homework for next class

Choose Your Test

Sat / act prep online guides and tips, the 5 best homework help websites (free and paid).

Other High School , General Education

Listen: we know homework isn’t fun, but it is a good way to reinforce the ideas and concepts you’ve learned in class. But what if you’re really struggling with your homework assignments?

If you’ve looked online for a little extra help with your take-home assignments, you’ve probably stumbled across websites claiming to provide the homework help and answers students need to succeed . But can homework help sites really make a difference? And if so, which are the best homework help websites you can use? 

Below, we answer these questions and more about homework help websites–free and paid. We’ll go over: 

• The basics of homework help websites
• The cost of homework help websites 
• The five best homework websites out there 
• The pros and cons of using these websites for homework help 
• The line between “learning” and “cheating” when using online homework help 
• Tips for getting the most out of a homework help website

So let’s get started! 

The Basics About Homework Help Websites–Free and Paid

Homework help websites are designed to help you complete your homework assignments, plain and simple. 

What Makes a Homework Help Site Worth Using

Most of the best sites allow users to ask questions and then provide an answer (or multiple possible answers) and explanation in seconds. In some instances, you can even send a photo of a particular assignment or problem instead of typing the whole thing out! 

Homework help sites also offer more than just help answering homework questions. Common services provided are Q&A with experts, educational videos, lectures, practice tests and quizzes, learning modules, math solving tools, and proofreading help. Homework help sites can also provide textbook solutions (i.e. answers to problems in tons of different textbooks your school might be using), one-on-one tutoring, and peer-to-peer platforms that allow you to discuss subjects you’re learning about with your fellow students. 

And best of all, nearly all of them offer their services 24/7, including tutoring! 

What You Should Should Look Out For

When it comes to homework help, there are lots–and we mean lots –of scam sites out there willing to prey on desperate students. Before you sign up for any service, make sure you read reviews to ensure you’re working with a legitimate company. 

A word to the wise: the more a company advertises help that veers into the territory of cheating, the more likely it is to be a scam. The best homework help websites are going to help you learn the concepts you’ll need to successfully complete your homework on your own. (We’ll go over the difference between “homework help” and “cheating” a little later!) 

You don't need a golden piggy bank to use homework help websites. Some provide low or no cost help for students like you!

How Expensive Are the Best Homework Help Websites?

First of all, just because a homework help site costs money doesn’t mean it’s a good service. Likewise, just because a homework help website is free doesn’t mean the help isn’t high quality. To find the best websites, you have to take a close look at the quality and types of information they provide! 

When it comes to paid homework help services, the prices vary pretty widely depending on the amount of services you want to subscribe to. Subscriptions can cost anywhere from $2 to $150 dollars per month, with the most expensive services offering several hours of one-on-one tutoring with a subject expert per month.

The 5 Best Homework Help Websites 

So, what is the best homework help website you can use? The answer is that it depends on what you need help with. 

The best homework help websites are the ones that are reliable and help you learn the material. They don’t just provide answers to homework questions–they actually help you learn the material. 

That’s why we’ve broken down our favorite websites into categories based on who they’re best for . For instance, the best website for people struggling with math might not work for someone who needs a little extra help with science, and vice versa. 

Keep reading to find the best homework help website for you! 

Best Free Homework Help Site: Khan Academy

• Price: Free!
• Best for: Practicing tough material 

Not only is Khan Academy free, but it’s full of information and can be personalized to suit your needs. When you set up your account , you choose which courses you need to study, and Khan Academy sets up a personal dashboard of instructional videos, practice exercises, and quizzes –with both correct and incorrect answer explanations–so you can learn at your own pace. 

As an added bonus, it covers more course topics than many other homework help sites, including several AP classes.

Runner Up: Brainly.com offers a free service that allows you to type in questions and get answers and explanations from experts. The downside is that you’re limited to two answers per question and have to watch ads. 

Best Paid Homework Help Site: Chegg

• Price: $14.95 to $19.95 per month
• Best for: 24/7 homework assistance  

This service has three main parts . The first is Chegg Study, which includes textbook solutions, Q&A with subject experts, flashcards, video explanations, a math solver, and writing help. The resources are thorough, and reviewers state that Chegg answers homework questions quickly and accurately no matter when you submit them.  

Chegg also offers textbook rentals for students who need access to textbooks outside of their classroom. Finally, Chegg offers Internship and Career Advice for students who are preparing to graduate and may need a little extra help with the transition out of high school. 

Another great feature Chegg provides is a selection of free articles geared towards helping with general life skills, like coping with stress and saving money. Chegg’s learning modules are comprehensive, and they feature solutions to the problems in tons of different textbooks in a wide variety of subjects. 

Runner Up: Bartleby offers basically the same services as Chegg for $14.99 per month. The reason it didn’t rank as the best is based on customer reviews that say user questions aren’t answered quite as quickly on this site as on Chegg. Otherwise, this is also a solid choice!

Best Site for Math Homework Help: Photomath

• Price: Free (or $59.99 per year for premium services) 
• Best for: Explaining solutions to math problems

This site allows you to t ake a picture of a math problem, and instantly pulls up a step-by-step solution, as well as a detailed explanation of the concept. Photomath also includes animated videos that break down mathematical concepts to help you better understand and remember them. 

The basic service is free, but for an additional fee you can get extra study tools and learn additional strategies for solving common math problems.

Runner Up: KhanAcademy offers in-depth tutorials that cover complex math topics for free, but you won’t get the same tailored help (and answers!) that Photomath offers. 

Best Site for English Homework Help: Princeton Review Academic Tutoring

• Price: $40 to $153 per month, depending on how many hours of tutoring you want 
• Best for: Comprehensive and personalized reading and writing help 

While sites like Grammarly and Sparknotes help you by either proofreading what you write via an algorithm or providing book summaries, Princeton Review’s tutors provide in-depth help with vocabulary, literature, essay writing and development, proofreading, and reading comprehension. And unlike other services, you’ll have the chance to work with a real person to get help. 

The best part is that you can get on-demand English (and ESL) tutoring from experts 24/7. That means you can get help whenever you need it, even if you’re pulling an all-nighter! 

This is by far the most expensive homework site on this list, so you’ll need to really think about what you need out of a homework help website before you commit. One added benefit is that the subscription covers over 80 other subjects, including AP classes, which can make it a good value if you need lots of help!  

Best Site for STEM Homework Help: Studypool

• Best for: Science homework help
• Price: Varies; you’ll pay for each question you submit

When it comes to science homework help, there aren’t a ton of great resources out there. The best of the bunch is Studypool, and while it has great reviews, there are some downsides as well. 

Let’s start with the good stuff. Studypool offers an interesting twist on the homework help formula. After you create a free account, you can submit your homework help questions, and tutors will submit bids to answer your questions. You’ll be able to select the tutor–and price point–that works for you, then you’ll pay to have your homework question answered. You can also pay a small fee to access notes, lectures, and other documents that top tutors have uploaded. 

The downside to Studypool is that the pricing is not transparent . There’s no way to plan for how much your homework help will cost, especially if you have lots of questions! Additionally, it’s not clear how tutors are selected, so you’ll need to be cautious when you choose who you’d like to answer your homework questions.  

What Are the Pros and Cons of Using Homework Help Sites?

Homework help websites can be a great resource if you’re struggling in a subject, or even if you just want to make sure that you’re really learning and understanding topics and ideas that you’re interested in. But, there are some possible drawbacks if you don’t use these sites responsibly. 

We’ll go over the good–and the not-so-good–aspects of getting online homework help below. 

3 Pros of Using Homework Help Websites 

First, let’s take a look at the benefits. 

#1: Better Grades Beyond Homework

This is a big one! Getting outside help with your studies can improve your understanding of concepts that you’re learning, which translates into better grades when you take tests or write essays. 

Remember: homework is designed to help reinforce the concepts you learned in class. If you just get easy answers without learning the material behind the problems, you may not have the tools you need to be successful on your class exams…or even standardized tests you’ll need to take for college. 

#2: Convenience

One of the main reasons that online homework help is appealing is because it’s flexible and convenient. You don’t have to go to a specific tutoring center while they’re open or stay after school to speak with your teacher. Instead, you can access helpful resources wherever you can access the internet, whenever you need them.

This is especially true if you tend to study at off hours because of your extracurriculars, work schedule, or family obligations. Sites that offer 24/7 tutoring can give you the extra help you need if you can’t access the free resources that are available at your school. 

#3: Variety

Not everyone learns the same way. Maybe you’re more of a visual learner, but your teacher mostly does lectures. Or maybe you learn best by listening and taking notes, but you’re expected to learn something just from reading the textbook . 

One of the best things about online homework help is that it comes in a variety of forms. The best homework help sites offer resources for all types of learners, including videos, practice activities, and even one-on-one discussions with real-life experts. 

This variety can also be a good thing if you just don’t really resonate with the way a concept is being explained (looking at you, math textbooks!).

Not so fast. There are cons to homework help websites, too. Get to know them below!

3 Cons of Using Homework Help Websites 

Now, let’s take a look at the drawbacks of online homework help. 

#1: Unreliable Info

This can be a real problem. In addition to all the really good homework help sites, there are a whole lot of disreputable or unreliable sites out there. The fact of the matter is that some homework help sites don’t necessarily hire people who are experts in the subjects they’re talking about. In those cases, you may not be getting the accurate, up-to-date, and thorough information you need.

Additionally, even the great sites may not be able to answer all of your homework questions. This is especially true if the site uses an algorithm or chatbot to help students…or if you’re enrolled in an advanced or college-level course. In these cases, working with your teacher or school-provided tutors are probably your best option. 

#2: No Clarification

This depends on the service you use, of course. But the majority of them provide free or low-cost help through pre-recorded videos. Watching videos or reading info online can definitely help you with your homework… but you can’t ask questions or get immediate feedback if you need it .

#3: Potential For Scamming 

Like we mentioned earlier, there are a lot of homework help websites out there, and lots of them are scams. The review comments we read covered everything from outdated or wrong information, to misleading claims about the help provided, to not allowing people to cancel their service after signing up. 

No matter which site you choose to use, make sure you research and read reviews before you sign up–especially if it’s a paid service! 

When Does “Help” Become “Cheating”?

Admittedly, whether using homework help websites constitutes cheating is a bit of a grey area. For instance, is it “help” when a friend reads your essay for history class and corrects your grammar, or is it “cheating”? The truth is, not everyone agrees on when “help” crosses the line into “cheating .” When in doubt, it can be a good idea to check with your teacher to see what they think about a particular type of help you want to get. 

That said, a general rule of thumb to keep in mind is to make sure that the assignment you turn in for credit is authentically yours . It needs to demonstrate your own thoughts and your own current abilities. Remember: the point of every homework assignment is to 1) help you learn something, and 2) show what you’ve learned. 

So if a service answers questions or writes essays for you, there’s a good chance using it constitutes cheating. 

Here’s an example that might help clarify the difference for you. Brainstorming essay ideas with others or looking online for inspiration is “help” as long as you write the essay yourself. Having someone read it and give you feedback about what you need to change is also help, provided you’re the one that makes the changes later. 

But copying all or part of an essay you find online or having someone write (or rewrite) the whole thing for you would be “cheating.” The same is true for other subjects. Ultimately, if you’re not generating your own work or your own answers, it’s probably cheating.

5 Tips for Finding the Best Homework Help Websites for You

Now that you know some of our favorite homework help websites, free and paid, you can start doing some additional research on your own to decide which services might work best for you! Here are some top tips for choosing a homework help website. 

Tip 1: Decide How You Learn Best 

Before you decide which site or sites you’re going to use for homework help, y ou should figure out what kind of learning style works for you the most. Are you a visual learner? Then choose a site that uses lots of videos to help explain concepts. If you know you learn best by actually doing tasks, choose a site that provides lots of practice exercises.

Tip 2: Determine Which Subjects You Need Help With

Just because a homework help site is good overall doesn’t mean that it’s equally good for every subject. If you only need help in math, choose a site that specializes in that area. But if history is where you’re struggling, a site that specializes in math won’t be much help. So make sure to choose a site that you know provides high-quality help in the areas you need it most. 

Tip 3: Decide How Much One-On-One Help You Need 

This is really about cost-effectiveness. If you learn well on your own by reading and watching videos, a free site like Khan Academy is a good choice. But if you need actual tutoring, or to be able to ask questions and get personalized answers from experts, a paid site that provides that kind of service may be a better option.

Tip 4: Set a Budget

If you decide you want to go with a paid homework help website, set a budget first . The prices for sites vary wildly, and the cost to use them can add up quick. 

Tip 5: Read the Reviews

Finally, it’s always a good idea to read actual reviews written by the people using these homework sites. You’ll learn the good, the bad, and the ugly of what the users’ experiences have been. This is especially true if you intend to subscribe to a paid service. You’ll want to make sure that users think it’s worth the price overall!

What’s Next?

If you want to get good grades on your homework, it’s a good idea to learn how to tackle it strategically. Our expert tips will help you get the most out of each assignment…and boost your grades in the process.

Doing well on homework assignments is just one part of getting good grades. We’ll teach you everything you need to know about getting great grades in high school in this article.

