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Everyone struggles with homework sometimes, but if getting your homework done has become a chronic issue for you, then you may need a little extra help. That’s why we’ve written this article all about how to do homework. Once you’re finished reading it, you’ll know how to do homework (and have tons of new ways to motivate yourself to do homework)!

We’ve broken this article down into a few major sections. You’ll find:

• A diagnostic test to help you figure out why you’re struggling with homework
• A discussion of the four major homework problems students face, along with expert tips for addressing them
• A bonus section with tips for how to do homework fast

By the end of this article, you’ll be prepared to tackle whatever homework assignments your teachers throw at you .

So let’s get started!

How to Do Homework: Figure Out Your Struggles 

Sometimes it feels like everything is standing between you and getting your homework done. But the truth is, most people only have one or two major roadblocks that are keeping them from getting their homework done well and on time. 

The best way to figure out how to get motivated to do homework starts with pinpointing the issues that are affecting your ability to get your assignments done. That’s why we’ve developed a short quiz to help you identify the areas where you’re struggling. 

Take the quiz below and record your answers on your phone or on a scrap piece of paper. Keep in mind there are no wrong answers! 

1. You’ve just been assigned an essay in your English class that’s due at the end of the week. What’s the first thing you do?

A. Keep it in mind, even though you won’t start it until the day before it’s due  B. Open up your planner. You’ve got to figure out when you’ll write your paper since you have band practice, a speech tournament, and your little sister’s dance recital this week, too.  C. Groan out loud. Another essay? You could barely get yourself to write the last one!  D. Start thinking about your essay topic, which makes you think about your art project that’s due the same day, which reminds you that your favorite artist might have just posted to Instagram...so you better check your feed right now. 

2. Your mom asked you to pick up your room before she gets home from work. You’ve just gotten home from school. You decide you’ll tackle your chores: 

A. Five minutes before your mom walks through the front door. As long as it gets done, who cares when you start?  B. As soon as you get home from your shift at the local grocery store.  C. After you give yourself a 15-minute pep talk about how you need to get to work.  D. You won’t get it done. Between texts from your friends, trying to watch your favorite Netflix show, and playing with your dog, you just lost track of time! 

3. You’ve signed up to wash dogs at the Humane Society to help earn money for your senior class trip. You: 

A. Show up ten minutes late. You put off leaving your house until the last minute, then got stuck in unexpected traffic on the way to the shelter.  B. Have to call and cancel at the last minute. You forgot you’d already agreed to babysit your cousin and bake cupcakes for tomorrow’s bake sale.  C. Actually arrive fifteen minutes early with extra brushes and bandanas you picked up at the store. You’re passionate about animals, so you’re excited to help out! D. Show up on time, but only get three dogs washed. You couldn’t help it: you just kept getting distracted by how cute they were!

4. You have an hour of downtime, so you decide you’re going to watch an episode of The Great British Baking Show. You: 

A. Scroll through your social media feeds for twenty minutes before hitting play, which means you’re not able to finish the whole episode. Ugh! You really wanted to see who was sent home!  B. Watch fifteen minutes until you remember you’re supposed to pick up your sister from band practice before heading to your part-time job. No GBBO for you!  C. You finish one episode, then decide to watch another even though you’ve got SAT studying to do. It’s just more fun to watch people make scones.  D. Start the episode, but only catch bits and pieces of it because you’re reading Twitter, cleaning out your backpack, and eating a snack at the same time.

5. Your teacher asks you to stay after class because you’ve missed turning in two homework assignments in a row. When she asks you what’s wrong, you say: 

A. You planned to do your assignments during lunch, but you ran out of time. You decided it would be better to turn in nothing at all than submit unfinished work.  B. You really wanted to get the assignments done, but between your extracurriculars, family commitments, and your part-time job, your homework fell through the cracks.  C. You have a hard time psyching yourself to tackle the assignments. You just can’t seem to find the motivation to work on them once you get home.  D. You tried to do them, but you had a hard time focusing. By the time you realized you hadn’t gotten anything done, it was already time to turn them in. 

