Rescuing Homework From Pointlessness

The point of homework

With California having recently issued a law cutting down on homework on the grounds of addressing a global decline in teenage mental wellbeing, a number of mental health experts in the UK have urged a similar policy. Most schools, however, continue to argue that homework remains a vital pedagogical tool, facilitating independent learning and providing opportunities for reinforcement, practice and extension.

Rather than banning homework altogether, therefore, the question should be: how can schools ensure that the work set outside of the classroom is purposeful and manageable for students?

Homework is something many of us as adults will be familiar with from our own school days. Some of us will recall homework that had a positive impact on our studies, self-esteem and future. Others, however, will have memories of tasks that seemed pointless, too easy or repetitive. In some cases, homework will have also caused a great deal of anxiety, especially if the task in hand felt overly complex or difficult, or conflicted with our undeveloped time-management skills.

‘Homework’ as a term covers a range of activities and setting meaningful homework tasks requires skills and reflection. It requires us to know our students well, to understand the time constraints they work under and to encourage honest feedback. Actively generating constructive feedback will not only help our students to improve but will also help us to set more purposeful homework in the future.

These challenges are not insurmountable; they are in many ways similar to the challenges of setting appropriate tasks within a student’s zone of proximal development in class. Some tasks in class will cause anxiety, but teachers are on hand to support their students through this. Likewise, some homework tasks will undoubtedly cause anxiety, but encouraging students to lean into the support on offer will help many to overcome these barriers.

Taking shortcuts

Setting homework that allows students to develop skills and to learn the facts that underpin those skills is important. This development happens during the completion of the task, rather than as a result of the end product. I have files full of essays written at school and university which I can safely say I have not read regularly. The essays themselves now have little impact on me beyond filling the house with boxes, but the skills I developed while writing them have proved of use every day.

This distinction is not always easy to see when you are the one doing the homework: it is easy to fixate on the end product and the sense of achievement that comes with submitting a task. Herein lies the moral hazard. Years ago, students could take a shortcut to the end product by copying from books. More recently, this evolved into copying from websites, with the more enterprising remembering to remove hyperlinks.

This sort of plagiarism short-circuited the task and reduced the thinking students were required to do, which resulted in reduced learning. A student might have produced an essay of similar quality to someone else, but would not have learned as much or developed the same skills.

These past plagiarism shortcuts, however, are nothing compared to what AI (artificial intelligence) can now offer. With this in mind, schools must be mindful of how students will approach the homework set. As teachers, we must be explicit as to the skills we want our students to develop. We can do this by making a distinction between judging a task’s success by reviewing the end product and assessing the process a student has undergone to arrive there.

A culture within a school that explicitly values the journey rather than the destination will encourage students to avoid shortcuts and maximise their development. This is not to suggest that AI doesn’t have its place in the school environment, but we need to teach students how to use it effectively.

Challenging, not boring

Technology and AI allow us to provide students with a wider range of multimedia tasks than was previously possible. With the variety of adaptive platforms available, we can set tasks that differentiate and adapt to individual needs. These platforms also encourage a ‘little and often’ approach, which can space out topics and give rapid feedback to students on how they can improve. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that, used in the right way, these features provide a fertile environment for learning.

Adapting homework to suit differing learning styles is in itself a difficult topic. The evidence supporting VAK (Visual, Auditory, or Kinaesthetic) and the like is not strong. However, a variety of task types can help students maintain their motivation and we should be mindful of this when planning tasks. Setting dozens of repetitive questions week after week will not inspire students; the more thoughtful tasks might engage a range of forms of media instead, boosting motivation and creativity.

In summary, homework needs to provide sufficient challenge to promote development without becoming boring. Unfortunately, it is difficult to guard against a student responding to an increase in challenge by taking more time over the task than intended. A culture whereby our expectations of time spent are clear and understood – and where we gather feedback from students to allow us to set better tasks in future – will promote a healthy relationship with homework.

School leadership will need to provide guidance and a level playing field so that passionate departments, with the best intentions, do not take up their fair share of a student’s time. How much is too much? This will depend on the student; there cannot be a hard and fast rule that would work in all environments and for all students. Some students will have significant interests outside of the curriculum and some will enjoy their studies more than their peers, but nurturing an open dialogue environment is crucial.

Different approaches to education will always provide us with evidence to support paths of action. We should celebrate experimentation when it comes to setting homework, but be mindful of our success criteria. The outcomes of these changes can take a long time to manifest.

Hugh Grant is Deputy Head Academic at Downe House School, an independent day and boarding school in Berkshire for girls aged 11-18.