Of course, test grades can make or break your GPA, too. Here are 17 expert tips that’ll help you get the most out of your study prep before you take an exam.

Ashley Sufflé Robinson has a Ph.D. in 19th Century English Literature. As a content writer for PrepScholar, Ashley is passionate about giving college-bound students the in-depth information they need to get into the school of their dreams.

Student and Parent Forum

Our new student and parent forum, at ExpertHub.PrepScholar.com , allow you to interact with your peers and the PrepScholar staff. See how other students and parents are navigating high school, college, and the college admissions process. Ask questions; get answers.

Ask a Question Below

Have any questions about this article or other topics? Ask below and we'll reply!

Improve With Our Famous Guides

• For All Students

The 5 Strategies You Must Be Using to Improve 160+ SAT Points

How to Get a Perfect 1600, by a Perfect Scorer

Series: How to Get 800 on Each SAT Section:

Score 800 on SAT Math

Score 800 on SAT Reading

Score 800 on SAT Writing

Series: How to Get to 600 on Each SAT Section:

Score 600 on SAT Math

Score 600 on SAT Reading

Score 600 on SAT Writing

Free Complete Official SAT Practice Tests

What SAT Target Score Should You Be Aiming For?

15 Strategies to Improve Your SAT Essay

The 5 Strategies You Must Be Using to Improve 4+ ACT Points

How to Get a Perfect 36 ACT, by a Perfect Scorer

Series: How to Get 36 on Each ACT Section:

36 on ACT English

36 on ACT Math

36 on ACT Reading

36 on ACT Science

Series: How to Get to 24 on Each ACT Section:

24 on ACT English

24 on ACT Math

24 on ACT Reading

24 on ACT Science

What ACT target score should you be aiming for?

ACT Vocabulary You Must Know

ACT Writing: 15 Tips to Raise Your Essay Score

How to Get Into Harvard and the Ivy League

How to Get a Perfect 4.0 GPA

How to Write an Amazing College Essay

What Exactly Are Colleges Looking For?

Is the ACT easier than the SAT? A Comprehensive Guide

Should you retake your SAT or ACT?

When should you take the SAT or ACT?

Stay Informed

Get the latest articles and test prep tips!

Looking for Graduate School Test Prep?

Check out our top-rated graduate blogs here:

GRE Online Prep Blog

GMAT Online Prep Blog

TOEFL Online Prep Blog

Holly R. "I am absolutely overjoyed and cannot thank you enough for helping me!”

Does homework really work?

by: Leslie Crawford | Updated: December 12, 2023

Print article

You know the drill. It’s 10:15 p.m., and the cardboard-and-toothpick Golden Gate Bridge is collapsing. The pages of polynomials have been abandoned. The paper on the Battle of Waterloo seems to have frozen in time with Napoleon lingering eternally over his breakfast at Le Caillou. Then come the tears and tantrums — while we parents wonder, Does the gain merit all this pain? Is this just too much homework?

However the drama unfolds night after night, year after year, most parents hold on to the hope that homework (after soccer games, dinner, flute practice, and, oh yes, that childhood pastime of yore known as playing) advances their children academically.

But what does homework really do for kids? Is the forest’s worth of book reports and math and spelling sheets the average American student completes in their 12 years of primary schooling making a difference? Or is it just busywork?

Homework haterz

Whether or not homework helps, or even hurts, depends on who you ask. If you ask my 12-year-old son, Sam, he’ll say, “Homework doesn’t help anything. It makes kids stressed-out and tired and makes them hate school more.”

Nothing more than common kid bellyaching?

Maybe, but in the fractious field of homework studies, it’s worth noting that Sam’s sentiments nicely synopsize one side of the ivory tower debate. Books like The End of Homework , The Homework Myth , and The Case Against Homework the film Race to Nowhere , and the anguished parent essay “ My Daughter’s Homework is Killing Me ” make the case that homework, by taking away precious family time and putting kids under unneeded pressure, is an ineffective way to help children become better learners and thinkers.

One Canadian couple took their homework apostasy all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. After arguing that there was no evidence that it improved academic performance, they won a ruling that exempted their two children from all homework.

So what’s the real relationship between homework and academic achievement?

How much is too much?

To answer this question, researchers have been doing their homework on homework, conducting and examining hundreds of studies. Chris Drew Ph.D., founder and editor at The Helpful Professor recently compiled multiple statistics revealing the folly of today’s after-school busy work. Does any of the data he listed below ring true for you?

• 45 percent of parents think homework is too easy for their child, primarily because it is geared to the lowest standard under the Common Core State Standards .

• 74 percent of students say homework is a source of stress , defined as headaches, exhaustion, sleep deprivation, weight loss, and stomach problems.

• Students in high-performing high schools spend an average of 3.1 hours a night on homework , even though 1 to 2 hours is the optimal duration, according to a peer-reviewed study .

Not included in the list above is the fact many kids have to abandon activities they love — like sports and clubs — because homework deprives them of the needed time to enjoy themselves with other pursuits.

Conversely, The Helpful Professor does list a few pros of homework, noting it teaches discipline and time management, and helps parents know what’s being taught in the class.

The oft-bandied rule on homework quantity — 10 minutes a night per grade (starting from between 10 to 20 minutes in first grade) — is listed on the National Education Association’s website and the National Parent Teacher Association’s website , but few schools follow this rule.

Do you think your child is doing excessive homework? Harris Cooper Ph.D., author of a meta-study on homework , recommends talking with the teacher. “Often there is a miscommunication about the goals of homework assignments,” he says. “What appears to be problematic for kids, why they are doing an assignment, can be cleared up with a conversation.” Also, Cooper suggests taking a careful look at how your child is doing the assignments. It may seem like they’re taking two hours, but maybe your child is wandering off frequently to get a snack or getting distracted.

Less is often more

If your child is dutifully doing their work but still burning the midnight oil, it’s worth intervening to make sure your child gets enough sleep. A 2012 study of 535 high school students found that proper sleep may be far more essential to brain and body development.

For elementary school-age children, Cooper’s research at Duke University shows there is no measurable academic advantage to homework. For middle-schoolers, Cooper found there is a direct correlation between homework and achievement if assignments last between one to two hours per night. After two hours, however, achievement doesn’t improve. For high schoolers, Cooper’s research suggests that two hours per night is optimal. If teens have more than two hours of homework a night, their academic success flatlines. But less is not better. The average high school student doing homework outperformed 69 percent of the students in a class with no homework.

Many schools are starting to act on this research. A Florida superintendent abolished homework in her 42,000 student district, replacing it with 20 minutes of nightly reading. She attributed her decision to “ solid research about what works best in improving academic achievement in students .”

More family time

A 2020 survey by Crayola Experience reports 82 percent of children complain they don’t have enough quality time with their parents. Homework deserves much of the blame. “Kids should have a chance to just be kids and do things they enjoy, particularly after spending six hours a day in school,” says Alfie Kohn, author of The Homework Myth . “It’s absurd to insist that children must be engaged in constructive activities right up until their heads hit the pillow.”

By far, the best replacement for homework — for both parents and children — is bonding, relaxing time together.

Homes Nearby

Homes for rent and sale near schools

How families of color can fight for fair discipline in school

Dealing with teacher bias

The most important school data families of color need to consider

Yes! Sign me up for updates relevant to my child's grade.

Please enter a valid email address

Thank you for signing up!

Server Issue: Please try again later. Sorry for the inconvenience

7 Strategies for Successfully Preparing for Your Next Class

Explore more.

• Classroom Management
• Perspectives

W hen I set out to identify the teaching practices used by renowned business school professors, I anticipated that these educators would be talented performers in the classroom, accomplished in their use of drama and humor. I discovered instead that their success is based primarily on a rigorous teaching process that includes several key practices:

Their preparation for class is intense.

They are adept at building a learning community.

They continually emphasize the big picture.

They can simplify complex material without being shallow in their coverage.

Their classes are models of interactive learning.

They frequently remind students why the course is important.

Of these practices, preparation for class is especially important to the professors I interviewed. When asked about the advice he would give to a teacher, Wharton professor Richard Shell responded clearly: “Prepare, prepare, prepare.” And as Harvard Business School professor Jan Rivkin put it, despite his extensive experience, “I still prepare like there’s no tomorrow.”

Here are seven foundational insights, gleaned from my interviews with these legendary business professors, on preparing the design and delivery of a course. I hope you will find these recommendations useful as you return to classrooms for the start of a new term—or anytime you are seeking a dose of teaching inspiration.

MEET THE PROFESSORS

The educators featured here are award-winning professors who teach in United States colleges and universities. I identified and selected them through consultation with deans at leading schools while conducting the field research for my book, Seven Essentials for Business Success: Lessons from Legendary Professors.

Steven Kaplan is the Neubauer Family Distinguished Service Professor of Entrepreneurship and Finance and the Kessenich E.P. Faculty Director of the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Chicago Booth. Named as one of the top 12 business school professors in the United States by Business Week , he has won many teaching awards at Booth.

Charles Lee is the Moghadam Family Professor and a professor of accounting, emeritus, at Stanford Graduate School of Business. He is the third professor in the history of Stanford to win teaching awards in all three degree programs. Earlier in his career, Lee won teaching awards at Cornell and the University of Michigan.

Georgia Perakis is the William F. Pounds Professor of Management and a professor of operations research, statistics, and operations management at the MIT Sloan School of Management. She is also the codirector of the Operations Research Center. She is the only person in the history of MIT Sloan to win the Jamieson Prize for Excellence in Teaching, the Samuel M. Seegal Faculty Prize, and the Teacher of the Year Award.

Jan Rivkin is the C. Roland Christensen Professor of Business Administration and a professor of strategy at Harvard Business School (HBS). He has served as faculty chair of the MBA program, senior associate dean for research, and head of the strategy unit. He has won many teaching awards at HBS, along with the inaugural Educational Impact Award from the Strategic Management Society.

Richard Shell is the Thomas Gerrity Professor and professor of legal studies and business ethics and management at The Wharton School, where he chairs the Legal Studies and Business Ethics Department. He has won over two dozen teaching awards in the undergraduate, MBA, and Executive MBA programs at Wharton.

Gretchen Spreitzer is the Keith E. and Valerie J. Alessi Professor of Business Administration and associate dean for Engaged Learning and Professional Development at Michigan Ross. A professor of management and operations, she has won teaching awards at Ross and at the University of Southern California, along with a Distinguished Scholar Award from the Academy of Management.

Florian Zettelmeyer is the Nancy L. Ertle Professor of Marketing at Northwestern Kellogg. He also serves as faculty director of the Program on Data Analytics. He has won over 10 teaching awards at Kellogg and earlier at University of California, Berkeley.

1. Think of Your Course as a Story

The teaching coach for faculty at Northwestern Kellogg trained as a theater director and actor. She uses the metaphor of teaching as theater, in which the teacher acts as a playwright in developing course content, as a director in organizing the class, and as an actor in delivering the material.

When engaged in the first of these three activities, developing content, Kellogg professor Florian Zettelmeyer uses a disciplined approach that he learned when working for the consulting firm McKinsey. The core idea, he explains, is to use “the structure of slides to force yourself to be very systematic about generating the story you are telling and in uncovering the weaknesses in that story.” In addition to its use in developing specific classes, this story structure can extend to an entire course. As Zettelmeyer puts it, he wants to “tell a story in an arc that would span the whole semester.”

Referring to Aristotle’s framework for describing the modes of persuasion ( ethos , pathos , and logos ), Stanford professor Charles Lee observed that logos (that is, reasoned discourse, or in a professor’s terms, content development) “begins with the development of a central theme or idea for each lecture and for the course as a whole. This theme is akin to the trunk of a tree,” with each lecture conveying the leaves and branches that extend from that trunk.

2. Identify Best Practices Instead of Starting from Scratch

You do not have to reinvent the wheel when preparing a new course. Try to find colleagues at your school or elsewhere who have taught courses similar to yours and seek their advice on best practices.

For example, when developing her course titled Navigating Change, Michigan Ross professor Gretchen Spreitzer says, “[I] went to people in the field whom I respected and who taught change. I asked them about the most powerful exercises, cases, readings, and modules they used.”

Learn from Your Peers with Course Explorer To learn how other educators have developed their courses and modules, visit Course Explorer , a curation resource from Harvard Business Publishing that gathers teaching materials of interest and links them in meaningful ways. Organized by collections, modules, and courses, Course Explorer provides a powerful way for educators to conduct curriculum research and understand how expert educators are teaching important topics in their respective disciplines.

3. When Teaching with Cases, Make Them Your Own

Preparing a case study for the first time is an intense, time-consuming experience, even when aided by a teaching note. But this is time well-spent; it enables you to personalize the case, says Rivkin.

In describing the process of preparing for a case, Rivkin says, “What typically happens is that I will read the case, read the teaching plan, and think to myself, This will never work . I also think, I cannot believe that I must do it all myself . I then reconstruct the case.

However, when I develop an actual plan, it resembles the original teaching plan that others gave me. It is not that I have reinvented the wheel or that I have invented some brilliant insight that no one has ever thought of before. It is that I have made it my own.”