Like we said earlier, there are no right or wrong answers to this quiz (though your results will be better if you answered as honestly as possible). Here’s how your answers break down: 

• If your answers were mostly As, then your biggest struggle with doing homework is procrastination. 
• If your answers were mostly Bs, then your biggest struggle with doing homework is time management. 
• If your answers were mostly Cs, then your biggest struggle with doing homework is motivation. 
• If your answers were mostly Ds, then your biggest struggle with doing homework is getting distracted. 

Now that you’ve identified why you’re having a hard time getting your homework done, we can help you figure out how to fix it! Scroll down to find your core problem area to learn more about how you can start to address it. 

And one more thing: you’re really struggling with homework, it’s a good idea to read through every section below. You may find some additional tips that will help make homework less intimidating. 

How to Do Homework When You’re a Procrastinator  

Merriam Webster defines “procrastinate” as “to put off intentionally and habitually.” In other words, procrastination is when you choose to do something at the last minute on a regular basis. If you’ve ever found yourself pulling an all-nighter, trying to finish an assignment between periods, or sprinting to turn in a paper minutes before a deadline, you’ve experienced the effects of procrastination. 

If you’re a chronic procrastinator, you’re in good company. In fact, one study found that 70% to 95% of undergraduate students procrastinate when it comes to doing their homework. Unfortunately, procrastination can negatively impact your grades. Researchers have found that procrastination can lower your grade on an assignment by as much as five points ...which might not sound serious until you realize that can mean the difference between a B- and a C+. 

Procrastination can also negatively affect your health by increasing your stress levels , which can lead to other health conditions like insomnia, a weakened immune system, and even heart conditions. Getting a handle on procrastination can not only improve your grades, it can make you feel better, too! 

The big thing to understand about procrastination is that it’s not the result of laziness. Laziness is defined as being “disinclined to activity or exertion.” In other words, being lazy is all about doing nothing. But a s this Psychology Today article explains , procrastinators don’t put things off because they don’t want to work. Instead, procrastinators tend to postpone tasks they don’t want to do in favor of tasks that they perceive as either more important or more fun. Put another way, procrastinators want to do things...as long as it’s not their homework! 

3 Tips f or Conquering Procrastination 

Because putting off doing homework is a common problem, there are lots of good tactics for addressing procrastination. Keep reading for our three expert tips that will get your homework habits back on track in no time. 

#1: Create a Reward System

Like we mentioned earlier, procrastination happens when you prioritize other activities over getting your homework done. Many times, this happens because homework...well, just isn’t enjoyable. But you can add some fun back into the process by rewarding yourself for getting your work done. 

Here’s what we mean: let’s say you decide that every time you get your homework done before the day it’s due, you’ll give yourself a point. For every five points you earn, you’ll treat yourself to your favorite dessert: a chocolate cupcake! Now you have an extra (delicious!) incentive to motivate you to leave procrastination in the dust. 

If you’re not into cupcakes, don’t worry. Your reward can be anything that motivates you . Maybe it’s hanging out with your best friend or an extra ten minutes of video game time. As long as you’re choosing something that makes homework worth doing, you’ll be successful. 

#2: Have a Homework Accountability Partner 

If you’re having trouble getting yourself to start your homework ahead of time, it may be a good idea to call in reinforcements . Find a friend or classmate you can trust and explain to them that you’re trying to change your homework habits. Ask them if they’d be willing to text you to make sure you’re doing your homework and check in with you once a week to see if you’re meeting your anti-procrastination goals. 

Sharing your goals can make them feel more real, and an accountability partner can help hold you responsible for your decisions. For example, let’s say you’re tempted to put off your science lab write-up until the morning before it’s due. But you know that your accountability partner is going to text you about it tomorrow...and you don’t want to fess up that you haven’t started your assignment. A homework accountability partner can give you the extra support and incentive you need to keep your homework habits on track. 

