Homework has always existed - in Ukraine, it has been an integral part of the education system for more than five centuries. But since then, almost everything in our schools has changed. In addition, the usefulness of homework has not been proven and is always a subject of debate - many children and parents consider it too difficult and unnecessary.

Many teachers still like to use homework to reinforce what they've learned or to cover material gaps. But homework is not intended for the latter. Some schools now do without homework, have study times, weekly timetables or homework supervision during which children at best have a competent contact person for questions. So they go home with no homework and really have a free day after school.

Maybe you work at a full-time school where there is study time instead of homework or something similar. In this post, we look at the potential advantages and disadvantages of homework and consider the available research and possible reasons for rethinking the topic.

Content

1. According to what rules should homework be built?
2. Homework in primary school: pros and cons
2.1. 5 possible benefits of homework
2.2. 5 possible disadvantages of homework
3. Current problems related to school and homework
4. How can you rethink homework? 5 offers
4.1. "Unfinished" homework?
4.2. How are your students doing with their homework?
4.3. How much homework is required for all subjects?
4.4. How is homework checked?
4.5. Is it possible without homework?

By what rules should homework be built?

As a teacher, you are not obligated to give homework. However, if you choose to do this, your students should do so even if homework is not graded because it is unclear how independently the child completed it. However, teachers have the opportunity to conduct and assign grades in class based on the material covered in the homework.

The content of homework should be such that children can solve it independently. Depending on the class, homework should not exceed the following time:

  • 1st class: as short as possible and only a little homework to get used to
  • 2nd grade: a maximum of half an hour daily
  • Grades 3-4: a maximum of one hour per day
  • Grades 5 and 6: a maximum of 90 minutes per day

Homework in elementary school: pros and cons

Homework is just a part of everyday school life - this is the opinion held by many teachers and parents. Therefore, it is easier to continue as before, instead of daring to explore new avenues.

5 possible benefits of homework

Below we list five potential reasons for homework.

1. What you learned can be further deepened
And that's what homework is for: kids have developed, understood, and applied the content together in class so they can work through the new material again with some time to spare. This gives children the opportunity to re-engage with the topic calmly, at their own pace and with their own understanding.

2. Some students can concentrate better alone/at home
No matter how large or noisy the class, there are simply children who prefer to work in their personal comfort zone or simply alone.

3. Homework gives introverted children an opportunity to work well
In particular, introverted children do not take an active part in the lesson, if they can somehow avoid it. This does not mean that they do not follow the material with interest and attention, but those who withdraw significantly from the classroom may have less academic success than a child who shares ideas with others and tests his solutions in class.

At the same time, reserved children are more invisible in the classroom and therefore, unfortunately, usually get worse grades than students who always diligently participate in oral communication. Therefore, it is important for these children to be able to prove that they understand everything.

4. With the help of homework, children learn to organize and structure themselves
Practice early... Being able to motivate yourself and manage your time is also an important skill in your later school career and in your professional life. In the beginning you will of course help your children, e.g. protecting them from being overloaded with homework from multiple subjects on separate days of the week. But it doesn't hurt if your children learn early to do a little bit every day, and ideally at a certain time. Homework is a great practice for this.

5. Homework helps to prepare for tests
For many children, lessons are not enough to prepare them for exams. They need to take a moment to think about what they have learned, think about what they still have questions about, and what they have learned well. This is the same approach you as a teacher teach your children when it comes to homework. If it works well with homework, kids will hopefully save themselves extra study time right before the test.

5 possible disadvantages of homework

No sun without rain - As you already know or are about to read, some of the advantages mentioned above are disadvantages for other students:

1. Homework cannot be completed (without help).
If some children do not understand the lesson material, they will not be able to do their homework. This leads to frustration and excessive demands, perhaps anger at home or shame and negative self-esteem – and further bad experiences when homework is not done.

Of course, homework should contain only familiar material, but in everyday life the teacher cannot always say with certainty whether all students have learned everything and, therefore, can work on it independently. At the same time, homework is usually the same for all children - and it is irrational to assume that all students in a class have the same level of learning.

2. Not all students have a (quiet) work area at home
If you don't have your own room or even a desk, it's hard to focus at home. If such circumstances prevail at home, it can be assumed that parents do not see the need to support their child with homework at all, instead encouraging them to help with chores etc. after school.

3. Self-execution is difficult to verify
Who copied, who used the Internet, or whose parents sit next to them and dictate the right decisions? Of course, teachers can selectively check the level of knowledge, but not regularly and not for all children. And when it turns out in front of the whole class that the child did not cope with the task, it is an unpleasant situation - and it is also not a positive incentive to act differently in the future, if he could.

4. The benefits of homework have not been scientifically proven
Well, just because we've always done it that way doesn't mean it's right. It would be unimaginable if our school system looked like it did when homework was first introduced 500 years ago. There are no studies that would confirm the effectiveness of homework. Studies comparing the academic performance of children who haven't had homework in years with other children who have had to do homework have found no difference - except that the homework-free children are happier.

