
Teacher Expertise and Meaningful Homework Data-Driven Teaching And that has become my reflective mantra. Meaningful homework should always add value to the learning process for teachers and students. Using research from John Hattie and Robert Marzano, I was able to come to a strong conclusion. This realization brought me back to a narrower version of my original research question. Every day, I’d have a homework assignment written down after each class period I attended.īut, when I considered the “purpose” of each of these uses of homework, (o ver-planning? appearances? tradition?) I had to admit…none of those reasons benefits student learning. In almost every class! I remember filling in my student planner. As a student, I’d always been assigned homework. Of course, I also thought about the “tradition” of homework. If you aren’t assigning it, are you a rigorous teacher? Surely, a class students would learn something from would be assigning homework, right? Too much to do in one class period? Just assign the rest as homework!
Reflecting on my own mistakes, I thought about times I had over-planned my lessons. So I started thinking about the purpose of homework. In order to tackle this huge research question, I needed to narrow it.

These findings are intended for secondary classrooms. In this post, I’m writing about some of the key elements of my learning. When I combine what I’ve learned with my own teaching experiences, it really depends upon your context, your students’ needs, your purpose, and much, much more. There is not one correct answer for the homework dilemma. Homework tends to be just “TOO…” sometimes… too much, too little, too easy, too frustrating, and even – too antiquated.Īs I dug into my research question – What is meaningful homework? – I hoped I’d find a clear answer. With plenty of questions and not enough answers, I decided to do some research.

Some parents worry about the homework load, and others think it’s a sign of a quality education.

Still, schools are all over the board with the type and amount of homework they assign, ranging from none to quite a bit. Of course, those of us in education know this is typically not what an average homework load entails. What is meaningful homework? In middle and high school, stereotypical visions of students weighed down by heavy backpacks and up all hours of the night completing packets and studying for large exams abound.