#3: Create Your Own Due Dates 

If you’re a life-long procrastinator, you might find that changing the habit is harder than you expected. In that case, you might try using procrastination to your advantage! If you just can’t seem to stop doing your work at the last minute, try setting your own due dates for assignments that range from a day to a week before the assignment is actually due. 

Here’s what we mean. Let’s say you have a math worksheet that’s been assigned on Tuesday and is due on Friday. In your planner, you can write down the due date as Thursday instead. You may still put off your homework assignment until the last minute...but in this case, the “last minute” is a day before the assignment’s real due date . This little hack can trick your procrastination-addicted brain into planning ahead! 

If you feel like Kevin Hart in this meme, then our tips for doing homework when you're busy are for you. 

How to Do Homework When You’re too Busy

If you’re aiming to go to a top-tier college , you’re going to have a full plate. Because college admissions is getting more competitive, it’s important that you’re maintaining your grades , studying hard for your standardized tests , and participating in extracurriculars so your application stands out. A packed schedule can get even more hectic once you add family obligations or a part-time job to the mix. 

If you feel like you’re being pulled in a million directions at once, you’re not alone. Recent research has found that stress—and more severe stress-related conditions like anxiety and depression— are a major problem for high school students . In fact, one study from the American Psychological Association found that during the school year, students’ stress levels are higher than those of the adults around them. 

For students, homework is a major contributor to their overall stress levels . Many high schoolers have multiple hours of homework every night , and figuring out how to fit it into an already-packed schedule can seem impossible. 

3 Tips for Fitting Homework Into Your Busy Schedule

While it might feel like you have literally no time left in your schedule, there are still ways to make sure you’re able to get your homework done and meet your other commitments. Here are our expert homework tips for even the busiest of students. 

#1: Make a Prioritized To-Do List 

You probably already have a to-do list to keep yourself on track. The next step is to prioritize the items on your to-do list so you can see what items need your attention right away. 

Here’s how it works: at the beginning of each day, sit down and make a list of all the items you need to get done before you go to bed. This includes your homework, but it should also take into account any practices, chores, events, or job shifts you may have. Once you get everything listed out, it’s time to prioritize them using the labels A, B, and C. Here’s what those labels mean:

• A Tasks : tasks that have to get done—like showing up at work or turning in an assignment—get an A. 
• B Tasks : these are tasks that you would like to get done by the end of the day but aren’t as time sensitive. For example, studying for a test you have next week could be a B-level task. It’s still important, but it doesn’t have to be done right away.
• C Tasks: these are tasks that aren’t very important and/or have no real consequences if you don’t get them done immediately. For instance, if you’re hoping to clean out your closet but it’s not an assigned chore from your parents, you could label that to-do item with a C.

Prioritizing your to-do list helps you visualize which items need your immediate attention, and which items you can leave for later. A prioritized to-do list ensures that you’re spending your time efficiently and effectively, which helps you make room in your schedule for homework. So even though you might really want to start making decorations for Homecoming (a B task), you’ll know that finishing your reading log (an A task) is more important. 

#2: Use a Planner With Time Labels

Your planner is probably packed with notes, events, and assignments already. (And if you’re not using a planner, it’s time to start!) But planners can do more for you than just remind you when an assignment is due. If you’re using a planner with time labels, it can help you visualize how you need to spend your day.

A planner with time labels breaks your day down into chunks, and you assign tasks to each chunk of time. For example, you can make a note of your class schedule with assignments, block out time to study, and make sure you know when you need to be at practice. Once you know which tasks take priority, you can add them to any empty spaces in your day. 

Planning out how you spend your time not only helps you use it wisely, it can help you feel less overwhelmed, too . We’re big fans of planners that include a task list ( like this one ) or have room for notes ( like this one ). 

