pope and her colleagues used open-ended answers to explore the students' views on homework.   Median household income exceeded $90,000 in these communities, and 93 percent of the students went on to college, either two-year or four-year.   Students in these schools average about 3.1 hours of homework each night.   "The findings address how current homework practices in privileged, high-performing schools sustain students' advantage in competitive climates yet hinder learning, full engagement and well-being," Pope wrote.   Pope and her colleagues found that too much homework can diminish its effectiveness and even be counterproductive. They cite prior research indicating that homework benefits plateau at about two hours per night, and that 90 minutes to two and a half hours is optimal for high school.   Their study found that too much homework is associated with:   • Greater stress : 56 percent of the students considered homework a primary source of stress, according to the survey data. Forty-three percent viewed tests as a primary stressor, while 33 percent put the pressure to get good grades in that category. Less than 1 percent of the students said homework was not a stressor.   • Reductions in health : In their open-ended answers, many students said their homework load led to sleep deprivation and other health problems. The researchers asked students whether they experienced health issues such as headaches, exhaustion, sleep deprivation, weight loss and stomach problems.   • Less time for friends, family and extracurricular pursuits : Both the survey data and student responses indicate that spending too much time on homework meant that students were "not meeting their developmental needs or cultivating other critical life skills," according to the researchers. Students were more likely to drop activities, not see friends or family, and not pursue hobbies they enjoy.   A balancing act   The results offer empirical evidence that many students struggle to find balance between homework, extracurricular activities and social time, the researchers said. Many students felt forced or obligated to choose homework over developing other talents or skills.   Also, there was no relationship between the time spent on homework and how much the student enjoyed it. The research quoted students as saying they often do homework they see as "pointless" or "mindless" in order to keep their grades up.   "This kind of busy work, by its very nature, discourages learning and instead promotes doing homework simply to get points," said Pope, who is also a co-founder of Challenge Success , a nonprofit organization affiliated with the GSE that conducts research and works with schools and parents to improve students' educational experiences..   Pope said the research calls into question the value of assigning large amounts of homework in high-performing schools. Homework should not be simply assigned as a routine practice, she said.   "Rather, any homework assigned should have a purpose and benefit, and it should be designed to cultivate learning and development," wrote Pope.   High-performing paradox   In places where students attend high-performing schools, too much homework can reduce their time to foster skills in the area of personal responsibility, the researchers concluded. "Young people are spending more time alone," they wrote, "which means less time for family and fewer opportunities to engage in their communities."   Student perspectives   The researchers say that while their open-ended or "self-reporting" methodology to gauge student concerns about homework may have limitations – some might regard it as an opportunity for "typical adolescent complaining" – it was important to learn firsthand what the students believe.   The paper was co-authored by Mollie Galloway from Lewis and Clark College and Jerusha Conner from Villanova University.

Clifton B. Parker is a writer at the Stanford News Service .

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• The Journal
• Vol. 19, No. 1

The Case for (Quality) Homework

Janine Bempechat

Any parent who has battled with a child over homework night after night has to wonder: Do those math worksheets and book reports really make a difference to a student’s long-term success? Or is homework just a headache—another distraction from family time and downtime, already diminished by the likes of music and dance lessons, sports practices, and part-time jobs?

Allison, a mother of two middle-school girls from an affluent Boston suburb, describes a frenetic afterschool scenario: “My girls do gymnastics a few days a week, so homework happens for my 6th grader after gymnastics, at 6:30 p.m. She doesn’t get to bed until 9. My 8th grader does her homework immediately after school, up until gymnastics. She eats dinner at 9:15 and then goes to bed, unless there is more homework to do, in which case she’ll get to bed around 10.” The girls miss out on sleep, and weeknight family dinners are tough to swing.

Parental concerns about their children’s homework loads are nothing new. Debates over the merits of homework—tasks that teachers ask students to complete during non-instructional time—have ebbed and flowed since the late 19th century, and today its value is again being scrutinized and weighed against possible negative impacts on family life and children’s well-being.

Are American students overburdened with homework? In some middle-class and affluent communities, where pressure on students to achieve can be fierce, yes. But in families of limited means, it’s often another story. Many low-income parents value homework as an important connection to the school and the curriculum—even as their children report receiving little homework. Overall, high-school students relate that they spend less than one hour per day on homework, on average, and only 42 percent say they do it five days per week. In one recent survey by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), a minimal 13 percent of 17-year-olds said they had devoted more than two hours to homework the previous evening (see Figure 1).

Recent years have seen an increase in the amount of homework assigned to students in grades K–2, and critics point to research findings that, at the elementary-school level, homework does not appear to enhance children’s learning. Why, then, should we burden young children and their families with homework if there is no academic benefit to doing it? Indeed, perhaps it would be best, as some propose, to eliminate homework altogether, particularly in these early grades.

On the contrary, developmentally appropriate homework plays a critical role in the formation of positive learning beliefs and behaviors, including a belief in one’s academic ability, a deliberative and effortful approach to mastery, and higher expectations and aspirations for one’s future. It can prepare children to confront ever-more-complex tasks, develop resilience in the face of difficulty, and learn to embrace rather than shy away from challenge. In short, homework is a key vehicle through which we can help shape children into mature learners.

The Homework-Achievement Connection

A narrow focus on whether or not homework boosts grades and test scores in the short run thus ignores a broader purpose in education, the development of lifelong, confident learners. Still, the question looms: does homework enhance academic success? As the educational psychologist Lyn Corno wrote more than two decades ago, “homework is a complicated thing.” Most research on the homework-achievement connection is correlational, which precludes a definitive judgment on its academic benefits. Researchers rely on correlational research in this area of study given the difficulties of randomly assigning students to homework/no-homework conditions. While correlation does not imply causality, extensive research has established that at the middle- and high-school levels, homework completion is strongly and positively associated with high achievement. Very few studies have reported a negative correlation.

As noted above, findings on the homework-achievement connection at the elementary level are mixed. A small number of experimental studies have demonstrated that elementary-school students who receive homework achieve at higher levels than those who do not. These findings suggest a causal relationship, but they are limited in scope. Within the body of correlational research, some studies report a positive homework-achievement connection, some a negative relationship, and yet others show no relationship at all. Why the mixed findings? Researchers point to a number of possible factors, such as developmental issues related to how young children learn, different goals that teachers have for younger as compared to older students, and how researchers define homework.

Certainly, young children are still developing skills that enable them to focus on the material at hand and study efficiently. Teachers’ goals for their students are also quite different in elementary school as compared to secondary school. While teachers at both levels note the value of homework for reinforcing classroom content, those in the earlier grades are more likely to assign homework mainly to foster skills such as responsibility, perseverance, and the ability to manage distractions.

Most research examines homework generally. Might a focus on homework in a specific subject shed more light on the homework-achievement connection? A recent meta-analysis did just this by examining the relationship between math/science homework and achievement. Contrary to previous findings, researchers reported a stronger relationship between homework and achievement in the elementary grades than in middle school. As the study authors note, one explanation for this finding could be that in elementary school, teachers tend to assign more homework in math than in other subjects, while at the same time assigning shorter math tasks more frequently. In addition, the authors point out that parents tend to be more involved in younger children’s math homework and more skilled in elementary-level than middle-school math.