4. Create a Detailed Game Plan for Each Class

The professors I spoke with all work to engage students in the learning process using questions that require them to be active participants—when teaching by the case method, for instance. Of course, when students are responding to questions, this can occasionally cause class discussion to go astray, creating a risk that the key learning points of the class will not receive sufficient attention. An antidote to this and other classroom disruptions is to develop a detailed plan for each session.

Shell notes, for example, that he walks “into class with a one-page, minute-by-minute game plan of exactly what we are going to do, in what order, and how we are going to do it. The class may not always follow that flow, but it gives me a baseline I can go back to.”

5. Know Your Students’ Names and Backgrounds

Learning students’ names signals that you are interested in them. Memorizing names before the first class, although challenging, is possible, even in large classes. For a course that begins at the end of September, Chicago Booth professor Steven Kaplan begins to memorize the names of the 200-plus students in his three sections at the beginning of the month. This enables him to greet students using their first names when they enter class for the first time.

Spreitzer uses LinkedIn to research her students because it reduces opening-day jitters. As a result, she says, “I feel that I know the students as human beings rather than just a name on a piece of paper. I also use LinkedIn to connect with them, and they realize that I am doing my homework. This pre-class connection with the students reduces the butterflies.” Doing this on LinkedIn also allows her to learn about the employment history of her students, which she uses when teaching cases involving companies where they have worked.

6. Consider Recording a Video of Yourself Teaching

The professors I interviewed provide mixed advice on the use of video recordings. Rivkin notes that while videos are sometimes useful, they also make him feel self-conscious: “One of my colleagues told me when I first started teaching that the secret of great teaching is to be ‘very similar to yourself.’ I’ve found that videotapes sometimes make me not be myself.”

However, MIT Sloan professor Georgia Perakis finds the use of video recording helpful in preparing for class. She blocks off time before class to watch herself teaching over multiple years while she asks herself, “How can I improve?” and, “How can I answer questions better?” She also uses videos to identify areas where students are confused by the material. She adds, “There was an improvement in the quality of my teaching after I started doing that [watching videos] around eight years ago.”

Kaplan has used video recording to identify quirks in his teaching. “I would talk with a cup of coffee in my mouth,” he says. “I decided that I needed to stop doing that.”

7. Debrief After a Course to Improve for the Next

In my own teaching, I find that the best time to prepare for a future course is immediately after a current one, while the experience is still fresh in mind. This practice was affirmed by Perakis, who conducts a debrief immediately after a course ends to determine what went well and what needs improvement. Using this information, she begins to work on the next iteration.

Kaplan gathers feedback from students to help improve his teaching. He asks students to rate his assigned cases and, using this information, he evaluates each case at the end of the term to decide which ones need rewriting or replacement.

An Experienced Teacher from an Earlier Era

My book featuring these and many more teaching insights is dedicated to C. Roland Christensen, a Harvard Business School teaching legend from an earlier era who encouraged my research. A former president of the American Association for Higher Education once noted that watching Christensen in the classroom was like observing “Rostropovich and Bernstein conduct a symphony.”

Christensen once observed , “Teaching is the greatest of all vocations because it allows you to combine the momentary and the infinite.” I hope that the preparation advice in this article will be useful as you engage in this wonderful experience.

This article is adapted from Seven Essentials for Business Success: Lessons from Legendary Professors .

George Siedel is the Williamson Family Professor Emeritus of Business Administration and the Thurnau Professor Emeritus of Business Law at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. He received the 2018 Distinguished Career Achievement Award from the Academy of Legal Studies in Business. He is the author of the recently published book, Seven Essentials for Business Success: Lessons from Legendary Professors (Routledge, 2022).

Related Articles

We use cookies to understand how you use our site and to improve your experience, including personalizing content. Learn More . By continuing to use our site, you accept our use of cookies and revised Privacy Policy .

• PRO Courses Guides New Tech Help Pro Expert Videos About wikiHow Pro Upgrade Sign In
• EDIT Edit this Article
• EXPLORE Tech Help Pro About Us Random Article Quizzes Request a New Article Community Dashboard This Or That Game Popular Categories Arts and Entertainment Artwork Books Movies Computers and Electronics Computers Phone Skills Technology Hacks Health Men's Health Mental Health Women's Health Relationships Dating Love Relationship Issues Hobbies and Crafts Crafts Drawing Games Education & Communication Communication Skills Personal Development Studying Personal Care and Style Fashion Hair Care Personal Hygiene Youth Personal Care School Stuff Dating All Categories Arts and Entertainment Finance and Business Home and Garden Relationship Quizzes Cars & Other Vehicles Food and Entertaining Personal Care and Style Sports and Fitness Computers and Electronics Health Pets and Animals Travel Education & Communication Hobbies and Crafts Philosophy and Religion Work World Family Life Holidays and Traditions Relationships Youth
• Browse Articles
• Learn Something New
• Quizzes Hot
• This Or That Game
• Train Your Brain
• Explore More
• Support wikiHow
• About wikiHow
• Log in / Sign up
• School Stuff
• Managing Time During School Years

How to Plan a Homework Schedule

Last Updated: April 26, 2024 Approved

This article was co-authored by Ronitte Libedinsky, MS . Ronitte Libedinsky is an Academic Tutor and the Founder of Brighter Minds SF, a San Francisco, California based company that provides one-on-one and small group tutoring. Specializing in tutoring mathematics (pre-algebra, algebra I/II, geometry, pre-calculus, calculus) and science (chemistry, biology), Ronitte has over 10 years of experience tutoring to middle school, high school, and college students. She also tutors in SSAT, Terra Nova, HSPT, SAT, and ACT test prep. Ronitte holds a BS in Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, and an MS in Chemistry from Tel Aviv University. There are 7 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. wikiHow marks an article as reader-approved once it receives enough positive feedback. In this case, 89% of readers who voted found the article helpful, earning it our reader-approved status. This article has been viewed 477,373 times.

It feels like homework never stops getting piled on, and keeping track of it all can feel a little chaotic. That’s where a homework schedule comes in. With a good schedule, you won’t have to worry about missing homework assignments or not having enough time to finish them, and it’s surprisingly easy to put one together. Not sure where to start? Don’t worry—we’ll walk you through what to do step-by-step below!

Setting Up a Homework Schedule

Creating a Homework Space

Understanding What Needs To Get Done

• The subject or course in which the work is assigned (for example, Spanish , algebra , French or English )
• Know what you're expected to hand in or do and ask if you do not understand (for example, turn in an essay , develop a PowerPoint presentation, or take a test.)
• The details of your assignments (for example, double-spaced or single-spaced, blue ink or black).
• Page numbers (which pages you need to read, study, or refer to complete your assignment.)
• Due date of the assignment.

Getting All of Your Homework Done

• To solve this problem, if you cannot meet all the deadlines, use a static priority rate-monotonic policy. Find the course that releases new homework the most frequently, and list it the highest (do the work first), and so forth. This is mathematically optimal among all static-priority scheduling policies. In other words, if ANY static priority scheme can meet all the deadlines, the rate-monotonic static priority scheme will meet all the deadlines, too. When the static priority scheme misses deadlines, it is deterministic - the lowest priority class assignments will be skipped, so it behaves predictably when you are overloaded. If certain assignments have the same due date, then start with the one(s) that are hardest or will take the longest.

• If you have a five-page English paper due on Friday, evenly spread the total amount of hours you believe it is going to take to complete the paper between each day.

Homework Planner Template

Expert Q&A

• Avoid distractions such as TV, video games, phone conversation, or surfing the internet. You must fully devote your schedule to doing this. That means turning off all electronics except your lamp , clock , and room light, and, if needed, your computer. You may even want to turn off your phone. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

Tips from our Readers

• Try writing reminders on sticky-notes about your assignment due dates or important information you really need to remember. Put these sticky notes in a place you regularly go to in your house (such as your homework area, bedroom, or closet), so that you'll see them and be reminded.
• If you're having a really hard time concentrating, take a short break (even if it isn't your schedule break time). Even taking a walk outside for ten minutes or grabbing a quick snack from the kitchen can help you reset.
• If music with lyrics distracts you, don't try to listen to it while you do homework. Consider playing white noise or instrumental music instead to help you focus.

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://www.wssd.k12.pa.us/SettingUpaHomeworkSchedule.aspx
• ↑ https://childmind.org/article/strategies-to-make-homework-go-more-smoothly/
• ↑ https://kidshealth.org/en/teens/homework.html
• ↑ Ronitte Libedinsky, MS. Academic Tutor. Expert Interview. 26 May 2020.
• ↑ https://www.understood.org/en/school-learning/learning-at-home/homework-study-skills/homework-strategies
• ↑ https://www.lifehack.org/articles/featured/6-proven-ways-to-make-new-habits-stick.html
• ↑ https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/happiness-in-world/201203/how-prevent-procrastination

About This Article

• Send fan mail to authors

Reader Success Stories

Did this article help you?

Sandu Getty

May 29, 2019

Syroaghina Beckumnbaineo

Oct 6, 2016

Mckenzie Adams

Sep 29, 2022

Ramji Srinivasan

Dec 21, 2016

Featured Articles

Trending Articles

Watch Articles

• Terms of Use
• Privacy Policy
• Do Not Sell or Share My Info
• Not Selling Info

wikiHow Tech Help Pro:

Develop the tech skills you need for work and life

• Skip to main content
• Skip to primary sidebar
• Skip to footer

Additional menu

Khan Academy Blog

Making Homework Easier: Tips and Tools for Parents 

posted on September 20, 2023

By Stephanie Yamkovenko , group manager of Khan Academy’s Digital Marketing Team.

Homework can present challenges for parents and children alike. You naturally want to provide support for your child’s learning journey and ensure they are reaching their full potential. In this blog post, we will delve into practical strategies to assist your child with their homework. From fostering understanding and offering encouragement to breaking down tasks and implementing rewards, we will explore a variety of effective approaches to help your child achieve academic success.

Step 1: Set Up Your Child for Success

Your child’s study environment can have a significant impact on their homework performance. Create a space that is free from distractions like the television, smartphones, or noisy siblings. The study space should be comfortable, well lit, and have all the necessary materials your child might need, such as pens, papers, and textbooks. If your child’s workspace is noisy or uncomfortable, they may have difficulty focusing on their homework, resulting in lower productivity. 

For example, if you live in a small apartment, consider setting up a designated corner with a small desk or table where your child can focus on their work. You can use dividers or screens to create a sense of privacy and minimize distractions.

If the only place to do homework is in the dining room or kitchen, try to establish a routine where the area is cleared and organized before study time. This can help signal to your child that it’s time to concentrate and be productive.

Remember, it’s important to adapt to your specific circumstances and make the best of the available space. The key is to create a dedicated study area that promotes focus and minimizes interruptions regardless of the size or location of your home.

Try Confidence Boosters for Your Child Here!

Step 2: make it fun.

It’s important to make homework fun and engaging for your child. Here are some examples of how you can do it:

• Use games : Incorporate educational games like card games, board games, or puzzles that align with the subject your child is learning. For instance, use Scrabble to practice spelling or Sudoku to enhance problem-solving skills.
• Turn it into a challenge : Create a friendly competition between siblings or friends by setting goals or time limits for completing assignments. Offer small rewards or incentives for accomplishing tasks.
• Make it interactive : Use hands-on activities or experiments to reinforce concepts learned in class. For science or math, conduct simple experiments at home or use manipulatives like blocks or counters to visualize abstract concepts.
• Use technology : Explore online educational platforms or apps that offer interactive learning experiences. There are various educational games, virtual simulations, and videos available that can make homework more enjoyable.
• Incorporate creativity : Encourage your child to express their understanding through art, storytelling, or multimedia presentations. For example, they can create a comic strip to summarize a story or make a short video to explain a concept.

Remember, by making homework enjoyable, you can help your child develop a positive attitude towards learning.

Step 3: Use Rewards

Rewards can be a powerful motivational tool for children. Offering positive reinforcement can encourage them to complete their homework on time and to the best of their ability. 

Here are some examples of rewards our team has used with their children:

• Extra screen time: “I use Apple parental controls to add screen time on their iPad.”
• Access to a favorite toy: “My eight year old has a drum kit, which drives us all up the wall. (Thanks, Grandma!) But when they’ve been doing a lot of school work, we put on headphones and let him go nuts.”
• Praise for a job well done: “Specific, measurable praise is what works best.” 
• Trip to the park: “A trip to the park is good for everyone, especially for the kids to run around with the doggos.”
• Movie night: “I know every word and song lyric in Moana ; we now reserve showings for good behavior.” 
• Stickers or stamps: “Gold stars were such a thing growing up in the 80s; turns out they still work.”
• Stay up a little later: “An extra 30 minutes feels like a whole day for my young ones; use this reward with caution as it can become the expectation!”

So, celebrate your child’s efforts and encourage them to continue doing their best.