#3: Set Reminders on Your Phone 

If you need a little extra nudge to make sure you’re getting your homework done on time, it’s a good idea to set some reminders on your phone. You don’t need a fancy app, either. You can use your alarm app to have it go off at specific times throughout the day to remind you to do your homework. This works especially well if you have a set homework time scheduled. So if you’ve decided you’re doing homework at 6:00 pm, you can set an alarm to remind you to bust out your books and get to work. 

If you use your phone as your planner, you may have the option to add alerts, emails, or notifications to scheduled events . Many calendar apps, including the one that comes with your phone, have built-in reminders that you can customize to meet your needs. So if you block off time to do your homework from 4:30 to 6:00 pm, you can set a reminder that will pop up on your phone when it’s time to get started. 

This dog isn't judging your lack of motivation...but your teacher might. Keep reading for tips to help you motivate yourself to do your homework.

How to Do Homework When You’re Unmotivated 

At first glance, it may seem like procrastination and being unmotivated are the same thing. After all, both of these issues usually result in you putting off your homework until the very last minute. 

But there’s one key difference: many procrastinators are working, they’re just prioritizing work differently. They know they’re going to start their homework...they’re just going to do it later. 

Conversely, people who are unmotivated to do homework just can’t find the willpower to tackle their assignments. Procrastinators know they’ll at least attempt the homework at the last minute, whereas people who are unmotivated struggle with convincing themselves to do it at a ll. For procrastinators, the stress comes from the inevitable time crunch. For unmotivated people, the stress comes from trying to convince themselves to do something they don’t want to do in the first place. 

Here are some common reasons students are unmotivated in doing homework : 

• Assignments are too easy, too hard, or seemingly pointless 
• Students aren’t interested in (or passionate about) the subject matter
• Students are intimidated by the work and/or feels like they don’t understand the assignment 
• Homework isn’t fun, and students would rather spend their time on things that they enjoy 

To sum it up: people who lack motivation to do their homework are more likely to not do it at all, or to spend more time worrying about doing their homework than...well, actually doing it.

3 Tips for How to Get Motivated to Do Homework

The key to getting homework done when you’re unmotivated is to figure out what does motivate you, then apply those things to homework. It sounds tricky...but it’s pretty simple once you get the hang of it! Here are our three expert tips for motivating yourself to do your homework. 

#1: Use Incremental Incentives

When you’re not motivated, it’s important to give yourself small rewards to stay focused on finishing the task at hand. The trick is to keep the incentives small and to reward yourself often. For example, maybe you’re reading a good book in your free time. For every ten minutes you spend on your homework, you get to read five pages of your book. Like we mentioned earlier, make sure you’re choosing a reward that works for you! 

So why does this technique work? Using small rewards more often allows you to experience small wins for getting your work done. Every time you make it to one of your tiny reward points, you get to celebrate your success, which gives your brain a boost of dopamine . Dopamine helps you stay motivated and also creates a feeling of satisfaction when you complete your homework !  

#2: Form a Homework Group 

If you’re having trouble motivating yourself, it’s okay to turn to others for support. Creating a homework group can help with this. Bring together a group of your friends or classmates, and pick one time a week where you meet and work on homework together. You don’t have to be in the same class, or even taking the same subjects— the goal is to encourage one another to start (and finish!) your assignments. 

Another added benefit of a homework group is that you can help one another if you’re struggling to understand the material covered in your classes. This is especially helpful if your lack of motivation comes from being intimidated by your assignments. Asking your friends for help may feel less scary than talking to your teacher...and once you get a handle on the material, your homework may become less frightening, too. 

#3: Change Up Your Environment 

If you find that you’re totally unmotivated, it may help if you find a new place to do your homework. For example, if you’ve been struggling to get your homework done at home, try spending an extra hour in the library after school instead. The change of scenery can limit your distractions and give you the energy you need to get your work done. 