Some studies show that frequent homework (in this case math) can be beneficial, while lots of homework has the opposite effect. In John Hattie's meta-study Visible Learning, which he published in 2009, homework is ranked 88 out of 138 in terms of its impact on academic performance. Previous locations include birth weight, school size and leadership, teacher expectations, and medication. In the first place is the self-assessment of one's own level of success.

5. Homework is often too much
Namely subjective and/or objective. Children who have trouble concentrating, are anxious or restless, feel overwhelmed or unsure, or don't understand tasks, won't complete them as quickly as teachers think they should be able to. This leads to procrastination, procrastination, anger, tears, arguments with parents, etc., and in severe cases it can take hours to more or less successfully complete three small verbal tasks.

Even objectively, the scale is sometimes out of bounds, e.g. if the kids have homework in multiple subjects, put off each homework until the last day, or want to be extra thorough/detailed.

Current challenges around school and homework

Teaching has never been an easy task, especially today. Since you are familiar with the current issues, we will briefly touch on only three aspects.

1. Lessons were canceled due to a lack of teachers and poor performance due to the war
The current teacher shortage is a huge problem, but you can't solve it on your own. In addition, homework is not intended to make up for the material studied.

2. Heterogeneous study groups
Different educations, learning difficulties, moving to another region - in fact, these are all ancient, but the more heterogeneous the group, the slower the pace of learning. Unfortunately, everyday school life usually allows for only a limited degree of internal differentiation and often even less when it comes to homework.

3. Artificial intelligence as a universal assistant?
This may affect elementary school less than middle school, but since ChatGPT is on everyone's lips, elementary school students may also be tempted to write an essay or solve a word problem with AI .

Depending on how creative or not the task is and how smart the student is, you will hardly notice the difference. For example, you can simply copy math word problems into ChatGPT and get a set of correct answers without having to figure out for yourself what arithmetic operation is required.

But to be honest: maybe parents or siblings completed the task or simply wrote it off. The fact is that until you are there when your students are solving the tasks, you will never know how independently they have completed them.

How can you rethink homework? 5 offers

Critically and individually, teachers can approach the topic of homework in several ways. Effort makes you wise, and you have nothing to lose. The following questions help to rethink existing concepts.

"Unfinished" homework?

In general, the question arises as to how useful such behavior is. If this happens often, ask yourself why. Are you faster than your students? And if so, why? Are you too impatient, want to catch up on the material, missed a lot of lessons? Is there generally a backlog or other circumstances that hold up your class?

But even apart from that, this norm can have several unwanted side effects:

Students who work slower or harder feel "punished" because they rarely complete assignments and therefore always have to do the rest at home. If this happens in several subjects every day, it inevitably leads to a large amount of homework.
Some students prefer to "rush" through assignments during class instead of placing importance on correctness or neatness in order to have time off after class.


How are your students doing with their homework?

With several dozen children in a class, it is not easy to find out how students are doing with their homework. Introduce a homework diary where parents or children record how long it took and how difficult it was for them, e.g. using the emoticon system.

To make sure your students trust you and tell the truth, you certainly shouldn't sanction honesty - not through mistrust, dismissal, etc. Explain to your children in advance that this journal is mainly used so that you can determine if the homework is too big or too difficult - and then find a happy solution together.

As is often the case, less is more. Your children will learn more when they complete smaller but understandable tasks than when they feel overwhelmed or frustrated.

How much homework is required for all subjects?

There may be a few specialist teachers who prefer to give homework at the beginning of the week so that it piles up on their children's desks on Tuesday and Wednesday.

At the same time, it is preferable if your students do not have homework in other subjects during the week in which the paper or test is due, so that they can better prepare for the test.

A homework notebook can also help here – but not for your students, but for you and your colleagues. This way, everyone has a better overview and can coordinate without talking. You may already be using transparent logging or something similar.

How is homework checked?

A quick check of completed assignments as you move from desk to desk doesn't force withdrawn students to present their solutions to the class, but it also means you can't tell if kids are completing assignments on their own.

Perhaps a compromise can be found here as well: if you don't want to lecture, maybe you'd like to volunteer homework at the end of class? This is especially useful for creative tasks: self-created word problems, self-written poems or essays, researched facts on specific topics, etc.

Children who consistently refrain from both types of presentations but mostly have homework, e.g. if you appreciate their struggles with a smiley face, you can praise them in private and encourage them to dare a little more. No child should be forced to speak in front of the class if they are clearly uncomfortable!

Is it possible without homework?

Try it for a few weeks. You probably also need a significant amount of class time to discuss homework. Now you can use this time to study together. Discuss this with staff and/or school management: what experiences have other teachers had?

Then get your students involved: What do they think of this idea? Do you notice changes in the children's behavior? What do the children themselves say about the changed situation? Do you feel more relaxed?

Don't tie the idea of giving up homework with conditions like, "We'll only do it if you do better from now on." This is not the point, but rather reinforces the sanctioning nature of the homework itself, and is also not a reliable statement for children, as only you decide whether children fulfill this condition. Arbitrariness, actual or imagined, has no place in everyday educational life.

Also talk to your parents. Parents often do not understand that homework is "suddenly" canceled and resist it. Of course, everyone should come together. It doesn't help anyone if you as a teacher or school discourage homework, and as a result some parents may still encourage their children to study at home.