Step 4: Break Down Difficult Tasks

When facing daunting homework assignments, follow these step-by-step instructions to break down the tasks into smaller, manageable chunks:

• Understand the requirements and scope of the task.
• Break down the assignment into individual tasks or sub-tasks.  
• Splitting the middle term
• Using formula
• Using Quadratic formula
• Using algebraic identities
• Determine the order in which tasks should be completed based on importance or difficulty. 
• Start with the easiest task. Begin with the task that seems the least challenging or time-consuming.
• Progress to more challenging tasks: Once the easier tasks are completed, move on to more difficult ones.
• Take breaks: Schedule short breaks between tasks to avoid burnout and maintain focus.
• Check completed tasks for accuracy and make any necessary revisions.
• Finish the remaining task(s) with the same approach.
• Celebrate small achievements to boost confidence and keep motivation high.

By following these steps, you can make daunting homework assignments more manageable and less overwhelming for your child.

Step 5: Get Targeted Help

If your child is struggling with homework, it might be worth considering seeking personalized assistance. You have the option to search for professional tutors or explore online tutoring platforms, such as Khan Academy’s AI tutor, Khanmigo .

This AI tutor can offer personalized guidance and support tailored to your child’s specific needs, helping them grasp complex concepts and practice essential skills. Incorporating this approach can effectively complement your child’s learning and enhance their homework performance.

Enhance your child’s learning and boost homework performance!

Homework can be a challenge for both parents and children. But with the right approach, you can help your child overcome difficulties and support their learning. Encourage and understand your child, create a comfortable environment, break down difficult tasks, use rewards, get professional help when needed, and make it fun. With these tips and techniques, you can help your child achieve success, develop a love for learning, and achieve academic excellence. Remember that each child learns differently, so it’s essential to adjust your approach to meet their unique needs.

Get Khanmigo

The best way to learn and teach with AI is here. Ace the school year with our AI-powered guide, Khanmigo. 

For learners     For teachers     For parents

• Our Mission

5 Keys to Successful Homework Assignments During Remote Learning

While students and their families are coping with so much, teachers should be mindful to assign only homework that’s truly meaningful. 

How can homework be reimagined during remote or hybrid learning? Are students already spending too much time on their screen—why assign more screen time? What is the purpose of the assignment?

As a middle school instructional coach, I often work with teachers who are unsure of how much to give and what to give. They’re also inevitably worried about finding the time to grade it. As a parent, I know how stressful it can be to balance your own work while also helping your own children with homework.

Since remote learning began in March, some schools have banned homework or modified homework policies, but if you’re a teacher who’s allowed to assign homework or an administrator who sets homework policy, the following suggestions may help.

5 Keys to Making Homework More Meaningful

1. Off-screen reading:  Books, books, books. Whether your students are reading books they chose or assigned novels, quiet reading time (or time listening to audiobooks) is a welcome assignment in most homes—I say this as a mom myself. Students can be held accountable for their reading through Harkness discussions in class or on Zoom, journal entries (written or in Flipgrid-style video), or old-fashioned sticky-note annotations in the book itself.

2. Less is more: Unfortunately, math teachers have the reputation of assigning something like “problems 1 through 45” (OK, maybe I’m exaggerating). Do students need to repeat the same skill over and over? Consider how much time you have in class the next day to actually review several problems. Instead, can you choose four or five rich multistep problems that provide practice and application of the skills? Or, alternatively, offer student choice: “Choose five out of these 10 problems.”

In a humanities or science class, can students answer one extended compare-and-contrast question rather than the chapter review in the textbook?

3. Personalized homework: Many students (and adults alike) love to talk about themselves. If students can make the assignment personal to them, they might feel more motivated to complete it. An example might be to compare the protagonist of the assigned reading with themselves in a Venn diagram. In a language class, they can describe a fictitious superhero using descriptive vocabulary in the language they’re studying. Or assign students to make a Flipgrid-style dance or song describing the scientific method (this example was inspired by TikTok).

4. Family involvement: Use this option carefully, especially now when many parents and guardians are stretched thin. Before making family assignments, be sure to get a feel for your students’ family situations to avoid putting anyone at a disadvantage. Give families a heads-up and plenty of time for such assignments.

If you feel it’s appropriate to proceed, ask students to take a video of themselves teaching a new concept to a family member. To practice operations with fractions, students can bring in a favorite family recipe with the measurements adjusted for fewer servings or multiple servings. Assign a riddle or math puzzle for students to discuss with the family, and ask them to write down the various answers they hear.

Whatever you assign, keep it light, low-stakes, and infrequent.

5. Flipped homework: In my experience, students get tired of watching instructional videos, but a few short, well-planned videos can be useful to assign the night before to spark discussion the next day in class. Follow the video with a short Google Form to ask the student to reflect and/or ask initial questions about what they watched. Use flipped learning sparingly to keep it novel and unique.

What about the grading? With shared docs, older students can easily share their work with their peers for review. Take some time to educate students on how to constructively comment on each other’s work. If a student’s assignment is missing, their partner will let them know, which takes some of the burden off of the teacher. This method should not be used for graded summative assessments and should be monitored by the teacher. Peer review can also serve as a differentiation strategy by grouping students by readiness and ability when applicable.

If your school’s homework policies allow, be creative with your assignments. As you create your assignments, consider the following:

• What will a student learn or gain from this work?
• Is it worth their time?
• Is it creating more home stress?

If we reimagine homework, students might actually cheer instead of groan when it’s assigned. OK, that’s wishful thinking, but they should definitely get more out of their assignments. 

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.

Explore Related Topics:

• Share this story

Senior Contributing Editor

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

She can be reached at [email protected] .

Comments & Discussion

Boston University moderates comments to facilitate an informed, substantive, civil conversation. Abusive, profane, self-promotional, misleading, incoherent or off-topic comments will be rejected. Moderators are staffed during regular business hours (EST) and can only accept comments written in English. Statistics or facts must include a citation or a link to the citation.

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?

Comments are closed.

Latest from Bostonia

American academy of arts & sciences welcomes five bu members, com’s newest journalism grad took her time, could boston be the next city to impose congestion pricing, alum has traveled the world to witness total solar eclipses, opening doors: rhonda harrison (eng’98,’04, grs’04), campus reacts and responds to israel-hamas war, reading list: what the pandemic revealed, remembering com’s david anable, cas’ john stone, “intellectual brilliance and brilliant kindness”, one good deed: christine kannler (cas’96, sph’00, camed’00), william fairfield warren society inducts new members, spreading art appreciation, restoring the “black angels” to medical history, in the kitchen with jacques pépin, feedback: readers weigh in on bu’s new president, com’s new expert on misinformation, and what’s really dividing the nation, the gifts of great teaching, sth’s walter fluker honored by roosevelt institute, alum’s debut book is a ramadan story for children, my big idea: covering construction sites with art, former terriers power new professional women’s hockey league.

• Utility Menu

GA4 Tracking Code

bok_logo_2-02_-_harvard_left.png

Homework At-A-Glance

Homework typically constitutes any activity you ask students to complete outside of class. It can either help students prepare for the next class or can allow them to fully delve into topics learned in a previous class.

Want examples of Homework?  Check out the ABLConnect Database Want research supporting the Homework method?  Click here!

Why should you facilitate Homework?

Possible learning goals: Have students learn as they struggle with more challenging questions than can be worked through during the time constraints of class. Have students practice questions on their own to test and deepen their understanding. Have students complete work that you will not have time to complete in class. Have students prepare for class.

Want to facilitate Homework in your class?

How-To Guide:

• Think carefully about why students are doing homework. Is it to prepare for the next class? To practice material learned in class? To synthesize new information? Etc. Make it clear to students why they are being asked to complete homework to help motivate them to complete it.
• Emphasize that the assignments are not just busy-work, but rather there to help students deepen their understanding of material.
• Avoid fact regurgitation – students feel that repeating readily available facts is busy work and will not be motivated (and will most likely complain). Rather think of problems that applies information to new situations of challenges them to think critically
• Vary types of questions – students can get bored if the same type or format of question is used. Vary the types of problems and format of responses. For example you can have students draw their responses, write short answers, or respond to a class-blog. 
• Make questions personal and close to real-life situations – students will be more engaged if the questions are relatable. Use real-world data, reference activities on campus, or require students to generate their own data when possible while writing questions
• Help students remember previously covered topics by having questions that incorporate old material with the new material. By repeating older material and having students retrieve previously learned knowledge, it helps them remember and learn
• There are benefits to having individual assignments and group assignments. If you decide to have group work, encourage students to first work independently to test their own understanding before getting together with a study-group to work on the assignment.
• Students can build confidence as they complete the work independently
• Self-testing is a good way for students to evaluate how well they understand the material in a low-pressure environment
• Students will learn the material more concretely if they have to struggle a little to complete the assignment
• Students can tackle more difficult questions in a group as they can pool their knowledge
• Students can teach each other. This benefits the students who are struggling as they can get help they need. It also benefits the students who are teaching as they need to further cement the information to clearly communicate their reasoning
• Students appreciate multiple approaches to solving problems, especially for open ended questions that challenge students critical thinking skills
• Enhances communication and team-work skills
• Students may have questions while completing their homework. Have a designated system for them to contact you – either have office hours, an email policy, etc.
• Don’t be afraid to edit or clarify a question to the entire class if several students get suck at the same point.

Have a policy for missed work and stick to it. Also have a policy for what an accepted excuse will be

• Students learn most from constructive feedback on their assignments. Praise good responses and indicate where errors occurred on incorrect responses
• Post an answer key so students can compare their responses to the ‘correct’ response. This also cuts back on grading time, as you do not have to re-write correct answers for each student.

CLICK HERE FOR A PRINTER FRIENDLY VERSION

Written by Catherine Weiner

A community blog focused on educational excellence and equity

About the topic

Explore classroom guidance, techniques, and activities to help you meet the needs of ALL students.

most recent articles

Shaking Up High School Math

Executive Functions and Literacy Skills in the Classroom

Connecting and Communicating With Families to Help Break Down Barriers to Learning

Discover new tools and materials to integrate into you instruction.

Culture, Community, and Collaboration

Vertical Progression of Math Strategies – Building Teacher Understanding

“Can I have this? Can I have that?”

Find instructions and recommendations on how to adapt your existing materials to better align to college- and career-ready standards.

To Teach the Truth

Helping Our Students See Themselves and the World Through the Books They Read in Our Classrooms

Textbooks: Who Needs Them?

Learn what it means for instructional materials and assessment to be aligned to college- and career-ready standards.

Let’s Not Make Power ELA/Literacy Standards and Talk About Why We Didn’t

What to Consider if You’re Adopting a New ELA/Literacy Curriculum

Not Your Mom’s Professional Development

Delve into new research and perspectives on instructional materials and practice.

Summer Reading Club 2023

Synergy between College and Career Readiness Standards-Aligned Instruction and Culturally Relevant Pedagogy

Children Should be Seen AND Heard

• Submissions Guidelines
• About the Blog

Designing Effective Homework

Best practices for creating homework that raises student achievement

Homework. It can be challenging…and not just for students. For teachers, designing homework can be a daunting task with lots of unanswered questions: How much should I assign? What type of content should I cover? Why aren’t students doing the work I assign? Homework can be a powerful opportunity to reinforce the Shifts in your instruction and promote standards-aligned learning, but how do we avoid the pitfalls that make key learning opportunities sources of stress and antipathy?

The nonprofit Instruction Partners recently set out to answer some of these questions, looking at what research says about what works when it comes to homework. You can view their original presentation here , but I’ve summarized some of the key findings you can put to use with your students immediately.

Does homework help?

Consistent homework completion has been shown to increase student achievement rates—but frequency matters. Students who are given homework regularly show greater gains than those who only receive homework sporadically. Researchers hypothesize that this is due to improved study skills and routines practiced through homework that allow students to perform better academically.

Average gains on unit tests for students who completed homework were six percentile points in grades 4–6, 12 percentile points in grades 7–9, and an impressive 24 percentile points in grades 10–12; so yes, homework (done well) does work. [i]

What should homework cover?

While there is little research about exactly what types of homework content lead to the biggest achievement gains, there are some general rules of thumb about how homework should change gradually over time.

In grades 1–5, homework should:

• Reinforce and allow students to practice skills learned in the classroom
• Help students develop good study habits and routines
• Foster positive feelings about school

In grades 6–12, homework should:

• Prepare students for engagement and discussion during the next lesson
• Allow students to apply their skills in new and more challenging ways

The most often-heard criticism of homework assignments is that they simply take too long. So how much homework should you assign in order to see results for students? Not surprisingly, it varies by grade. Assign 10-20 minutes of homework per night total, starting in first grade, and then add 10 minutes for each additional grade. [ii] Doing more can result in student stress, frustration, and disengagement, particularly in the early grades.

Why are some students not doing the homework?

There are any number of reasons why students may not complete homework, from lack of motivation to lack of content knowledge, but one issue to watch out for as a teacher is the impact of economic disparities on the ability to complete homework.

Multiple studies [iii] have shown that low-income students complete homework less often than students who come from wealthier families. This can lead to increased achievement gaps between students. Students from low-income families may face additional challenges when it comes to completing homework such as lack of access to the internet, lack of access to outside tutors or assistance, and additional jobs or family responsibilities.

While you can’t erase these challenges for your students, you can design homework that takes those issues into account by creating homework that can be done offline, independently, and in a reasonable timeframe. With those design principles in mind, you increase the opportunity for all your students to complete and benefit from the homework you assign.