If you’re stuck doing homework at home, you can still use this tip. For instance, maybe you’ve always done your homework sitting on your bed. Try relocating somewhere else, like your kitchen table, for a few weeks. You may find that setting up a new “homework spot” in your house gives you a motivational lift and helps you get your work done. 

Social media can be a huge problem when it comes to doing homework. We have advice for helping you unplug and regain focus.

How to Do Homework When You’re Easily Distracted

We live in an always-on world, and there are tons of things clamoring for our attention. From friends and family to pop culture and social media, it seems like there’s always something (or someone!) distracting us from the things we need to do.

The 24/7 world we live in has affected our ability to focus on tasks for prolonged periods of time. Research has shown that over the past decade, an average person’s attention span has gone from 12 seconds to eight seconds . And when we do lose focus, i t takes people a long time to get back on task . One study found that it can take as long as 23 minutes to get back to work once we’ve been distracte d. No wonder it can take hours to get your homework done! 

3 Tips to Improve Your Focus

If you have a hard time focusing when you’re doing your homework, it’s a good idea to try and eliminate as many distractions as possible. Here are three expert tips for blocking out the noise so you can focus on getting your homework done. 

#1: Create a Distraction-Free Environment

Pick a place where you’ll do your homework every day, and make it as distraction-free as possible. Try to find a location where there won’t be tons of noise, and limit your access to screens while you’re doing your homework. Put together a focus-oriented playlist (or choose one on your favorite streaming service), and put your headphones on while you work. 

You may find that other people, like your friends and family, are your biggest distraction. If that’s the case, try setting up some homework boundaries. Let them know when you’ll be working on homework every day, and ask them if they’ll help you keep a quiet environment. They’ll be happy to lend a hand! 

#2: Limit Your Access to Technology 

We know, we know...this tip isn’t fun, but it does work. For homework that doesn’t require a computer, like handouts or worksheets, it’s best to put all your technology away . Turn off your television, put your phone and laptop in your backpack, and silence notifications on any wearable tech you may be sporting. If you listen to music while you work, that’s fine...but make sure you have a playlist set up so you’re not shuffling through songs once you get started on your homework. 

If your homework requires your laptop or tablet, it can be harder to limit your access to distractions. But it’s not impossible! T here are apps you can download that will block certain websites while you’re working so that you’re not tempted to scroll through Twitter or check your Facebook feed. Silence notifications and text messages on your computer, and don’t open your email account unless you absolutely have to. And if you don’t need access to the internet to complete your assignments, turn off your WiFi. Cutting out the online chatter is a great way to make sure you’re getting your homework done. 

#3: Set a Timer (the Pomodoro Technique)

Have you ever heard of the Pomodoro technique ? It’s a productivity hack that uses a timer to help you focus!

Here’s how it works: first, set a timer for 25 minutes. This is going to be your work time. During this 25 minutes, all you can do is work on whatever homework assignment you have in front of you. No email, no text messaging, no phone calls—just homework. When that timer goes off, you get to take a 5 minute break. Every time you go through one of these cycles, it’s called a “pomodoro.” For every four pomodoros you complete, you can take a longer break of 15 to 30 minutes.

The pomodoro technique works through a combination of boundary setting and rewards. First, it gives you a finite amount of time to focus, so you know that you only have to work really hard for 25 minutes. Once you’ve done that, you’re rewarded with a short break where you can do whatever you want. Additionally, tracking how many pomodoros you complete can help you see how long you’re really working on your homework. (Once you start using our focus tips, you may find it doesn’t take as long as you thought!)

Two Bonus Tips for How to Do Homework Fast

Even if you’re doing everything right, there will be times when you just need to get your homework done as fast as possible. (Why do teachers always have projects due in the same week? The world may never know.)

The problem with speeding through homework is that it’s easy to make mistakes. While turning in an assignment is always better than not submitting anything at all, you want to make sure that you’re not compromising quality for speed. Simply put, the goal is to get your homework done quickly and still make a good grade on the assignment! 