In sum, the relationship between homework and academic achievement in the elementary-school years is not yet established, but eliminating homework at this level would do children and their families a huge disservice: we know that children’s learning beliefs have a powerful impact on their academic outcomes, and that through homework, parents and teachers can have a profound influence on the development of positive beliefs.

How Much Is Appropriate?

Harris M. Cooper of Duke University, the leading researcher on homework, has examined decades of study on what we know about the relationship between homework and scholastic achievement. He has proposed the “10-minute rule,” suggesting that daily homework be limited to 10 minutes per grade level. Thus, a 1st grader would do 10 minutes each day and a 4th grader, 40 minutes. The National Parent Teacher Association and the National Education Association both endorse this guideline, but it is not clear whether the recommended allotments include time for reading, which most teachers want children to do daily.

For middle-school students, Cooper and colleagues report that 90 minutes per day of homework is optimal for enhancing academic achievement, and for high schoolers, the ideal range is 90 minutes to two and a half hours per day. Beyond this threshold, more homework does not contribute to learning. For students enrolled in demanding Advanced Placement or honors courses, however, homework is likely to require significantly more time, leading to concerns over students’ health and well-being.

Notwithstanding media reports of parents revolting against the practice of homework, the vast majority of parents say they are highly satisfied with their children’s homework loads. The National Household Education Surveys Program recently found that between 70 and 83 percent of parents believed that the amount of homework their children had was “about right,” a result that held true regardless of social class, race/ethnicity, community size, level of education, and whether English was spoken at home.

Learning Beliefs Are Consequential

As noted above, developmentally appropriate homework can help children cultivate positive beliefs about learning. Decades of research have established that these beliefs predict the types of tasks students choose to pursue, their persistence in the face of challenge, and their academic achievement. Broadly, learning beliefs fall under the banner of achievement motivation, which is a constellation of cognitive, behavioral, and affective factors, including: the way a person perceives his or her abilities, goal-setting skills, expectation of success, the value the individual places on learning, and self-regulating behavior such as time-management skills. Positive or adaptive beliefs about learning serve as emotional and psychological protective factors for children, especially when they encounter difficulties or failure.

Motivation researcher Carol Dweck of Stanford University posits that children with a “growth mindset”—those who believe that ability is malleable—approach learning very differently than those with a “fixed mindset”—kids who believe ability cannot change. Those with a growth mindset view effort as the key to mastery. They see mistakes as helpful, persist even in the face of failure, prefer challenging over easy tasks, and do better in school than their peers who have a fixed mindset. In contrast, children with a fixed mindset view effort and mistakes as implicit condemnations of their abilities. Such children succumb easily to learned helplessness in the face of difficulty, and they gravitate toward tasks they know they can handle rather than more challenging ones.

Of course, learning beliefs do not develop in a vacuum. Studies have demonstrated that parents and teachers play a significant role in the development of positive beliefs and behaviors, and that homework is a key tool they can use to foster motivation and academic achievement.

Parents’ Beliefs and Actions Matter

It is well established that parental involvement in their children’s education promotes achievement motivation and success in school. Parents are their children’s first teachers, and their achievement-related beliefs have a profound influence on children’s developing perceptions of their own abilities, as well as their views on the value of learning and education.

Parents affect their children’s learning through the messages they send about education, whether by expressing interest in school activities and experiences, attending school events, helping with homework when they can, or exposing children to intellectually enriching experiences. Most parents view such engagement as part and parcel of their role. They also believe that doing homework fosters responsibility and organizational skills, and that doing well on homework tasks contributes to learning, even if children experience frustration from time to time.

Many parents provide support by establishing homework routines, eliminating distractions, communicating expectations, helping children manage their time, providing reassuring messages, and encouraging kids to be aware of the conditions under which they do their best work. These supports help foster the development of self-regulation, which is critical to school success.

Self-regulation involves a number of skills, such as the ability to monitor one’s performance and adjust strategies as a result of feedback; to evaluate one’s interests and realistically perceive one’s aptitude; and to work on a task autonomously. It also means learning how to structure one’s environment so that it’s conducive to learning, by, for example, minimizing distractions. As children move into higher grades, these skills and strategies help them organize, plan, and learn independently. This is precisely where parents make a demonstrable difference in students’ attitudes and approaches to homework.

Especially in the early grades, homework gives parents the opportunity to cultivate beliefs and behaviors that foster efficient study skills and academic resilience. Indeed, across age groups, there is a strong and positive relationship between homework completion and a variety of self-regulatory processes. However, the quality of parental help matters. Sometimes, well-intentioned parents can unwittingly undermine the development of children’s positive learning beliefs and their achievement. Parents who maintain a positive outlook on homework and allow their children room to learn and struggle on their own, stepping in judiciously with informational feedback and hints, do their children a much better service than those who seek to control the learning process.

A recent study of 5th and 6th graders’ perceptions of their parents’ involvement with homework distinguished between supportive and intrusive help. The former included the belief that parents encouraged the children to try to find the right answer on their own before providing them with assistance, and when the child struggled, attempted to understand the source of the confusion. In contrast, the latter included the perception that parents provided unsolicited help, interfered when the children did their homework, and told them how to complete their assignments. Supportive help predicted higher achievement, while intrusive help was associated with lower achievement.

Parents’ attitudes and emotions during homework time can support the development of positive attitudes and approaches in their children, which in turn are predictive of higher achievement. Children are more likely to focus on self-improvement during homework time and do better in school when their parents are oriented toward mastery. In contrast, if parents focus on how well children are doing relative to peers, kids tend to adopt learning goals that allow them to avoid challenge.

Homework and Social Class

Social class is another important element in the homework dynamic. What is the homework experience like for families with limited time and resources? And what of affluent families, where resources are plenty but the pressures to succeed are great?

Etta Kralovec and John Buell, authors of The End of Homework, maintain that homework “punishes the poor,” because lower-income parents may not be as well educated as their affluent counterparts and thus not as well equipped to help with homework. Poorer families also have fewer financial resources to devote to home computers, tutoring, and academic enrichment. The stresses of poverty—and work schedules—may impinge, and immigrant parents may face language barriers and an unfamiliarity with the school system and teachers’ expectations.

Yet research shows that low-income parents who are unable to assist with homework are far from passive in their children’s learning, and they do help foster scholastic performance. In fact, parental help with homework is not a necessary component for school success.

Brown University’s Jin Li queried low-income Chinese American 9th graders’ perceptions of their parents’ engagement with their education. Students said their immigrant parents rarely engaged in activities that are known to foster academic achievement, such as monitoring homework, checking it for accuracy, or attending school meetings or events. Instead, parents of higher achievers built three social networks to support their children’s learning. They designated “anchor” helpers both inside and outside the family who provided assistance; identified peer models for their children to emulate; and enlisted the assistance of extended kin to guide their children’s educational socialization. In a related vein, a recent analysis of survey data showed that Asian and Latino 5th graders, relative to native-born peers, were more likely to turn to siblings than parents for homework help.