The Big Picture

Perhaps most importantly, students benefit from receiving feedback from you, their teacher, on their assignments. Praise or rewards simply for homework completion have little effect on student achievement, but feedback that helps them improve or reinforces strong performance does. Consider keeping this mini-table handy as you design homework:

The act of assigning homework doesn’t automatically raise student achievement, so be a critical consumer of the homework products that come as part of your curriculum. If they assign too much (or too little!) work or reflect some of these common pitfalls, take action to make assignments that better serve your students.

[i] Cooper, H. (2007). The battle over homework (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

[ii] Cooper, H. (1989a). Homework .White Plains, NY: Longman.

[iii] Horrigan, T. (2015). The numbers behind the broadband ‘homework gap’ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/04/20/the-numbers-behind-the-broadband-homework-gap/ and Miami Dade Public Schools. (2009). Literature Review: Homework. http://drs.dadeschools.net/LiteratureReviews/Homework.pdf

• ELA / Literacy
• Elementary School
• High School
• Mathematics
• Middle School

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

About the Author: Claire Rivero is the Digital Strategy Manager for Student Achievement Partners. Claire leads the organization’s communications and digital promotion work across various channels including email, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, always seeking new ways to reach educators. She also manages Achieve the Core’s blog, Aligned. Prior to joining Student Achievement Partners, Claire worked in the Communications department for the American Red Cross and as a literacy instructor in a London pilot program. Claire holds bachelor’s degrees in English and Public Policy from Duke University and a master’s degree in Social Policy (with a concentration on Education Policy) from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Stay In Touch

Like what you’re reading? Sign up to receive emails about new posts, free resources, and advice from educators.

Smart Classroom Management

A Simple, Effective Homework Plan For Teachers: Part 1

So for the next two weeks I’m going to outline a homework plan–four strategies this week, four the next–aimed at making homework a simple yet effective process.

Let’s get started.

Homework Strategies 1-4

The key to homework success is to eliminate all the obstacles—and excuses—that get in the way of students getting it done.

Add leverage and some delicately placed peer pressure to the mix, and not getting homework back from every student will be a rare occurrence.

Here is how to do it.

1. Assign what students already know.

Most teachers struggle with homework because they misunderstand the narrow purpose of homework, which is to practice what has already been learned. Meaning, you should only assign homework your students fully understand and are able to do by themselves.

Therefore, the skills needed to complete the evening’s homework must be thoroughly taught during the school day. If your students can’t prove to you that they’re able to do the work without assistance, then you shouldn’t assign it.

It isn’t fair to your students—or their parents—to have to sit at the dinner table trying to figure out what you should have taught them during the day.

2. Don’t involve parents.

Homework is an agreement between you and your students. Parents shouldn’t be involved. If parents want to sit with their child while he or she does the homework, great. But it shouldn’t be an expectation or a requirement of them. Otherwise, you hand students a ready-made excuse for not doing it.

You should tell parents at back-to-school night, “I got it covered. If ever your child doesn’t understand the homework, it’s on me. Just send me a note and I’ll take care of it.”

Holding yourself accountable is not only a reminder that your lessons need to be spot on, but parents will love you for it and be more likely to make sure homework gets done every night. And for negligent parents? It’s best for their children in particular to make homework a teacher/student-only agreement.

3. Review and then ask one important question.

Set aside a few minutes before the end of the school day to review the assigned homework. Have your students pull out the work, allow them to ask final clarifying questions, and have them check to make sure they have the materials they need.

And then ask one important question: “Is there anyone, for any reason, who will not be able to turn in their homework in the morning? I want to know now rather than find out about it in the morning.”

There are two reasons for this question.

First, the more leverage you have with students, and the more they admire and respect you , the more they’ll hate disappointing you. This alone can be a powerful incentive for students to complete homework.

Second, it’s important to eliminate every excuse so that the only answer students can give for not doing it is that they just didn’t care. This sets up the confrontation strategy you’ll be using the next morning.

4. Confront students on the spot.

One of your key routines should be entering the classroom in the morning.

As part of this routine, ask your students to place their homework in the top left-hand (or right-hand) corner of their desk before beginning a daily independent assignment—reading, bellwork , whatever it may be.

During the next five to ten minutes, walk around the room and check homework–don’t collect it. Have a copy of the answers (if applicable) with you and glance at every assignment.

You don’t have to check every answer or read every portion of the assignment. Just enough to know that it was completed as expected. If it’s math, I like to pick out three or four problems that represent the main thrust of the lesson from the day before.

It should take just seconds to check most students.

Remember, homework is the practice of something they already know how to do. Therefore, you shouldn’t find more than a small percentage of wrong answers–if any. If you see more than this, then you know your lesson was less than effective, and you’ll have to reteach

If you find an assignment that is incomplete or not completed at all, confront that student on the spot .

Call them on it.

The day before, you presented a first-class lesson and gave your students every opportunity to buzz through their homework confidently that evening. You did your part, but they didn’t do theirs. It’s an affront to the excellence you strive for as a class, and you deserve an explanation.

It doesn’t matter what he or she says in response to your pointed questions, and there is no reason to humiliate or give the student the third degree. What is important is that you make your students accountable to you, to themselves, and to their classmates.

A gentle explanation of why they don’t have their homework is a strong motivator for even the most jaded students to get their homework completed.

The personal leverage you carry–that critical trusting rapport you have with your students–combined with the always lurking peer pressure is a powerful force. Not using it is like teaching with your hands tied behind your back.

Homework Strategies 5-8

Next week we’ll cover the final four homework strategies . They’re critical to getting homework back every day in a way that is painless for you and meaningful for your students.

I hope you’ll tune in.

If you haven’t done so already, please join us. It’s free! Click here and begin receiving classroom management articles like this one in your email box every week.

What to read next:

• A Powerful Way To Relieve Stress: Part One
• A Simple Exercise Program For Teachers
• The Best Time To Review Your Classroom Management Plan
• Why Your New Classroom Management Plan Isn't Working
• 27 Things That Make Your Classroom Management Plan Work

21 thoughts on “A Simple, Effective Homework Plan For Teachers: Part 1”

Good stuff, Michael. A lot of teachers I train and coach are surprised (and skeptical) at first when I make the same point you make about NOT involving parents. But it’s right on based on my experience as a teacher, instructional coach, and administrator the past 17 years. More important, it’s validated by Martin Haberman’s 40 years of research on what separates “star” teachers from “quitter/failure” teachers ( http://www.habermanfoundation.org/Book.aspx?sm=c1 )

I love the articles about “homework”. in the past I feel that it is difficuty for collecting homework. I will try your plan next year.

I think you’ll be happy with it, Sendy!

How do you confront students who do not have their homework completed?

You state in your book to let consequences do their job and to never confront students, only tell them the rule broken and consequence.

I want to make sure I do not go against that rule, but also hold students accountable for not completing their work. What should I say to them?

They are two different things. Homework is not part of your classroom management plan.

Hi Michael,

I’m a first-year middle school teacher at a private school with very small class sizes (eight to fourteen students per class). While I love this homework policy, I feel discouraged about confronting middle schoolers publicly regarding incomplete homework. My motive would never be to humiliate my students, yet I can name a few who would go home thinking their lives were over if I did confront them in front of their peers. Do you have any ideas of how to best go about incomplete homework confrontation with middle school students?

The idea isn’t in any way to humiliate students, but to hold them accountable for doing their homework. Parts one and two represent my best recommendation.:)

I believe that Homework is a vital part of students learning.

I’m still a student–in a classroom management class. So I have no experience with this, but I’m having to plan a procedure for my class. What about teacher sitting at desk and calling student one at a time to bring folder while everyone is doing bellwork or whatever their procedure is? That way 1) it would be a long walk for the ones who didn’t do the work :), and 2) it would be more private. What are your thoughts on that? Thanks. 🙂

I’m not sure I understand your question. Would you mind emailing me with more detail? I’m happy to help.

I think what you talked about is great. How do you feel about flipping a lesson? My school is pretty big on it, though I haven’t done it yet. Basically, for homework, the teacher assigns a video or some other kind of media of brand new instruction. Students teach themselves and take a mini quiz at the end to show they understand the new topic. Then the next day in the classroom, the teacher reinforces the lesson and the class period is spent practicing with the teacher present for clarification. I haven’t tried it yet because as a first year teacher I haven’t had enough time to make or find instructional videos and quizzes, and because I’m afraid half of my students will not do their homework and the next day in class I will have to waste the time of the students who did their homework and just reteach what the video taught.

Anyway, this year, I’m trying the “Oops, I forgot my homework” form for students to fill out every time they forget their homework. It keeps them accountable and helps me keep better track of who is missing what. Once they complete it, I cut off the bottom portion of the form and staple it to their assignment. I keep the top copy for my records and for parent/teacher conferences.

Here is an instant digital download of the form. It’s editable in case you need different fields.

Thanks again for your blog. I love the balance you strike between rapport and respect.

Your site is a godsend for a newbie teacher! Thank you for your clear, step-by-step, approach!

I G+ your articles to my PLN all the time.

You’re welcome, TeachNich! And thank you for sharing the articles.

Hi Michael, I’m going into my first year and some people have told me to try and get parents involved as much as I can – even home visits and things like that. But my gut says that negligent parents cannot be influenced by me. Still, do you see any value in having parents initial their student’s planner every night so they stay up to date on homework assignments? I could also write them notes.

Personally, no. I’ll write about this in the future, but when you hold parents accountable for what are student responsibilities, you lighten their load and miss an opportunity to improve independence.

I am teaching at a school where students constantly don’t take work home. I rarely give homework in math but when I do it is usually something small and I still have to chase at least 7 kids down to get their homework. My way of holding them accountable is to record a homework completion grade as part of their overall grade. Is this wrong to do? Do you believe homework should never be graded for a grade and just be for practice?

No, I think marking a completion grade is a good idea.

I’ve been teaching since 2014 and we need to take special care when assigning homework. If the homework assignment is too hard, is perceived as busy work, or takes too long to complete, students might tune out and resist doing it. Never send home any assignment that students cannot do. Homework should be an extension of what students have learned in class. To ensure that homework is clear and appropriate, consider the following tips for assigning homework:

Assign homework in small units. Explain the assignment clearly. Establish a routine at the beginning of the year for how homework will be assigned. Remind students of due dates periodically. And Make sure students and parents have information regarding the policy on missed and late assignments, extra credit, and available adaptations. Establish a set routine at the beginning of the year.

Thanks Nancie L Beckett

Dear Michael,

I love your approach! Do you have any ideas for homework collection for lower grades? K-3 are not so ready for independent work first thing in the morning, so I do not necessarily have time to check then; but it is vitally important to me to teach the integrity of completing work on time.

Also, I used to want parents involved in homework but my thinking has really changed, and your comments confirm it!

Hi Meredith,

I’ll be sure and write about this topic in an upcoming article (or work it into an article). 🙂

Overall, this article provides valuable insights and strategies for teachers to implement in their classrooms. I look forward to reading Part 2 and learning more about how to make homework a simple and effective process. Thanks

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

Privacy Policy

Welcome to Art Class

You are using an outdated browser. Please upgrade your browser or activate Google Chrome Frame to improve your experience.

13 Entertaining ESL Homework Ideas to Keep Your Students Engaged

Homework may not be many students’ favorite thing, but research says it’s truly an effective learning tool that teachers should use .

The trick is assigning great homework.

To help you do this with ease, we’ve compiled an awesome list of 13 homework assignments that will have your ESL students begging for more.

1. Read a Short Story

2. share a passion, 3. start a chat group, 4. listen to a podcast, 5. write a letter, 6. write an amazon review, 7. do a wikipedia edit, 8. write a short story or poem, 9. share their culture, 10. catch a movie, 11. meet new people, 12. analyze a song, 13. go on a photo scavenger hunt, what makes homework effective.

Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)

Have students read a short story for homework and then ask them to tell the class about the story in the next session.

I would recommend giving students some suggestions on what short stories to read, depending on the level of your students.

Here are some suggestions of short story collections for each level of ESL learner:

• “The Very First Americans” by Cara Ashrose: This collection of short stories features Native American culture and history, written in simple language.
• “Oxford Bookworms Library: Starter Level” This series offers simplified versions of classic stories, such as fairy tales, adventure stories and more.
• “Classic Tales for ESL Students” by L.A. Hill: This collection of classic stories from literature is retold with easier vocabulary and sentence structure.

Intermediate

• “The Best American Short Stories” This series features contemporary short stories from a wide range of American writers, so there’s something for everyone here.
• “Short Stories in English for Intermediate Learners” by Olly Richards: This collection of engaging stories is designed specifically for intermediate ESL students.
• “Roald Dahl: The Collected Short Stories” This delightful collection of quirky and imaginative tales has become a favorite of many of my students.
• “Interpreter of Maladies” by Jhumpa Lahiri: This Pulitzer Prize-winning collection of short stories explores the immigrant experience, something which many ESL students can relate to.
• “Dubliners” by James Joyce: This classic collection of interconnected stories captures the essence of Dublin in 1914. But it still feels modern to many students.
• “Nine Stories” by J.D. Salinger: This classic collection of short stories is a class favorite when I’ve used it.

What do your students really care about? Give them a chance to talk about it in front of the class. 

