Help with Homework by: Sabrina Rice

What is homework to begin with?  The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines it as “an assignment given to a student to be completed outside the regular class period.”  This is a very generic definition however, and homework means different things to different people.  To some it’s “really too keep it fresh in your mind and let you practice at home and it just gives you a little extra practice to help you get this subject or a concept down” or  “the purpose of homework is  to practice and retain information that you learned during class that day.”  This shows that homework means different things to different people, which is why there should be more homework options that work better for different people.

The most common types of homework for most people are worksheets, which are very good but they can be repetitive.  I interviewed many different people in different grade levels in different states, and almost every person said that they got worksheet the most.  This doesn’t have to be the case though, because there are hundreds of different ways to deliver content. Some positive examples are reading a passage, watching a video, making a podcast, writing an essay, or maybe working with a study group outside of class.  I recently had to work on a project for science class, and my teacher gave us many different options to deliver our content. I made a video, while other students made a poster. Some made PowerPoints. This was very effective as it gave us the choice to present in the way that best showed our data.

Many students also felt like there was a greater amount of homework in class, especially in advanced classes.  This makes sense, as students who have more strength in a certain subject should have to work harder for a better grade.  This also brings in the question of are the students really learning. As one student said, “I would say less quantity more quality so don't like do, for example do one problem in that topic and discuss it rather than each 10 questions in each topic.  You can better understand the project instead of just doing a lot of work and not understanding it.” This would definitely help students learn, because isn’t the whole point of learning something to understand it, rather than do a lot of work, assume the answer and not gather the reasoning behind it?  

There is also the point of “fun homework”, which is homework that is more like a game.  This will make students want to work harder and understand it more, because they will think of it as a fun activity.  A good example of fun studying is Kahoot or Quizziz, as this makes kids work hard and pay attention. One student said about his view on homework “My teachers could make it more like a game so I get joy of it.”  This shows how students actually care about the work they are doing.  They want to find the game of it all, and teachers can help them achieve that by making schoolwork and homework like a game.

In conclusion,  most students do not actually hate homework, they just want exciting ways of doing it.  There should also be a way to go over the work in class, because then the students can know how to solve a problem they had a question on at home, rather than just using a key.  Homework should also have many different formats. Each student is different, and that should be shown in the options of work given. Students should be given some of homework, but they should be able to decide on what kind of work they do, so each student can cater to their individual needs.