Further, research demonstrates that low-income parents, recognizing that they lack the time to be in the classroom or participate in school governance, view homework as a critical connection to their children’s experiences in school. One study found that mothers enjoyed the routine and predictability of homework and used it as a way to demonstrate to children how to plan their time. Mothers organized homework as a family activity, with siblings doing homework together and older children reading to younger ones. In this way, homework was perceived as a collective practice wherein siblings could model effective habits and learn from one another.

In another recent study, researchers examined mathematics achievement in low-income 8th-grade Asian and Latino students. Help with homework was an advantage their mothers could not provide. They could, however, furnish structure (for example, by setting aside quiet time for homework completion), and it was this structure that most predicted high achievement. As the authors note, “It is . . . important to help [low-income] parents realize that they can still help their children get good grades in mathematics and succeed in school even if they do not know how to provide direct assistance with their child’s mathematics homework.”

The homework narrative at the other end of the socioeconomic continuum is altogether different. Media reports abound with examples of students, mostly in high school, carrying three or more hours of homework per night, a burden that can impair learning, motivation, and well-being. In affluent communities, students often experience intense pressure to cultivate a high-achieving profile that will be attractive to elite colleges. Heavy homework loads have been linked to unhealthy symptoms such as heightened stress, anxiety, physical complaints, and sleep disturbances. Like Allison’s 6th grader mentioned earlier, many students can only tackle their homework after they do extracurricular activities, which are also seen as essential for the college résumé. Not surprisingly, many students in these communities are not deeply engaged in learning; rather, they speak of “doing school,” as Stanford researcher Denise Pope has described, going through the motions necessary to excel, and undermining their physical and mental health in the process.

Fortunately, some national intervention initiatives, such as Challenge Success (co-founded by Pope), are heightening awareness of these problems. Interventions aimed at restoring balance in students’ lives (in part, by reducing homework demands) have resulted in students reporting an increased sense of well-being, decreased stress and anxiety, and perceptions of greater support from teachers, with no decrease in achievement outcomes.

What is good for this small segment of students, however, is not necessarily good for the majority. As Jessica Lahey wrote in Motherlode, a New York Times parenting blog, “homework is a red herring” in the national conversation on education. “Some otherwise privileged children may have too much, but the real issue lies in places where there is too little. . . . We shouldn’t forget that.”

My colleagues and I analyzed interviews conducted with lower-income 9th graders (African American, Mexican American, and European American) from two Northern California high schools that at the time were among the lowest-achieving schools in the state. We found that these students consistently described receiving minimal homework—perhaps one or two worksheets or textbook pages, the occasional project, and 30 minutes of reading per night. Math was the only class in which they reported having homework each night. These students noted few consequences for not completing their homework.

Indeed, greatly reducing or eliminating homework would likely increase, not diminish, the achievement gap. As Harris M. Cooper has commented, those choosing to opt their children out of homework are operating from a place of advantage. Children in higher-income families benefit from many privileges, including exposure to a larger range of language at home that may align with the language of school, access to learning and cultural experiences, and many other forms of enrichment, such as tutoring and academic summer camps, all of which may be cost-prohibitive for lower-income families. But for the 21 percent of the school-age population who live in poverty—nearly 11 million students ages 5–17—homework is one tool that can help narrow the achievement gap.

Community and School Support

Often, community organizations and afterschool programs can step up to provide structure and services that students’ need to succeed at homework. For example, Boys and Girls and 4-H clubs offer volunteer tutors as well as access to computer technology that students may not have at home. Many schools provide homework clubs or integrate homework into the afterschool program.

Home-school partnerships have succeeded in engaging parents with homework and significantly improving their children’s academic achievement. For example, Joyce Epstein of Johns Hopkins University has developed the TIPS model (Teachers Involve Parents in Schoolwork), which embraces homework as an integral part of family time. TIPS is a teacher-designed interactive program in which children and a parent or family member each have a specific role in the homework scenario. For example, children might show the parent how to do a mathematics task on fractions, explaining their reasoning along the way and reviewing their thinking aloud if they are unsure.

Evaluations show that elementary and middle-school students in classrooms that have adopted TIPS complete more of their homework than do students in other classrooms. Both students and parent participants show more positive beliefs about learning mathematics, and TIPS students show significant gains in writing skills and report-card science grades, as well as higher mathematics scores on standardized tests.

Another study found that asking teachers to send text messages to parents about their children’s missing homework resulted in increased parental monitoring of homework, consequences for missed assignments, and greater participation in parent-child conferences. Teachers reported fewer missed assignments and greater student effort in coursework, and math grades and GPA significantly improved.

Homework Quality Matters

Teachers favor homework for a number of reasons. They believe it fosters a sense of responsibility and promotes academic achievement. They note that homework provides valuable review and practice for students while giving teachers feedback on areas where students may need more support. Finally, teachers value homework as a way to keep parents connected to the school and their children’s educational experiences.

While students, to say the least, may not always relish the idea of doing homework, by high school most come to believe there is a positive relationship between doing homework and doing well in school. Both higher and lower achievers lament “busywork” that doesn’t promote learning. They crave high-quality, challenging assignments—and it is this kind of homework that has been associated with higher achievement.

What constitutes high-quality homework? Assignments that are developmentally appropriate and meaningful and that promote self-efficacy and self-regulation. Meaningful homework is authentic, allowing students to engage in solving problems with real-world relevance. More specifically, homework tasks should make efficient use of student time and have a clear purpose connected to what they are learning. An artistic rendition of a period in history that would take hours to complete can become instead a diary entry in the voice of an individual from that era. By allowing a measure of choice and autonomy in homework, teachers foster in their students a sense of ownership, which bolsters their investment in the work.

High-quality homework also fosters students’ perceptions of their own competence by 1) focusing them on tasks they can accomplish without help; 2) differentiating tasks so as to allow struggling students to experience success; 3) providing suggested time frames rather than a fixed period of time in which a task should be completed; 4) delivering clearly and carefully explained directions; and 5) carefully modeling methods for attacking lengthy or complex tasks. Students whose teachers have trained them to adopt strategies such as goal setting, self-monitoring, and planning develop a number of personal assets—improved time management, increased self-efficacy, greater effort and interest, a desire for mastery, and a decrease in helplessness.

Excellence with Equity

Currently, the United States has the second-highest disparity between time spent on homework by students of low socioeconomic status and time spent by their more-affluent peers out of the 34 OECD-member nations participating in the 2012 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) (see Figure 2). Noting that PISA studies have consistently found that spending more time on math homework strongly correlates with higher academic achievement, the report’s authors suggest that the homework disparity may reflect lower teacher expectations for low-income students. If so, this is truly unfortunate. In and of itself, low socioeconomic status is not an impediment to academic achievement when appropriate parental, school, and community supports are deployed. As research makes clear, low-income parents support their children’s learning in varied ways, not all of which involve direct assistance with schoolwork. Teachers can orient students and parents toward beliefs that foster positive attitudes toward learning. Indeed, where homework is concerned, a commitment to excellence with equity is both worthwhile and attainable.