Have each person choose something they’re passionate about, something they might consider themselves an expert on.

Challenge students to think of a creative way to present five must-know facts about that subject. They might make a movie, create a poster or brochure, write a song or even put on a skit.

Have each person present their creative project to the class, and then give the class five minutes to ask questions of the presenter.

Set certain parameters like students must speak in complete sentences or require that every student ask at least two questions at some point during the presentations.

Students will love sharing about their passions, and they’ll get some great speaking, listening and discourse information in the process, as well as teach the rest of the class some interesting vocabulary.

Ask for class for a volunteer to start a class WhatsApp chat group. They can also decide to use another messaging app like Telegram, Viber, Voxer or any other app that has a group chat function. 

Encourage them to send at least one message and to respond to a couple others for their homework. 

This text group has the added advantage of students being able to make friends with one another, and a place to ask about missed homework assignments on days when they can’t make it to class.

Note that if a student doesn’t want to be included in the chat group, you should have a back up assignment prepared for them.

Listening is one of the ESL student’s most difficult skills to acquire, so listening to a short podcast episode is ideal homework.

You can ask students to write a little about the podcast to turn in to you, or you can ask them to briefly summarize what they heard for the class in the next session.

Here are some suggestions for well done podcasts:

The English We Speak : Produced by the BBC, this podcast focuses on teaching commonly used phrases and idioms in conversational English.

The Moth : A storytelling podcast where real people share their personal experiences and anecdotes in English.

Stuff You Should Know : Though not specifically designed for ESL students, this podcast covers a vast array of interesting topics, providing exposure to diverse vocabulary and subject matters.

Ask your students to write a letter . The letter can be written to a friend or family member (which they could then actually mail or email), or it could be a fan letter to a favorite musician or actor. They could even write a letter to Santa Claus or a historical figure. 

For example, a student might choose to write a letter to Marie Antoinette, asking her what it was like to be the queen of France at such a young age. 

You can also choose to have students write letters to one another. Then the next homework can be writing that letter writer back.

Ask you students to review a product on Amazon (or any other shopping website that has reviews). Ask them to select a product they have really used, so they have a genuine opinion on the quality of the product and whether it lived up to their expectations.

Then, in the next session, show the reviews on the overhead projector to the class and ask a student to read the review.

You can then go over any errors in vocabulary, grammar or sentence structure and revise the review together as a class.

Since anyone can edit a Wikipedia article, it’s a great place for ESL students to hone their writing and editing skills, and they’ll have a built-in readership, too!

Ask students to select a person that they know a lot about—a well-known figure from history, pop culture, music or film would all work. Then ask them to read the Wikipedia entry to see if they can add anything else to the article.

Perhaps the article on Ryan Gosling is missing a key detail about his recent Ken performance. If so, the student will revise and edit the article. They should take notes on what they changed, so they can explain it to you or the class the next day.

Ask your students to get creative. Have them write a short story or a poem . This can get them to use descriptive language that they don’t always have a chance to use.

One good activity to do before you assign this homework is an adjective bubble chart. For this, you start with one adjective. For example, write “moist” on the board, circle it and then draw 4-5 lines coming off of the”moist” bubble.

Ask your students to come up with other adjectives that are related to “moist” and so on. They may come up with “wet,” “watery,” “soaked” or “damp.” Then draw lines from each of those. This can lead to words that you never expected to come up.

Have your students select 3-4 adjectives from this introduction activity that they’ll use in their story or poem.

Ask your students to prepare a short presentation on an aspect of their home culture to tell the class about in the next session. 

For example, a student from China may explain the Lunar New Year, a student from Vietnam may explain Tet or a student from El Salvador may tell the class about their quinceañera .

They can use photos, art, a PowerPoint presentation or they can just explain in their own words.

Then open the class up for questions.

Can you legitimately send students to the movies for homework? You can when you’re teaching ESL.

Your students don’t have to commit to a full-length movie. Instead, you can use the videos on FluentU to screen mini-lessons using clips from TV shows and movies, movie trailers, news segments, vlogs or music videos.

Use these videos in the classroom or assign homework to watch a few and complete the subsequent quizzes. You can also ask students to complete flashcard quizzes based on vocabulary words you want them to pay special attention to. These quizzes are adaptable so every student will have a unique experience catered to his learning level.

There are plenty of ways to use a movie for language development. And whether students watch a new release or catch an old Elvis flick on TV, they can do any of the following activities as homework:

• Summarize the plot.
• Describe a main character.
• Note new or interesting vocabulary (particularly slang) they hear while watching.
• Write an interview with one of the characters in the movie.

I’m sure you also have your favorite movie-related language activities and many work as homework assignments. So get creative with how you have students share about what they watched.

For the most part, people are willing to help someone in need, and that is doubly true for someone who needs to complete an assignment for school.

That’s why sending students out to interview native speakers on campus is such a fun homework assignment.

Start by helping your students write a list of questions they’ll use for their interviews. Students can choose a topic or you can assign one, like leisure activities or celebrity news.

Tell students to list five to ten questions they might ask on that topic that will elicit specific answers. 

As a class, discuss how students might introduce themselves to a potential interviewee. 

Then send students out to their interviews after class. They can share the answers they got in the next session.

Music is great for English learners since it stresses many aspects of language that can otherwise be hard to isolate, like the emotion of language, intonation and stress.

Have students choose their favorite English language song to listen to for homework and then ask them to do the following:

• Practice the lyrics to learn intonation and rhythm.
• Note slang and cultural references in the songs.
• Summarize the theme of the song, or just what it’s about.
• Have students share their favorite lyrics and what a particular song means to them.

Give individual students or groups of up to three students a list of items to find on their homework scavenger hunt. But instead of being specific in your list (for example, including items such as cat), be descriptive in your list.

You might include items such as something frightening, something beautiful, something quiet, something cool.

Students find items they think fit the description. For example, someone who is claustrophobic might choose an elevator for something frightening. They then take a picture of it.

The next day, have each person get with a partner and show them the pictures they took for each item on the list.

If the connection is not obvious, students should ask their partner to explain why they chose a particular item, such as the elevator.

Assigning homework that works isn’t as hard as you might think, especially if you focus on the following points.

• Put your homework in writing. It can be tempting to just announce homework assignments to students at the end of class, but language learners benefit when you reinforce what you say with what they can see. So take a minute to write any homework assignment on the board so students can read it as well as listen to it.
• Let students know what goals you have for a particular assignment. Is it practicing a certain grammar point ? Improving their listening skills ? Pronunciation practice ? When students know why they’re doing something, they’ll be able to tell on their own when they’ve successfully completed their homework assignment.
• Keep your homework practical . Your students may not find themselves planning out a menu for Thanksgiving when they leave your ESL classroom, but odds are they’ll have to order food at a restaurant at some point. Think about realistic ways students will have to use English in the real world and try to make your homework practical.
• Let your students be creative . Give your students choices on how they express themselves or present information. It’s okay for students to make a home movie, put on a one-man play or paint a picture to present to the class. Just because you prefer a particular type of creative expression doesn’t mean your students do, so give them choices and let them express themselves.
• Make homework fun! Every class has its own personality, so what’s fun for one might not be fun for another. Tailor your assignments to the personality of your class. Think about what they would think is fun, and go with that.

No matter what you believed in your student days, homework doesn’t have to be boring. With a little creativity when assigning homework, you might find that the activities you assign for outside of class become the highlights of your students’ days.

Enter your e-mail address to get your free PDF!

We hate SPAM and promise to keep your email address safe

Going over Homework the Next Day in Class is Not Immediate Feedback

August 22, 2021 rethinkmathteacher.com Math Teaching Resources , Teaching Resources 0

Perhaps one of the greatest fallacies facing the way we do math education today is the thought that going over homework the next day in class qualifies as providing our students with immediate feedback.

The Benefit of Immediate Feedback

Immediate feedback is one of the most important strategies you can use in your instructional design to help your students master what you are teaching. This is discussed in John Hattie’s book, “ Visible Learning for Teachers .”

Besides this book, it’s obvious when you consider how we learn anything. If you were to learn to play a musical instrument, after being shown how to play a certain note (or chord) you would then practice it as your instructor helped correct any mistakes. The same is true with any athletic skill. Your coach would model, and then you would practice as she gave you feedback, correcting any errors or praising you when you did it the right way.

When a student learns a math concept, they need to practice it, repeatedly, with immediate feedback. If you don’t provide immediate feedback, the student will not know whether or not they are doing the problem correctly. Thus, they could potentially repeat their mistakes on all of the questions they are working on.

Providing immediate feedback allows a student to learn from their mistakes. When an error is pointed out to the student, she can reevaluate her work, find the error, correct it, and be better for having made the mistake.

OR, he can gain confidence as he completes problems correctly and is shown that he has done so. He will feel accomplished as he continues to complete problems and get the right answers. This will encourage him to do more. He’ll enjoy being successful, and suddenly, he’ll have positive sentiments towards math, school, and you.

Math Teachers Struggling with Vocabulary

You wouldn’t think math teachers would be so passionate about vocabulary and definitions – that’s usually reserved for our language arts teaching counterparts. However, when I post my meme that says “Going over Homework the Next Day in Class is Not Immediate Feedback” you would be surprised at the harsh and negative comments that get left in my feed. People calling me names, saying I’ve never taught in a classroom, and declaring me to be an imbecile. (You’d think people who dedicate their lives to helping students talk nicely to each other would try to avoid treating others this way).

Why are some teachers so frustrated by the definition of the word “immediate.”

Let’s Talk Terms

First, let’s all agree that the word “immediate” means right away. Not 23 hours later.

If learners benefit from immediate feedback, that must be provided instantly; as soon as they finish the problem. Otherwise, the benefits will be lost.

When you get feedback right away, you can learn from your mistakes or gain confidence as you correctly do the work.

The next day is not immediate. Think of all the things your student has tried to learn since your math lesson. They have likely visited 5 or 6 other classes, each trying to teach your student new things (like definitions, dates, science theories, and more). They also have likely participated in sports, clubs, fine arts programs, or other extra curricular activities, also requiring them to learn new things (like lines to a skit, movement in a play, how to play a note, do a dance move, solve a puzzle, play a game, or more). Then, they’ve gone home and done homework, chores, and some of them have had to cook, clean, take care of siblings, and more. By the time they return to your class, they have forgotten what you have been trying to teach them – it is long ago.

The next day is also not immediate because it doesn’t allow students to learn from their mistakes and try again. Instead of doing problem number one incorrectly, being made aware of it, and then learning from it and fixing the error so that they do numbers two through ten correctly; the student repeated the mistake, unknowingly, on all ten problems. Now they are being shown the answer a day later, so they will not have the opportunity to practice the problem correctly .

Why Teachers are Frustrated by this Idea

I believe that when teachers are lashing out at me for my “hot take” of immediate being right away, it’s because they are already overwhelmed with the many duties that they have. And now, the one thing that they think they are doing well (in spite of all the extra duties we have to face) is being criticized, and they don’t see how to fix the issue.

Teachers often feel limited by circumstances, so suggesting that the only way they’ve found to make things work is ineffective is quite an irritant.

BUT IT SHOULDN’T BE.

We’re supposed to be lifelong learners. We’re supposed to have a growth mindset. As educators, we believe that everyone can learn. That doesn’t just apply to the lowest student in the class, it also applies to the smartest person in the room; the teacher. Yes, even we teachers can learn new things. We can grow. We can become better.

The Problem

Most lesson plans, especially in math, look like this

• A bellringer or do now (5-10 mins)
• Review yesterday’s homework (10-15 mins)
• Teach the new lesson (15 mins)
• Practice the skill in class, with review (10 minutes)
• Start homework (if time)

This is what my lesson plans looked like when I began teaching, and I was not an effective teacher. My students weren’t learning what I was teaching them, and as a result they were frustrated with me. I, in turn, was frustrated with them. How could they not learn it? It was so simple. I explained it so well!

The issue was immediate feedback. It’s how we learn something new, and with the instructional design outlined above, I wasn’t giving my students enough time in class to have practice with immediate feedback. We would do a few practice problems, together, which I would provide feedback on, and then they were released to their independent work.

But a few problems with immediate feedback is not enough.

How much practice is required?

When learning a new skill, you must practice it repeatedly to master it. But the great Vince Lombardi famously said, “Practice does not make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect.”

He is so right. If his football team practiced a play 100 times, but practiced it incorrectly all 100 times, they would not have mastered the play. If, however, they practiced it 20 times correctly, they will have likely mastered it and be able to run it correctly in the game.

The same is true with your students. If they practice the math concept you have been teaching them on 25 homework questions, but they did all 25 incorrectly, they will not have learned that skill. On the other hand, if they practice it repeatedly, with immediate feedback, and eventually learn from their mistakes so that  they can do the work correctly, and then they practice it correctly several more times, they will master the skill.

How to Increase Independent Practice with Immediate Feedback

If we are now bought into the idea that our students need practice with immediate feedback, how can we provide more of it to them so that they can be successful.

The first idea I will suggest is to have them do more independent practice in class. When students do their practice problems in class, instead of at home, there are many benefits. For starters, there are less distractions and its harder to cheat then when they’re at home.