Here are our two bonus tips for getting a decent grade on your homework assignments , even when you’re in a time crunch. 

#1: Do the Easy Parts First 

This is especially true if you’re working on a handout with multiple questions. Before you start working on the assignment, read through all the questions and problems. As you do, make a mark beside the questions you think are “easy” to answer . 

Once you’ve finished going through the whole assignment, you can answer these questions first. Getting the easy questions out of the way as quickly as possible lets you spend more time on the trickier portions of your homework, which will maximize your assignment grade. 

(Quick note: this is also a good strategy to use on timed assignments and tests, like the SAT and the ACT !) 

#2: Pay Attention in Class 

Homework gets a lot easier when you’re actively learning the material. Teachers aren’t giving you homework because they’re mean or trying to ruin your weekend... it’s because they want you to really understand the course material. Homework is designed to reinforce what you’re already learning in class so you’ll be ready to tackle harder concepts later.

When you pay attention in class, ask questions, and take good notes, you’re absorbing the information you’ll need to succeed on your homework assignments. (You’re stuck in class anyway, so you might as well make the most of it!) Not only will paying attention in class make your homework less confusing, it will also help it go much faster, too.

What’s Next?

If you’re looking to improve your productivity beyond homework, a good place to begin is with time management. After all, we only have so much time in a day...so it’s important to get the most out of it! To get you started, check out this list of the 12 best time management techniques that you can start using today.

You may have read this article because homework struggles have been affecting your GPA. Now that you’re on the path to homework success, it’s time to start being proactive about raising your grades. This article teaches you everything you need to know about raising your GPA so you can

Now you know how to get motivated to do homework...but what about your study habits? Studying is just as critical to getting good grades, and ultimately getting into a good college . We can teach you how to study bette r in high school. (We’ve also got tons of resources to help you study for your ACT and SAT exams , too!)

These recommendations are based solely on our knowledge and experience. If you purchase an item through one of our links, PrepScholar may receive a commission.

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.

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Upper Elementary Teaching Blog

How To Make Spiral Review Work for You and Your Students

Spiral review is truly the most powerful thing I do in my classroom to help my students master skills, retain skills, and make connections between the topics they are learning. In this post, I will break down all the ways I make spiral review work for me to help it work for you and your students.

Why Use Spiral Review?

Recently, I had a conversation with a teacher about pacing. She was asking me how I was able to get all of my standards taught every year, even with struggling students. My initial thought was, “I just do it.” But, I realized that was not helpful, so I thought a bit more about what made me okay with moving through the standards and knowing that my students would be okay. I finally realized it was spiral reviewing in ALL subjects.

By using spiral review, I am able to confidently move on after teaching a standard that my students still need more practice with. I know I will hit that standard again and again throughout the year. And sometimes coming back to a difficult standard two weeks or two months later makes all of the difference.

Spiral review also helps the students retain all the information they have learned form week to week and month to month. They learn to make connections and store information for later use.

Read on to learn some ways to make spiral review the most effective it can be for all of your students.

How to Make Spiral Review Work for Your Class

1. make sure it is a true review..

Here are some ways to ensure it is a true review:

1.) Create it yourself based on what you know your students have been taught and what you know they need to review.

2.) Use domain-specific reviews after you have taught a specific domain. For example, I created four weeks’ worth of review for the Number and Operations: Base Ten domain of the 5th Grade Common Core standards. Each standard is reviewed daily, and then I also have a Friday assessment that aligns perfectly with the review.  I wait until after I have taught all seven standards, and then the next four weeks, we use this for our spiral review.

You can see this spiral review and assessment (it includes an editable version!) by clicking here.  Links to the Fraction Domain and Measurement Domain are in the description (bundle coming soon!).