In affluent communities, parents, teachers, and school districts might consider reexamining the meaning of academic excellence and placing more emphasis on leading a balanced and well-rounded life. The homework debate in the United States has been dominated by concerns over the health and well-being of such advantaged students. As legitimate as these worries are, it’s important to avoid generalizing these children’s experiences to those with fewer family resources. Reducing or eliminating homework, though it may be desirable in some advantaged communities, would deprive poorer children of a crucial and empowering learning experience. It would also eradicate a fertile opportunity to help close the achievement gap.

Janine Bempechat is clinical professor of human development at the Boston University Wheelock College of Education and Human Development.

An unabridged version of this article is available here .

For more, please see “ The Top 20 Education Next Articles of 2023 .”

This article appeared in the Winter 2019 issue of Education Next . Suggested citation format:

Bempechat, J. (2019). The Case for (Quality) Homework: Why it improves learning, and how parents can help . Education Next, 19 (1), 36-43.

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What Are the Benefits of No Homework? It May Produce Better Results

As a teacher, you want to make sure that you find a healthy balance of homework —if you give too little, students may lose interest, but if you give too much, they may get overwhelmed.

In my years of teaching, I’ve found a sweet spot with homework, that actually involves lessening my students’ homework load. I’ve seen great results and encourage you to reconsider how much homework your currently assigning. Here are a four reasons why students should have less homework. 

4 Reasons Why Students Should Have Less Homework

1. students are encouraged to learn.

You don’t just want to hand your students a fish; You want to teach them how to fish. Lectures, discussions, and readings should all engage students and encourage them to get involved in the material. Homework should then be used to practice what’s been covered in class or to give a very brief introduction to new material.

Try to find assignments that your students might enjoy, like creating a Facebook profile or blog for a character from a Shakespeare play you’re reading. I’ve found that when students have a more manageable homework load, they’re more excited about school and learning in general.

2. They are better rested and focused

School days can end up being long for students, especially high schoolers. Students may normally arrive at school between 7 and 8 a.m., stay in school until 3 p.m., might have after-school activities until 5 or 6 p.m., and may not be able to start on homework until 7 or 8 p.m. after eating dinner. Even if your students have a homework load of just 1–2 hours, that means they won’t be able to get to bed until 9–10 p.m.

Sleep is incredibly important for growing children and teenagers. Teachers can minimize the impact that homework and school have on their students’ sleep. One of the benefits of not having as much homework is that your students will have the opportunity to get more sleep, which means they’ll be more awake and engaged in class the next day. 

3. Free time makes them well-rounded

It’s important for students to have a life outside of school, and homework means that more time for extra-curricular activities that students enjoy. Encourage students to engage in activities outside of school so they can develop into well-rounded individuals.

4. Family time is valuable to wellbeing

Spending quality time with family is another reason why kids should have less homework. If they did one less hour of homework and had one more hour of time with their families to play a game, watch movies, or just talk, it would contribute greatly not only to the health of the family but also to the wellbeing of the student. It also minimizes discipline issues as parents would be more involved in their children’s lives.

The Verdict: Kids Should Have Less Homework

Some of the benefits of less homework is that you’ll find out that your students love learning, are getting more sleep, enjoying themselves more with outside activities, and have more time to spend with family. 

If you want to give this a shot, you should think about practical ways that you can reduce your students’ homework load. For homework, I originally assigned five discussion questions that my students had to answer and three that they had to write short responses to. Later, I decided to change that to two discussion questions and two written-response questions. I found that the results were significantly better because the students were much more inclined to do the homework!

For you, maybe it’s reducing the number of questions like I did. Maybe it’s assigning fewer pages of reading. Whatever it is, know that giving less homework to your students will likely produce better results in class!

This article was adapted from a blog post initially developed by the education technology company Classcraft, which was acquired by HMH in 2023. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of HMH.

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TO GIVE OR NOT TO GIVE HOMEWORK…That is the question!

The amount of homework students are given differs greatly across grade levels and states. Some students are given hours of work while other students are assigned little or no work to be done at home.

So what’s appropriate? What is the purpose of homework? What are the advantages and disadvantages of homework? How much homework should be assigned? How important is the quality of the assignments? And most importantly: Does homework increase student achievement?

These questions represent the ongoing debate surrounding homework for the past two decades. According to a survey by the University of Michigan , homework has doubled over the last twenty years, especially in the younger grades, due to the school’s requirement to meet higher-than-ever achievement goals for children. Although homework has academic and non-academic advantages and disadvantages, the majority of studies conducted reveal inconclusive evidence that assigning homework increases student achievement. Most studies show positive effects for certain students, others suggest no effects, and some even suggest negative effects according to research by Alfie Kohn , an independent scholar (2006).

Let’s begin with the purpose of homework…

Educators assign homework for different reasons and purposes. Homework is assigned either as practice , preparation , extension , or integration of grade-level skills and concepts.

PRACTICE HOMEWORK reinforces learning from the skills and concepts already taught in the classroom. Practice homework promotes retention and automaticity of the concept , skill, and content taught. Examples include practicing multiplication facts or writing simple sentences in order to commit theses skills and concepts to long-term memory .

PREPARATION HOMEWORK is assigned to introduce content that will be addressed in future lessons. However, research suggests that homework is less effective if it is used to teach new or complex skills. For these types of assignments, students typically become stressed which can create a negative perspective towards learning and school.

EXTENSION HOMEWORK requires students to use previously taught skills and concepts and apply them to new situations or projects. For instance, students may use the concept of area and perimeter to build a flowerbed.

INTEGRATION HOMEWORK requires the student to apply learned skills and concepts to produce a single project like reading a book and writing a report on it.

Homework also serves other purposes not directly related to instruction. Homework can help establish communication between parents and children; it can be used as a form of discipline; and it can inform parents about school topics and activities.

The Homework Debate

The homework debate often focuses on how and why homework affects student learning and achievement. Harris Cooper, a professor of psychology, and colleagues (2006) found there are both positive and negative consequences of homework.

The Benefits

Homework provides practice with content, concepts, and skills taught at school by the teacher. It can foster retention and understanding of the academic content. Some studies suggest that homework correlates with student achievement. Cooper, Robinson, and Patall (2006) discovered a positive correlation between the amount of the homework students do and their achievement at the secondary level. Some studies also suggest that assigning homework improves the achievement of low-performing students and students in low-performing schools. However, the correlation between student achievement and homework given to elementary students is inconclusive. Most research only supports homework for middle and high school students (Cooper 1989a; Kohn 2006).

There are also non-academic reasons for assigning homework. Corno and Xu (2004) discovered that homework fosters independence, develops time-management skills, and teaches responsibility. Assigning homework to primary age students can establish better study habits and skills for secondary education (Bempechat, 2004). Homework promotes a positive attitude towards school and keeps families informed about their child’s learning.