But even more beneficial than that, doing work in class gives the student the greatest benefit of all – you. Having their teacher there to catch mistakes, correct common misconceptions, motivate them, help them when they’re stuck, and praise them when they’re successful is significantly beneficial.

You are their greatest resource. And since practicing a skill is how we master it, why would you separate the student’s greatest resource (you) from the most important strategy (practice).

Another way to Increase Immediate Feedback

Instead of you checking everyone in the class’s work on all of their problems, you can also provide immediate feedback by using technology or providing answer keys.

Websites like KhanAcademy , IXL , and even Google Classroom allow you to give students feedback after every question. You can guarantee that no student, regardless of how fast or slow they work, will ever complete a problem without immediate feedback through the wonderful use of technology.

You can have one student practice 20 problems, and another practice 3, and both will know after every completed problem whether or not they did the problem correctly. And it will not wear you out. This is the wonderful gift of technology in the classroom. If you have it, you should use it.

If you don’t have technology in the classroom, you can still provide all of your students with immediate feedback on every question (without you having to run around and check everyone’s work) by providing answer sheets. This way, students can check their answers on the answer sheet, and discover whether or not they are doing the work correctly.

Won’t they Cheat?

It is possible for students to cheat while using answer sheets (or even technology) in the classroom. But it’s much easier for students to cheat on homework. Plus, if you can teach students the value of checking their answers after they do their work (instead of before, which would be cheating) you are likely to get more buy in and reduce cheating.

I like to explain to my students that they’re going to get the right answer, I’m giving it to them. But if they don’t do the work, check the answers, and learn from it, and instead just write down the right answers from the answer sheet without doing any of the work, they will not have learned the subject matter, and then they’ll not do well on the test. Talks like this usually get good results for me with my students.

Don’t let the concern of a few students cheating deter you from implementing a very effective teaching strategy.

Instead, try to discourage cheating and encourage utilizing this highly effective strategy through quality teaching and lots of praise. Besides all of that, once students start realizing you’re for real, and their grades are doing well, and they start feeling the success of mastering the material, they will understand the methodology and be less likely to cheat.

Finally, when a student fails the test, this is usually a good indicator that they weren’t doing all of the work in class – or they weren’t doing it correctly. Which either means they weren’t using the answer sheets, or they were using them incorrectly (i.e., cheating). Then you can have a constructive conversation with them about how they’re using the answer sheets, and hopefully start to change their habits.

I remediate my students who don’t pass the test. So they have to do the work all over again while their peers move on. This further motivates them not to cheat.

Finding the Time

How will you have time to for students to do independent practice with immediate feedback in class?

Well, for starters, if you remove the “going over homework” portion of your class, you will immediately find 10-15 extra minutes that you used to use for students to do independent practice with immediate feedback.

Another great strategy is to place an emphasis on practice work with immediate feedback. If you start to value this as extremely beneficial to your students, you will deemphasize other sections of your class.

With this mindset, you might have an easier time trimming up your lecture. Or spend less time modeling problems and talking about them. Or you might find other areas of your instructional design to trim up in an effort to spend more time practicing problems and providing immediate feedback. For some other strategies on finding time in class, check out my free, online course: Math Teacher Tuneup .

Another idea, if you can’t find enough time to get students through their independent practice problems in class, is to allow them to take their answer sheets home and do the homework with provided answer sheets. I do not think this method is as effective as having your students do their work in class, but it is still more effective then having them do their independent practice without immediate feedback.

A final thought is to consider a self-paced, differentiated classroom . In other words, instead of pacing all of your students together, where they are all working on the same practice problems at the same time, on the same skill as everyone else – you pace them independently. Students who need more practice are afforded it, while students who need less practice and are ready to move on may do so without rushing the rest of the class. Those who are behind are remediated to work on prerequisite skills, while those who have already mastered the current lesson are progressed to work on more challenging material. Learn more about this methodology by clicking here .

Want more great teaching resources?

• Free Online Professional Development Course, The Math Teacher Tuneup
• Free Online Professional Development Course, 5 Strategies to Help your Students Get It
• 21 Free Math Teacher Resources Download
• 10 Great Teaching Strategies with 10 Free Resources to Help you Get Started
• 5 Math Teacher Books you Should Read

Copyright © 2024 | WordPress Theme by MH Themes

• Rules/Help/FAQ Help/FAQ
• Members Current visitors
• Interface Language

Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.

Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.

• English Only

In the next class / On the next class

• Thread starter PaoAndreCM
• Start date Oct 12, 2012

Senior Member

• Oct 12, 2012

The correct preposition is "in."  

You can either say "In the next class" (or "In our next class," just as long as "next class" is defined) or "Next class."  

25,000+ students realised their study abroad dream with us. Take the first step today

Meet top uk universities from the comfort of your home, here’s your new year gift, one app for all your, study abroad needs, start your journey, track your progress, grow with the community and so much more.

Verification Code

An OTP has been sent to your registered mobile no. Please verify

Thanks for your comment !

Our team will review it before it's shown to our readers.

• School Education /

Computer Holiday Homework For Classes 5 to 8

• Updated on  
• May 1, 2024

In addition to being a time for enjoyment and relaxation, summer vacation is an excellent opportunity for young children to continue learning and being busy. Eliminate tiresome spreadsheets! This blog article contains a plethora of creative ideas for computer holiday homework for kids in classes 5 through 8. We’ll cover topics including multiple-choice questions (MCQ), fill-in-the-blank questions, short questions, lengthy questions, and exercises to make summer learning engaging for kids, teachers, and parents. 

Table of Contents

• 1 Computer Holiday Homework for Class 5
• 2 Computer Holiday Homework for Class 6
• 3 Computer Holiday Homework for Class 7
• 4 Computer Holiday Homework for Class 8

Computer Holiday Homework for Class 5

• Multiple questions (MCQs)
• Fill in the Blanks

3. Short Answer

4. Long Answer

5. Exercises

Explore Art Therapy Courses  

Computer Holiday Homework for Class 6

• Long Answer

Computer Holiday Homework for Class 7

Also Read: 5 Best Social-Emotional Learning Activities  

Computer Holiday Homework for Class 8

Ans: Here are some ways to finish holiday homework on time. -Set study schedule -Get rid of online distractions -Take short break -Check your work -Prepare your material

Ans: Make a plan that accommodates your vacation schedule and try your best to follow it. 

Ans: Schedule everything out carefully in advance. Maintain your study space tidy and orderly, and keep your study aids close at hand. 

Explore interesting ideas for school children here : 

To engage children in other school education activities, follow Leverage Edu now!! 

Aayushi Vardhan

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Contact no. *

Connect With Us

25,000+ students realised their study abroad dream with us. Take the first step today.

Resend OTP in

Need help with?

Study abroad.

UK, Canada, US & More

IELTS, GRE, GMAT & More

Scholarship, Loans & Forex

Country Preference

New Zealand

Which English test are you planning to take?

Which academic test are you planning to take.

Not Sure yet

When are you planning to take the exam?

Already booked my exam slot

Within 2 Months

Want to learn about the test

Which Degree do you wish to pursue?

When do you want to start studying abroad.

January 2024

September 2024

What is your budget to study abroad?

How would you describe this article ?

Please rate this article

We would like to hear more.

Have something on your mind?

Make your study abroad dream a reality in January 2022 with

India's Biggest Virtual University Fair

Essex Direct Admission Day

Why attend .

Don't Miss Out

• Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

critic’s notebook

N.F.L. Draft Had Some Style Winners

The next class of football stars has done some fashion homework, but the evening was pretty tame compared with the N.B.A. draft.

By Guy Trebay

“People want to sit around with the family and watch football,” Roger Goodell, the National Football League commissioner, said Thursday night before the 2024 N.F.L. draft. It is also increasingly the case that people want to sit around, alone or in groups, watching phenomenal athletes and physical specimens doing nothing more physically taxing than sauntering down a red carpet.

And, while the N.F.L. has a long way to go before it can stage a real challenge to the style dominance of N.B.A. tunnel-walk kings like Jerami Grant, Jarred Vanderbilt or Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, it was clear that this year’s football draft prospects had done some fashion homework.

Take the No. 1 draft pick, Caleb Williams, the U.S.C. quarterback chosen — to the surprise of almost no one — by the Chicago Bears. Mr. Williams dressed for his big night in a sophisticated dark blue, double-breasted zippered suit by Chrome Hearts, worn over a darker blue T-shirt. It was a sleek tone-on-tone look that was only improved when he donned his new team’s logo snapback.

Or consider the L.S.U. star Jayden Daniels, who wore a handsome dove-gray single-breasted suit, tieless, as he was chosen by the Washington Commanders. A player known for his ever-changing hairstyles, Mr. Daniels accessorized his look, impromptu, with a Commanders team cap perched atop his current coiffure, a head full of ropy twists.

Maybe the New England Patriots’ choice Drake Maye, wearing a single-breasted suit with a skinny tie, all in pale gray, was not flaunting a look you’ll ever see on the social media entity LeagueFits, where, as its author says, men who “used to go to war now post fit checks before prime time games.” But he made a strong case for the value of playing conservatively and sticking to your own sartorial lane.

For this critic’s money, some of the more compelling looks of this evening in Detroit belonged to Malik Nabers, the L.S.U. wide receiver who touchingly had his double-breasted suit lined with photo prints of “all the legends, all the people that made Malik what Malik is”; Marvin Harrison Jr., the Ohio State wide receiver who was the fourth pick and wore a jeweled pendant with a gridiron image of his dad, Marvin Harrison (19th pick in 1996), and who was additionally clad in sunglasses, a black suit, dark shirt and tie; and, finally, Taliese Fuaga, the 334-pound Samoan-American Oregon State offensive lineman, who wore a print shirt and floral lei.

One knock on the N.B.A. tunnel-walk stars is that they seldom look as though they are wearing clothes they’d have chosen without the guidance of agents and stylists or were not paid to wear. In that sense, N.F.L. draft night remained an oddly innocent affair.

Of course, there were inevitably abundant commercial tie-ins underpinning this display of fanfare, a hype night for a multibillion-dollar business. Still, compared with most widely cross-platform events these days, and considered in the light of an attention economy that often guarantees celebrities — newly minted or otherwise — a fortune for each post, the draft seemed almost quaint. A good percentage of the draft picks did not even trek to Detroit to be nominated. Like the rest of us, they watched the hoopla from home.

Guy Trebay is a reporter for the Style section of The Times, writing about the intersections of style, culture, art and fashion. More about Guy Trebay

Inside the World of Sports

Dive deeper into the people, issues and trends shaping professional, collegiate and amateur athletics..

Horse Racing Deaths:  The deaths of 12 horses in the days surrounding last year’s Kentucky Derby have led to existential questions about the sport and its future .

Arranging Autographs: As fans and collectors clamor for autographs, Major League Baseball players have built a network — and an etiquette — for signing things for each other .

NASCAR’s Financial Future: Some team owners are struggling to make a return on their investment. The main reason, they said, is NASCAR’s reluctance to share more of its growing revenue .

A Reputation Problem: Having a team in the Premier League, the world’s richest sports competition, might alter how people think of Luton , an English town long dogged by a ramshackle image and links to extremism.

Women’s Pro Hockey League: The fledgling league is booming — except in New York, where the team is in last place . But the players haven’t given up.

Python in Visual Studio Code – May 2024 Release

Courtney Webster

May 3rd, 2024 0 0

We’re excited to announce the May 2024 release of the Python and Jupyter extensions for Visual Studio Code!

This release includes the following announcements:

• “Implement all inherited abstract classes” code action

New auto indentation setting

Debugpy removed from the python extension in favor of the python debugger extension, socket disablement now possible during testing.

• Pylance performance updates

If you’re interested, you can check the full list of improvements in our changelogs for the Python , Jupyter and Pylance extensions.

“Implement all inherited abstract classes” Code Action

Abstract classes serve as “blueprints” for other classes and help build modular, reusable code by promoting clear structure and requirements for subclasses to adhere to. To define an abstract class in Python, you can create a class that inherits from the ABC class in the abc module , and annotate its methods with the @abstractmethod decorator. Then, you can create new classes that inherit from this abstract class, and define an implementation for the base methods. Implementing these classes is easier with the latest Pylance pre-release! When defining a new class that inherits from an abstract one, you can now use the “Implement all inherited abstract classes” Code Action to automatically implement all abstract methods and properties from the parent class:

Previously, Pylance’s auto indentation behavior was controlled through the editor.formatOnType setting, which used to be problematic if one would want to disable auto indentation, but enable format on type through other supported tools. To solve this problem, Pylance’s latest pre-release now has its own setting to control auto indentation behavior, python.analysis.autoIndent , which is enabled by default.

In our February 2024 release blog , we announced moving all debugging functionality to the Python Debugger extension, which is installed by default alongside the Python extension. In this release, we have removed duplicate debugging code from the Python extension, which helps to decrease the extension download size. As part of this change, "type": "python" and "type": "debugpy" specified in your launch.json configuration file are both interpreted as references to the Python Debugger extension path. This ensures a seamless transition without requiring any modifications to existing configuration files to run and debug effectively. Moving forward, we recommend using "type": "debugpy" as this directly corresponds to the Python Debugger extension which provides support for both legacy and modern Python versions.

You can now run tests with socket disablement from the testing UI. This is made possible by a switch in the communication between the Python extension and the test run subprocess to now use named-pipes as opposed to numbered ports. This feature is available on the Python Testing Rewrite , which is rolled out to all users by default and will soon be fully adopted in the Python extension.

Pylance Performance

The Pylance team has been receiving feedback that Pylance’s performance has degraded over the past few releases. As a result, we have made several smaller improvements to memory consumption and indexing including:

• Improved performance for third-party packages indexing
• Skipped Python files from workspace .conda environments from being scanned ( @pylance-release#5191 )
• Skipped index on unnecessary py.typed file checks ( @pyright#7652 )
• Reduced memory consumption by refactoring tokenizer and parser output ( @pyright#7602 )
• Improved memory consumption for token creation ( @pyright#7434 )

For those who may still be experiencing performance issues with Pylance, we are kindly requesting for issues to be filed through the Pylance: Report Issue command from the Command Palette, ideally with logs, code samples and/or the packages that are installed in the working environment.

Additionally, we have added a couple of features in the latest Pylance pre-release version to help identify potential performance issues and gather additional information about issues you are facing. There is a new notification that prompts you to file an issue in the Pylance repo when the extension detects there may be a performance issue. Moreover, Pylance now provides a profiling command Pylance: Start Profiling that generates cpuprofile for all worker threads. This file is generated after starting and stopping profiling by triggering the Pylance: Start Profiling and Pylance: Stop Profiling commands and can be provided as additional data in an issue.

With these smaller improvements and additional ways to report performance issues, we hope to continue to make improvements to performance. We greatly appreciate the feedback and collaboration as we work to address issues!

Other Changes and Enhancements

We have also added small enhancements and fixed issues requested by users that should improve your experience working with Python and Jupyter Notebooks in Visual Studio Code. Some notable changes include:

• Test Explorer displays projects using testscenarios with unittest and parameterized tests inside nested classes correctly ( @vscode-python#22870 ).
• Test Explorer now handles tests in workspaces with symlinks, specifically workspace roots which are children of symlink-ed paths, which is particularly helpful in WSL scenarios ( @vscode-python#22658 ).

We would also like to extend special thanks to this month’s contributors:

• @DetachHead Support experiment configuration in workspace settings in @vscode-python#23267
• @DavidArchibald Fix debugger attach to process when running on WSL in @vscode-python-debugger#267

Call for Community Feedback

As we are planning and prioritizing future work, we value your feedback! Below are a few issues we would love feedback on:

• Design proposal for test coverage in (@vscode-python#22827)

Try out these new improvements by downloading the Python extension and the Jupyter extension from the Marketplace, or install them directly from the extensions view in Visual Studio Code (Ctrl + Shift + X or ⌘ + ⇧ + X). You can learn more about Python support in Visual Studio Code in the documentation. If you run into any problems or have suggestions, please file an issue on the Python VS Code GitHub page .

Courtney Webster Program Manager, Python Extension in Visual Studio Code

Leave a comment Cancel reply

Log in to start the discussion.

Insert/edit link

Enter the destination URL

Or link to existing content

LeBron James headlines the top potential NBA free agents in 2024

James isn't the only los angeles basketball star with an uncertain future, either., by eric mullin • published may 6, 2024 • updated on may 6, 2024 at 2:06 pm.

LeBron James has changed teams in free agency three times throughout his legendary career. And that number could go up four this summer.

The Los Angeles Lakers superstar headlines the potential class of NBA free agents in 2024. James, who will be entering his age-40 season, has a $54.1 million player option he needs to make a decision on .

James isn't the only Los Angeles basketball star with an uncertain future, either. Clippers forward Paul George holds a $44.1 million player option for next season, while Clippers guard James Harden is in the final year of his deal.

Along with Harden, the other top unrestricted free agents include Indiana Pacers forward Pascal Siakam, Golden State Warriors guard Klay Thompson and Chicago Bulls guard DeMar DeRozan .

Get Southern California news, weather forecasts and entertainment stories to your inbox. Sign up for NBC LA newsletters.

Meanwhile, Philadelphia 76ers guard Tyrese Maxey leads the group of restricted free agents.

The updated bracket and schedule for Round 2 of the NBA playoffs

Who will be the next Lakers coach? Here are candidates the team could target

So, which other players could hit the open market? And when will the free-agent frenzy begin? Here's what to know about 2024 free agency:

Who are the best upcoming NBA free agents?

Here's a full look at the best guards, forwards and centers who could hit the open market (players listed in alphabetical order by last name):

• Jose Alvarado, New Orleans Pelicans ($1.7M team option)
• Malik Beasley, Milwaukee Bucks
• Patrick Beverley, Milwaukee Bucks
• Bruce Brown, Toronto Raptors ($22.5M team option)
• Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Denver Nuggets ($15.1M player option)
• DeMar DeRozan, Chicago Bulls
• Spencer Dinwiddie, Los Angeles Lakers
• Kris Dunn, Utah Jazz
• Markelle Fultz, Orlando Magic
• Eric Gordon, Phoenix Suns ($3.3M player option)
• James Harden, Los Angeles Clippers
• Sam Hauser, Boston Celtics ($1.9M team option)
• Buddy Hield, Philadelphia 76ers
• Talen Horton-Tucker, Utah Jazz
• Reggie Jackson, Denver Nuggets ($5.1M player option)
• Isaiah Joe, Oklahoma City Thunder ($2M team option)
• Tyus Jones, Washington Wizards
• Luke Kennard, Memphis Grizzlies ($14M team option)
• Kyle Lowry, Philadelphia 76ers
• Naji Marshall, New Orleans Pelicans
• Tyrese Maxey, Philadelphia 76ers (restricted)
• De'Anthony Melton, Philadelphia 76ers
• Malik Monk, Sacramento Kings
• Monte Morris, Minnesota Timberwolves
• Cam Payne, Philadelphia 76ers
• Gary Payton II, Golden State Warriors ($8.7M player option)
• Josh Richardson, Miami Heat ($3M player option)
• D'Angelo Russell, Los Angeles Lakers ($18M player option)
• Klay Thompson, Golden State Warriors
• Gary Trent Jr., Toronto Raptors
• Immanuel Quickley, Toronto Raptors (restricted)
• Lonnie Walker IV, Brooklyn Nets
• Russell Westbrook, Los Angeles Clippers ($3.9M player option)
• Aaron Wiggins, Oklahoma City Thunder ($1.6M team option)
• Delon Wright, Miami Heat
• Kyle Anderson, Minnesota Timberwolves
• OG Anunoby, New York Knicks ($18M player option)
• Nicolas Batum, Philadelphia 76ers
• Saddiq Bey, Atlanta Hawks (restricted)
• Miles Bridges, Charlotte Hornets
• Robert Covington, Philadelphia 76ers
• Torrey Craig, Chicago Bulls ($2.7M player option)
• Jae Crowder, Milwaukee Bucks
• Paul George, Los Angeles Clippers ($44.1M player option)
• Jeff Green, Houston Rockets ($8M team option)
• Tobias Harris, Philadelphia 76ers
• Haywood Highsmith, Miami Heat (restricted)
• LeBron James, Los Angeles Lakers ($54.1M player option)
• Derrick Jones Jr., Dallas Mavericks
• Kevin Love, Miami Heat ($3.9M player option)
• Caleb Martin, Miami Heat ($6.8M player option)
• Marcus Morris Sr., Cleveland Cavaliers
• Josh Okogie, Phoenix Suns ($2.9M player option)
• Isaac Okoro, Cleveland Cavaliers (restricted)
• Royce O'Neale, Phoenix Suns
• Kelly Oubre Jr., Philadelphia 76ers
• Taurean Prince, Los Angeles Lakers
• Dario Saric, Golden State Warriors
• Pascal Siakam, Indiana Pacers
• Obi Toppin, Indiana Pacers (restricted)
• P.J. Tucker, Los Angeles Clippers ($11M player option)
• Patrick Williams, Chicago Bulls (restricted)
• Nic Claxton, Brooklyn Nets
• Andre Drummond, Chicago Bulls
• Drew Eubanks, Phoenix Suns ($2.5M player option)
• Isaiah Hartenstein, New York Knicks
• Jaxson Hayes, Los Angeles Lakers ($2.4M player option)
• Mason Plumlee, Los Angeles Clippers
• Jalen Smith, Indiana Pacers ($5M player option)
• Xavier Tillman, Boston Celtics
• Jonas Valanciunas, New Orleans Pelicans
• Mo Wagner, Orlando Magic ($8M team option)
• Christian Wood, Los Angeles Lakers ($2.9M player option)

When does NBA free agency start in 2024?

Teams will be allowed to negotiate with their own pending free agents starting the day after the NBA Finals conclude. For reference, the Finals can end as early as June 14 and as late as June 23.

On June 30 at 6 p.m. ET, teams can start negotiating with all other free agents. Deals can't be signed until 12:01 p.m. ET on July 6.

What is the NBA salary cap for the 2024-25 season?

The reported salary cap for next season is an estimated $141 million, which would mark roughly a $5 million increase from 2023-24.

Which NBA teams have the most cap space in 2024 free agency?

According to Spotrac's practical cap space projections , there are seven teams set up to be under the cap, including three that reached the 2023 playoffs:

1. Detroit Pistons: $60.1 million

2. Philadelphia 76ers: $55.5 million

3. Utah Jazz: $37.5 million

4. Oklahoma City Thunder: $35.3 million

5. San Antonio Spurs: $27.3 million

6. Orlando Magic: $19.1 million

7. Charlotte Hornets: $2.6 million

This article tagged under:

• FanNation FanNation FanNation
• SI.COM SI.COM SI.COM
• SI Swimsuit SI Swimsuit SI Swimsuit
• SI Sportsbook SI Sportsbook SI Sportsbook
• SI Tickets SI Tickets SI Tickets
• SI Showcase SI Showcase SI Showcase
• SI Resorts SI Resorts SI Resorts

© Robert Goddin-USA TODAY Sports

Where Does SI Rank Vikings' Draft Class Within the NFC?

The Vikings landed two top-20 picks, but not a whole lot else.

• Author: Will Ragatz

In this story:

During last weekend's NFL draft, the Vikings secured their quarterback of the future and one of the best defensive players in the class, trading up twice to take J.J. McCarthy and Dallas Turner with top-20 picks. That duo alone has the potential to make this one of the most impactful drafts in franchise history . But with just one pick in rounds two through five, the Vikings weren't able to do a whole lot after the first night.

SI's Gilberto Manzano recently ranked the NFC's draft classes 1-16 , and the Vikings checked in at No. 10 on his list. Here's what he had to say:

"If J.J. McCarthy was the target all along, the Vikings played this well by only trading up one spot to get him at No. 10 instead of moving into the top five to select the Michigan quarterback. But Minnesota took a risk by banking on the fifth quarterback taken in the draft. As history has shown, it’s rare when five quarterbacks from one draft class develop into legitimate franchise signal-calle rs. 

The Vikings tried to trade three first-round picks to the Patriots  for the right to draft Maye, who likely has the best skill set among all of the QB prospects. McCarthy's ceiling might not be as high as the others, but he proved at Michigan he can run an efficient offense and will now get to throw to Justin Jefferson, Jordan Addison and T.J. Hockenson. By not getting desperate for a quarterback, the Vikings also added Dallas Turner at No. 17 to pair with free-agent signing Jonathan Greenard."

Not all of the six quarterbacks taken in the top 12 picks are going to pan out. But just because McCarthy was the fifth one taken doesn't mean he has worse odds to be one of the successful QBs to come out of this class. In fact, he might be better set up to thrive than any of the others, due to the Vikings' coaching staff and the talent they have around him on offense. No. 1 overall pick Caleb Williams probably has the best chance to pan out, due to his talent and the Bears' impressive wide receiver corps. Jayden Daniels and Drake Maye might have higher ceilings than McCarthy, but they landed in tough spots in Washington and New England. Michael Penix Jr. landed in a bizarre spot behind Kirk Cousins in Atlanta. Everyone outside of Williams would probably trade places with McCarthy if they could.

As for not trading up for Maye, that allowed the Vikings to keep the 23rd pick and trade up for Turner (and keep their first-rounder next year). The former Alabama star has a chance to be very productive in Brian Flores' aggressive defensive scheme. Because of that, I think you could make the argument that the Vikings at 10 are too low in these rankings. Elsewhere in the NFC North, the Packers are 9th, the Lions are 3rd, and the Bears are 1st on Manzano's list.

Thanks for reading. Make sure to bookmark this site and check back daily for the latest Vikings news and analysis all offseason long.

Follow Will Ragatz on X/Twitter

Latest Vikings News

Former Vikings QB Josh Dobbs Signs One-Year Deal With 49ers

Former Vikings Alexander Mattison, Oli Udoh Sign With New Teams

Vikings Show Interest in Michigan QB J.J. McCarthy

Vikings' Brass to Attend Private Workout With J.J. McCarthy Next Week

Inside Kirk Cousins’s Departure from Minnesota and His Arrival in Atlanta