The Potential Harm

Homework also has negative associations. It can lead to boredom if the student has already mastered the skills, and it can lead to loss of interest in school due to burnout.  Cheating is involved with homework by either copying another student’s work or when help is received from adults in an attempt to finish all the assignments.  Also, assigning excessive amounts of homework may result in unneeded stress and pressure on the child, which affects the student’s emotions, behaviors, thinking ability, and physical health.

The correlation between homework and student achievement is inconsistent. In The Battle Over Homework , Cooper determined that the average correlation between the time primary children spent on homework and achievement was around zero. Not to mention, the amount of homework completed had no effect on test scores.  David Baker and Gerald  LeTendre, professors of education at Penn State , found that countries that assign minimal amounts of homework, like Japan, were the most successful school systems compared to Greece and Iran school systems where students are given a lot of work.

Another concern surrounding homework is its interference with the student’s time to relax and take their minds off work as well as family time. Students are spending too much time completing homework assignments instead of playing outside or enjoying leisure activities, which teach and enhance important life skills.

In addition, homework decreases the time spent with family. As Alfie Kohn states in The Homework Myth , “ Why should children be asked to work a second shift? It’s unconscionable to send children to work for nearly eight hours a day, then have them go home and work for 2-5 more hours. Secondly, it reduces the amount of time that children could be spending with their families. Family time is especially important to a growing child and without it social problems can crop up and a family unit can be compromised by a lack of time being spent together .”

The Amount of Homework

The frequency and duration of each assignment does not necessarily suggest a correlation between homework and student achievement. “ We found that for kids in elementary school there was hardly any relationship between how much homework young children did and how well they were doing in school, but in middle school the relationship is positive and increases until the kids were doing between an hour to two hours a night, which is right where the 10-minute rule says it’s going to be optimal,” stated Harris Cooper. The 10-minute rule was created by the National PTA which suggests 10 minutes per a grade should be assigned (e.g., 70 minutes for 7 th grade). “After that it didn’t go up anymore. Kids that reported doing more than two hours of homework in middle school weren’t doing any better in school than kids who were doing between an hour to two hours ,” said Harris Cooper.

Quantity Versus Quality

Effective homework is homework with a purpose. According to Cooper, some teachers assign ‘shotgun homework’ : blanket drills, questions, and problems. Students are given homework that is not furthering the concepts and skills. The homework is assigned because it has been drilled into our collective mind that homework produces higher performing students. However, homework is most effective when it covers material already taught, is given for review, or is used to reinforce skills previously learned. Students should not be assigned homework on concepts and skills they do not grasp.

DataWORKS Educational Research recommends assigning homework to provide additional repetitions of the content to promote retention and automaticity . The reason for homework is to practice the content, NOT to learn the content.  Students learn the content (skills and concepts) from the lesson taught at school. Students need to be able to complete the work at home without assistance because some students do not have an English-speaking parents or guardians to help them.

In conclusion, research is inconsistent in determining if homework increases student achievement. As educators, the amount, frequency, and the purpose should be considered prior to assigning homework. Homework should be used effectively! Instead of the quantity of homework, educators should improve the quality of the assignments. Homework assignments must be well-designed.  So, when assigning homework, please consider the effectiveness of it, homework should positively impact the student learning. Otherwise, the debate about homework will continue without an answer – to give or not to give !

Kohn, Alfie (2007). Rethinking Homework .

Kohn, Alfie.   The Homework Myth:  Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing  (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2006).

Cooper, H. (1989).  Homework.  White Plains, NY: Longman.

Cooper, H., Robinson, J. C., & Patall, E. A. (2006). Does homework improve academic achievement? A synthesis of research .  1987–2003.  Review of Educational Research, 76 (1), 1–62.

What is your stance on homework? What do you think is an appropriate amount of homework? Why do you assign homework? Please share your experiences in the comment section below.

Author:  patricia bogdanovich.

Patricia has held various positions with DataWORKS since 2002. She currently works as a Curriculum Specialist. Patricia helped develop and create many of the early resources and workshops designed by DataWORKS, and she is an expert in analysis of standards. Patricia plans to blog about curriculum and assessments for CCSS and NGSS, classroom strategies, and news and research from the world of education.

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Homework – Top 3 Pros and Cons

Pro/Con Arguments | Discussion Questions | Take Action | Sources | More Debates

From dioramas to book reports, from algebraic word problems to research projects, whether students should be given homework, as well as the type and amount of homework, has been debated for over a century. [ 1 ]

While we are unsure who invented homework, we do know that the word “homework” dates back to ancient Rome. Pliny the Younger asked his followers to practice their speeches at home. Memorization exercises as homework continued through the Middle Ages and Enlightenment by monks and other scholars. [ 45 ]

In the 19th century, German students of the Volksschulen or “People’s Schools” were given assignments to complete outside of the school day. This concept of homework quickly spread across Europe and was brought to the United States by Horace Mann , who encountered the idea in Prussia. [ 45 ]

In the early 1900s, progressive education theorists, championed by the magazine Ladies’ Home Journal , decried homework’s negative impact on children’s physical and mental health, leading California to ban homework for students under 15 from 1901 until 1917. In the 1930s, homework was portrayed as child labor, which was newly illegal, but the prevailing argument was that kids needed time to do household chores. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 45 ] [ 46 ]

Public opinion swayed again in favor of homework in the 1950s due to concerns about keeping up with the Soviet Union’s technological advances during the Cold War . And, in 1986, the US government included homework as an educational quality boosting tool. [ 3 ] [ 45 ]

A 2014 study found kindergarteners to fifth graders averaged 2.9 hours of homework per week, sixth to eighth graders 3.2 hours per teacher, and ninth to twelfth graders 3.5 hours per teacher. A 2014-2019 study found that teens spent about an hour a day on homework. [ 4 ] [ 44 ]

Beginning in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic complicated the very idea of homework as students were schooling remotely and many were doing all school work from home. Washington Post journalist Valerie Strauss asked, “Does homework work when kids are learning all day at home?” While students were mostly back in school buildings in fall 2021, the question remains of how effective homework is as an educational tool. [ 47 ]

Is Homework Beneficial?

Pro 1 Homework improves student achievement. Studies have shown that homework improved student achievement in terms of improved grades, test results, and the likelihood to attend college. Research published in the High School Journal indicated that students who spent between 31 and 90 minutes each day on homework “scored about 40 points higher on the SAT-Mathematics subtest than their peers, who reported spending no time on homework each day, on average.” [ 6 ] Students in classes that were assigned homework outperformed 69% of students who didn’t have homework on both standardized tests and grades. A majority of studies on homework’s impact – 64% in one meta-study and 72% in another – showed that take-home assignments were effective at improving academic achievement. [ 7 ] [ 8 ] Research by the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) concluded that increased homework led to better GPAs and higher probability of college attendance for high school boys. In fact, boys who attended college did more than three hours of additional homework per week in high school. [ 10 ] Read More

Pro 2 Homework helps to reinforce classroom learning, while developing good study habits and life skills. Students typically retain only 50% of the information teachers provide in class, and they need to apply that information in order to truly learn it. Abby Freireich and Brian Platzer, co-founders of Teachers Who Tutor NYC, explained, “at-home assignments help students learn the material taught in class. Students require independent practice to internalize new concepts… [And] these assignments can provide valuable data for teachers about how well students understand the curriculum.” [ 11 ] [ 49 ] Elementary school students who were taught “strategies to organize and complete homework,” such as prioritizing homework activities, collecting study materials, note-taking, and following directions, showed increased grades and more positive comments on report cards. [ 17 ] Research by the City University of New York noted that “students who engage in self-regulatory processes while completing homework,” such as goal-setting, time management, and remaining focused, “are generally more motivated and are higher achievers than those who do not use these processes.” [ 18 ] Homework also helps students develop key skills that they’ll use throughout their lives: accountability, autonomy, discipline, time management, self-direction, critical thinking, and independent problem-solving. Freireich and Platzer noted that “homework helps students acquire the skills needed to plan, organize, and complete their work.” [ 12 ] [ 13 ] [ 14 ] [ 15 ] [ 49 ] Read More

Pro 3 Homework allows parents to be involved with children’s learning. Thanks to take-home assignments, parents are able to track what their children are learning at school as well as their academic strengths and weaknesses. [ 12 ] Data from a nationwide sample of elementary school students show that parental involvement in homework can improve class performance, especially among economically disadvantaged African-American and Hispanic students. [ 20 ] Research from Johns Hopkins University found that an interactive homework process known as TIPS (Teachers Involve Parents in Schoolwork) improves student achievement: “Students in the TIPS group earned significantly higher report card grades after 18 weeks (1 TIPS assignment per week) than did non-TIPS students.” [ 21 ] Homework can also help clue parents in to the existence of any learning disabilities their children may have, allowing them to get help and adjust learning strategies as needed. Duke University Professor Harris Cooper noted, “Two parents once told me they refused to believe their child had a learning disability until homework revealed it to them.” [ 12 ] Read More

Con 1 Too much homework can be harmful. A poll of California high school students found that 59% thought they had too much homework. 82% of respondents said that they were “often or always stressed by schoolwork.” High-achieving high school students said too much homework leads to sleep deprivation and other health problems such as headaches, exhaustion, weight loss, and stomach problems. [ 24 ] [ 28 ] [ 29 ] Alfie Kohn, an education and parenting expert, said, “Kids should have a chance to just be kids… it’s absurd to insist that children must be engaged in constructive activities right up until their heads hit the pillow.” [ 27 ] Emmy Kang, a mental health counselor, explained, “More than half of students say that homework is their primary source of stress, and we know what stress can do on our bodies.” [ 48 ] Excessive homework can also lead to cheating: 90% of middle school students and 67% of high school students admit to copying someone else’s homework, and 43% of college students engaged in “unauthorized collaboration” on out-of-class assignments. Even parents take shortcuts on homework: 43% of those surveyed admitted to having completed a child’s assignment for them. [ 30 ] [ 31 ] [ 32 ] Read More

Con 2 Homework exacerbates the digital divide or homework gap. Kiara Taylor, financial expert, defined the digital divide as “the gap between demographics and regions that have access to modern information and communications technology and those that don’t. Though the term now encompasses the technical and financial ability to utilize available technology—along with access (or a lack of access) to the Internet—the gap it refers to is constantly shifting with the development of technology.” For students, this is often called the homework gap. [ 50 ] [ 51 ] 30% (about 15 to 16 million) public school students either did not have an adequate internet connection or an appropriate device, or both, for distance learning. Completing homework for these students is more complicated (having to find a safe place with an internet connection, or borrowing a laptop, for example) or impossible. [ 51 ] A Hispanic Heritage Foundation study found that 96.5% of students across the country needed to use the internet for homework, and nearly half reported they were sometimes unable to complete their homework due to lack of access to the internet or a computer, which often resulted in lower grades. [ 37 ] [ 38 ] One study concluded that homework increases social inequality because it “potentially serves as a mechanism to further advantage those students who already experience some privilege in the school system while further disadvantaging those who may already be in a marginalized position.” [ 39 ] Read More

Con 3 Homework does not help younger students, and may not help high school students. We’ve known for a while that homework does not help elementary students. A 2006 study found that “homework had no association with achievement gains” when measured by standardized tests results or grades. [ 7 ] Fourth grade students who did no homework got roughly the same score on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) math exam as those who did 30 minutes of homework a night. Students who did 45 minutes or more of homework a night actually did worse. [ 41 ] Temple University professor Kathryn Hirsh-Pasek said that homework is not the most effective tool for young learners to apply new information: “They’re learning way more important skills when they’re not doing their homework.” [ 42 ] In fact, homework may not be helpful at the high school level either. Alfie Kohn, author of The Homework Myth, stated, “I interviewed high school teachers who completely stopped giving homework and there was no downside, it was all upside.” He explains, “just because the same kids who get more homework do a little better on tests, doesn’t mean the homework made that happen.” [ 52 ] Read More

Discussion Questions

1. Is homework beneficial? Consider the study data, your personal experience, and other types of information. Explain your answer(s).

2. If homework were banned, what other educational strategies would help students learn classroom material? Explain your answer(s).

3. How has homework been helpful to you personally? How has homework been unhelpful to you personally? Make carefully considered lists for both sides.

Take Action

1. Examine an argument in favor of quality homework assignments from Janine Bempechat.

2. Explore Oxford Learning’s infographic on the effects of homework on students.

3. Consider Joseph Lathan’s argument that homework promotes inequality .

4. Consider how you felt about the issue before reading this article. After reading the pros and cons on this topic, has your thinking changed? If so, how? List two to three ways. If your thoughts have not changed, list two to three ways your better understanding of the “other side of the issue” now helps you better argue your position.

5. Push for the position and policies you support by writing US national senators and representatives .

More School Debate Topics

Should K-12 Students Dissect Animals in Science Classrooms? – Proponents say dissecting real animals is a better learning experience. Opponents say the practice is bad for the environment.

Should Students Have to Wear School Uniforms? – Proponents say uniforms may increase student safety. Opponents say uniforms restrict expression.

Should Corporal Punishment Be Used in K-12 Schools? – Proponents say corporal punishment is an appropriate discipline. Opponents say it inflicts long-lasting physical and mental harm on students.

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The Case Against Grading Homework

When homework is meaningful and contributes to their learning, students are more likely to complete it.

As a middle school teacher, I sometimes spot students huddled up in the school hallway before class frantically copying homework. A teacher can stop to intervene, as I have done dozens of times, but we all know that they’ll just find a new place to copy the work away from the observant eyes of the adults at school. This is clearly academic dishonesty, and it’s easy to point the finger at the students. But what is the root cause of this dishonest behavior?

The student who is copying their homework either didn’t have time to complete it, forgot to do it, or doesn’t care to do it. They are copying the work so they can earn, most likely, a completion grade on the assignment. Students know the drill—if it looks like they did the assignment, then that’s good enough for a completion check mark in the grade book.

Is the student concerned that it’s imperative to review and practice this material in order to do well on the subsequent assessments in class? Is the student concerned that they will be found out during a rich conversation about the exercises in class? Probably not, or else the student would not resort to simply copying the work.

What are we doing as teachers to make homework worthwhile for the students beyond the typical completion grade?

3 Ways to Motivate Students to Do Ungraded Homework

1. Make assignments meaningful. Teachers and students alike know that practice is necessary to perform well. It would be hard to argue with an athletic coach that going to practice is not necessary, and instead, it’s fine to just show up to the game and wing it.

”Practice > scrimmage > game” is a helpful metaphor that the educators at Adlai Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, Illinois, use to describe their school’s homework/assessment grading structure. Like team practice, homework is assigned for the purpose of practicing and reviewing—and to further the metaphor, practices are not graded, of course. Scrimmages can be compared to quizzes or other lower-stakes assessments. Lastly, the game is the culminating summative assessment such as a project or test.

Using this metaphor borrowed from athletics, it’s clear that students must practice and review to perform their best for the big game.

Beyond sharing this metaphor with your students, sometimes it takes explicit explanation from the teacher for the students to see this connection. “Tonight you are assigned 15 various conjugation exercises to help you prepare for your mock job interview project. Both partners will need to be proficient with simple past tense to conduct the interview.” If a student wants to engage appropriately in their upcoming French interview project, they will be motivated to review their ​​passé simple conjugations.

2. Feedback doesn’t have to be a grade. A sixth-grade student once told me that she completed all her math homework, but she never knew if she did it right. If I were in her math class, I would be unmotivated to do any of my homework.

Beyond providing an answer key so that students can self-check that they are on the right track with their work, teachers can also engage in meaningful feedback on homework. This might look like students randomly posting problems and their work on the board, students discussing problems in small groups, or providing time in class for students to ask about any questions they were unsure about. (Read more about how to create a mistake-friendly classroom here .)

I find that when I follow homework with a rich discussion the next day, students are more likely to complete their assignments. They know they cannot fully participate in the discussion unless they have their work with them at that moment. When homework is followed with feedback, students can close the loop on how they are performing with a concept, without having to be assigned a grade.

3. Students are still held accountable even if homework isn’t graded. Cathy Vatterott, author of Rethinking Homework , writes for the Association of Middle Level Education , “Teachers who don’t grade homework still monitor completion of assignments and communicate with parents about missing work. They just don’t count it as part of the student’s grade.” Teachers can keep a record of homework completion to inform conversations with parents and caregivers.

A teacher might share this information with a parent: “Emma struggled with simplifying fractions on her recent quiz. She was assigned two practice assignments on this topic last week, but she only brought one to class. It is important that she keep up with the daily practice to improve with this concept.”

There are several ways to keep a record of student work without assigning a grade. Laila I. McCloud, director of the MEd in Higher Education Program at Grand Valley State University, writes in the article “ Keeping Receipts: Thoughts on Ungrading from a Black Woman Professor ,” “I keep receipts in the following ways: having students engage in peer review of their work, providing detailed feedback, and using course engagement reflections.”

Instructional coach Tyler Rablin suggests a team-style game to get students engaged with the previous night’s homework or allow the students to use their homework (with feedback) as an aid on a future assessment. “Accountability doesn’t just have to mean an added consequence, but it can be a much more authentic and natural consequence (both positive or negative) for the homework.”

There will always be pushback from teachers, administrators, and parents who claim that students will not complete the assignment if it’s not graded. To counter this argument, there will always be students who won’t do the assignment whether it’s graded or not. When homework isn’t graded, a student’s average in the class reflects only what they know and can do in class—a more equitable reflection of a student’s progress .

With meaningful assignments and robust feedback, students may be more motivated to engage with practice and review. Reflect on ways you can shift your students’ perspective on homework. If students are regularly not completing the work you’re assigning, ask for feedback on how the assignments can become more meaningful and beneficial to their learning.

A lot of teachers are working on new approaches to homework in an attempt to guide students to focus on their learning rather than grades . If you have strategies you’ve had some success with, or if you have questions that other educators might be able to help with, please share them in the comments.

Why Cellphone Bans Aren’t the Cure for Student Anxiety

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The theater was united in a cheer; students’ 9th grade classmate had just finished reciting a sestina about his favorite soccer team. As the applause subsided and the next student stood and approached the podium, I turned to the audience—over a hundred teenagers smiling and waving glow sticks as they listened to the poetry recital. Not a phone in sight.

As you read this, school leaders, from California to France, are contemplating a total ban on cellphones in school to begin in September. I am now in my 25th year of teaching and I can say that it is hard to build a case for the unrestricted use of phones in classrooms. That said, it is also hard to see how a phone ban will be, as some suggest, the cure for the anxiety, lack of engagement, and general anomie felt by teenagers today.

As a society we are still adjusting to the risks and rewards of the technological advances of the past 25 years. We all remember how we were all told to turn off our cellphones for takeoff and how we accepted the risk but now we all know that the risk our cellphones posed to the plane was overstated. It was an (understandable) gambit to establish authority.

As teachers and school leaders, we must consider the extent to which our policies are geared toward learning , which is liberatory, or control , which is limiting. Cellphone-free classrooms might have a role to play in learning, but we should also create occasions for celebration and joy. There must be something for students to look forward to other than lunch, final exams, and getting their cellphones back.

The cellphone ban’s current loudest champion must be Jonathan Haidt. You may have seen his newest book, The Anxious Generation, mentioned at a staff meeting or in your class parent WhatsApp group. Maybe you’ve seen an Apple Watch-strapped wrist reaching for it in your local bookstore. The hobgoblin of Haidt’s book is not cellphones, per se, but social media and other “internet-based activities.”

Banning or restricting social media is a much more arduous quest and not one for schools to pursue (the U.S. surgeon general , for instance, has been sounding the alarm for action on social media’s effects on teens), but banning the cellphone is a policy that has been, or might soon be, coming to a school near you. To those who haven’t yet read the book, this might seem like a reductive version of a complicated issue. It is—but on Haidt’s part, not mine.

In the conclusion of his book, Haidt claims that sometimes it is better to do one big thing than many small things, and that now is the time to do two big things. Then, taking no chances with the modern attention span, he bullet-points his take-aways: Schools should eliminate cellphones and increase the amount of “free play.”

Curiously (or not), the first bullet point is getting far more attention than the second. Finding time and supervision for unstructured play—or a poetry festival—takes months. A new line in the student handbook takes minutes. Taking something away must seem easier to most readers than adding something new, so the reductive argument gets reduced even further.

I won’t quarrel with his simple solutions, not because I disagree with them, but because my quarrel is with simple solutions generally and the way simple solutions imply simple problems. The mobile phone by itself is no more the problem than the television, explicit music, or video games were the problems. The mental health of teenagers, the role that the internet plays in our lives, the actions a school can take to make the world a better place: These are vitally important but certainly not simple issues. We cannot support our students’ well-being by seeking simple solutions to complex problems, even if simple solutions are by their nature so attractive.

Every two weeks over the past two years, I used a simple online tool that asked students to rate their well-being from “Doing Great 😆” to “Overwhelmed ☹.” What came across most clearly was that student stress spiked in the weeks leading up to major assessments and college deadlines. Unlike social media, these fall clearly within our locus of control. This data helped my school to frame the questions around how we could support students by staggering assessments and providing more contact time with the college office.

As teachers and school leaders, we must not shirk the responsibility we have been given as those who both build the maze and guide our students through it. We should listen to the wisdom of researchers—and we should listen to the voices of young people. We must find ways to cultivate belonging and purpose.

The internet did not invent bullying, comparing oneself unfavorably to others and feeling disconnected, but the internet has provided an efficient and seductive platform for these behaviors.

Googling “Jonathan Haidt” proves that the internet allows all kinds of ideas to spread rapidly and gain popularity—particularly those ideas presented in simple terms. As Andrew Solomon observed in a recent review of Haidt’s latest book , “Nuance entails uncertainty; in a confusing world it is easy to fall prey to almost any form of clarity.”

What a more nuanced approach to student anxiety would look like differs from school to school and grade to grade, but with some effort, schools can be conduits for joy as much as, if not more than, anxiety. If we can’t imagine that, we should tap into our greatest resource: the creative potential stored in the minds of students and teachers.

The poetry festival I described earlier was not only a celebration of the students’ achievement, but it is also a way to cultivate community through sharing, supporting, and spectacle. In addition to sports (lots of sports), students read poems about hallway crushes, war, and the beauty of spring. Teachers chose some of the awards, and students chose others.

The cheers, applause, and stomping feet brought us together in a sense of common enjoyment. I glanced past the students who were focused on the spotlighted poet to a darkened corner of the theater—illuminated by a cool, eerie glow was an adult looking at something on their mobile phone.

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Tim Walz's son Gus has a learning disorder. Can his visibility help disabled Americans?

CHICAGO – When Jessica Anacker was in junior high, a teacher pulled her out of English class one day after she was bullied by a student because of her learning disability.

Instead of disciplining the tormenter, “she blamed me for being bullied,” Anacker said.

An angry Anacker fired back, telling the teacher, “It’s your job to take care of it.”

Now president of the Texas Democrats With Disabilities caucus and a delegate at this week’s Democratic National Convention , Anacker is thrilled that there could soon be someone to "take care of" such issues at the highest level of government.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz , Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris ' running mate, has spoken openly and lovingly about his 17-year-old son, Gus, who has ADHD , along with a nonverbal learning disorder and an anxiety disorder. Walz and his wife, Gwen, both former teachers, said recently in a statement to People magazine that they never considered Gus’ conditions an obstacle.

"Like so many American families, it took us time to figure out how to make sure we did everything we could to make sure Gus would be set up for success as he was growing up," the couple said.

"It took time, but what became so immediately clear to us was that Gus’ condition is not a setback − it’s his secret power," they said.

When Walz delivered his acceptance speech inside the packed United Center arena Wednesday night, Gus watched from the audience with his mother and sister, Hope, and sobbed.

"That's my dad!" he exclaimed.

From the stage, Walz honored his family. “Hope, Gus and Gwen – you are my entire world, and I love you,” he said.

Gus Walz sprung from his seat, moved by his father's words.

He pointed his index finger, saying "I love you, Dad."

Advocates for Americans with learning disabilities believe the Walz family's openness about their son and their willingness to speak publicly about the experience will raise much-needed visibility that could help others who are going through similar experiences.

“It’s a good thing when people in politics, who are running for office, are comfortable discussing disability issues and don’t view it as a topic that is taboo or something that we shouldn’t discuss,” said Zoe Gross, director of advocacy for the Washington-based Autistic Self Advocacy Network.

When public figures are open about their experiences with disability or those of their family, that can lead more people to feel comfortable disclosing their own disabilities or talking about their family’s experiences, Gross said.

“That’s helpful,” she said, “because in order to talk about the needs of the disability community, we need to be comfortable discussing disability as a society, just like we talk about the needs of any marginalized population.”

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In a sign of how important the Harris-Walz campaign views disability rights, Gwen Walz made a surprise appearance Tuesday at a meeting of disability advocates at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. She made no mention of her son during her brief remarks but said her husband believes strongly “that every student and every person deserves a chance to get ahead.”

Walz is not the first vice presidential nominee who has a child with a disability. Sarah Palin , the Republican nominee in 2008, has a son, Trig, who has Down syndrome. Trig was an infant when his mother was running for vice president. Palin cradled him in her arms on stage after delivering her acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. Amy Coney Barrett, appointed to the Supreme Court in 2020, also has a son with Down syndrome.

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In their statement to People magazine, Tim and Gwen Walz said they noticed Gus’ special abilities at an early age.

"When our youngest Gus was growing up, it became increasingly clear that he was different from his classmates," they said. "Gus preferred video games and spending more time by himself."

When he was becoming a teenager, they learned that in addition to an anxiety disorder, he has attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, a brain development condition that starts in childhood and is marked by trouble with maintaining attention, hyperactivity and impulse control difficulties.

ADHD in adults is relatively common and affects between 139 million and 360 million people worldwide, according to the Cleveland Clinic. With treatment, people usually have limited effects from it.

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Anacker, the Texas delegate at the Democratic convention, said it’s important for people with ADHD and other learning disabilities to have people in positions of power advocate on their behalf.

Anacker is neurodivergent , a nonmedical term used to describe people whose brains develop or work differently from most people. She also has a speech impediment and dysgraphia, a neurological condition in which people have difficulty turning their thoughts into written language.

In high school, she remembers dissolving into tears because she couldn’t draw a picture of a frog during science class. As an adult, she has never been fully employed, she said, because employers have a difficult time making accommodations for her disability.

No matter who wins the election in November, advocates hope the needs of Americans with disabilities will become a priority for the next administration.

Gross’ group, for example, would like to see expanded home and community-based services through Medicaid, which she said is one of the most urgent issues facing Americans with autism. Many states have long waiting lists for such services, and people who provide those services are underpaid, which leads to huge staff turnover, Gross said.

In addition, advocates hope to see an expansion of employment services, a realignment of government research to focus more on quality-of-life issues, and a federal ban on use of seclusion or restraints in public schools except in cases when they are needed to prevent physical danger, like stopping someone from running into a busy street.

Sen. Tammy Duckworth , an Iraq War veteran who lost both of her legs and partial use of her right arm when her Black Hawk helicopter was hit by a grenade, said Walz’s openness about his son will benefit all Americans with disabilities.

“For so long, disability was a hidden thing – you took care of your loved ones, but you didn’t talk about it publicly,” Duckworth, D-Ill., said after speaking to disability advocates at the Democratic convention. “Many disabled people stayed in the home, are not out in the workplace, and we really need to normalize those people with disabilities in a normal society so that you can get the job, you can show people you can do the job.”

Regardless of the election outcome in November, Walz is already spotlighting ADHD and other learning disabilities just by talking about his son during the campaign , advocates said.

“We love our Gus,” Tim and Gwen Walz said in their statement. “We are proud of the man he’s growing into, and we are so excited to have him with us on this journey."

Michael Collins covers the White House. Follow him on X @mcollinsNEWS.