3.) Use skill-specific reviews for the big skills in your curriculum. I use these “of the day” math review printables regularly to spiral some of our key math skills. The versatility of these printables allows me to use them for math centers, morning work, homework, independent work, or even during a small group re-teaching lesson.

Here are some examples of the ones I use and love:

Decimal of the Day ( see it in my TeachersPayTeachers store by clicking here ):

Area of the Day ( see it in my TeachersPayTeachers store by clicking here ):

Number of the Day ( see it in my TeachersPayTeachers store by clicking here ):

Click here to see all of my “Of the Day” printables, including FOUR free sets!

2. Ensure your students  have an entry point to all of the problems or a reference to use.

Here are some ways to help with this:

1.) Have anchor charts posted or available for reference.

2.) Create interactive student notebooks that serve as references for your students.

I have this expectation in my room:

If you are working on review, then your interactive notebook is out on your desk ready for if/when you need it.

3.) Differentiate as needed. This doesn’t have to be difficult or time-consuming. You can simply cross out a problem or two, write in a quick note or tip, or even pull a small group to do the review together.

3. Think beyond morning work and homework.

Spiral review can (and should, in many cases) also be incorporated in:

• math centers
• reading centers
• small group lessons
• guided reading lessons (more about how I organize this in Tip #4)

Definitely think outside the box and look for opportunities in your schedule and instruction to regularly work in spiral review.

4. Stay organized.

Being organized will help ensure you consistently review some of your power standards (standards that are assessed more, standards that your students struggle with, or standards that really lay the foundation for other skills).

Here is one *easy* way I ensure I regularly spiral my reading standards through guided reading lessons.

I use these forms (one for literature and one for informational) to keep track of when we discuss our reading standards through our guided reading groups. I have five dates for each standard because it was nice and even that way, but I definitely review some skills more than others. And some are embedded in every lesson (word meanings for example), but I mark the date for times when I really focus on that skill.

Click here to download the Guided Reading Standards Tracking form.

Here is another form that I use after giving unit or quarterly assessments. With this form, I am able to keep track of which standards need to be spiraled after large assessments (and which need to be re-taught).

Click here to learn more about my data tracking forms and grab this form, as well as several others.

5. Not just for math!

Spiral review and math just seem to go hand-in-hand. However, I use spiral review in all content areas. Here is how:

Science and Social Studies: My homework is the spiral review. I just type up and give 2-3 questions each day, and we quickly go over them before instruction. Tip: I use interactive notebooks in my classroom, so when I am making my homework, I grab my INB and type my questions directly from there. This way I know all of my students have the answer if they don’t automatically recall it.

In addition to using homework to spiral review science and social studies, I also regularly fill extra time and transitions with questions from previous lessons in science and social studies. I typically start every lesson with a quick review from recent lessons or lessons that at not so recent to keep them fresh.

Reading : I spiral my reading standards two ways. First, I spiral my reading standards through guided reading, as I mentioned above. I use the checklist I mentioned in Tip #4 to ensure I am consistently bringing up the standards throughout the year as they fit with our reading books.

The other way that I spiral my reading standards is through my reading review pages . I have fiction and informational reading review printables that review the “big” reading skills (theme, point of view, and text structures, to name a few). I usually use 1-2 weeks after we have learned a skill, and then save the other two weeks for later on in the year to bring those skills back up. This can be used for homework, reading practice, small group instruction, daily reading review, and even literacy centers.

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4th and 5th Grade Reading Review

Language : I do my language review a bit differently, since my language instruction time is so limited. I spiral review my language through language centers once a week and then 20 days before my state assessment ( I use this resource to spiral my standards ). Click here to see the language centers I use to consistently practice and review 5th grade language skills.

Other grammar needs that are not addressed in my language standards are regularly spiraled through writing workshop via writing mini-lessons, writing conferences, and revising and editing lessons.

6. Make sure all students have ample time to complete the review.

This was a mistake that I made for a couple of years because I was so focused on staying on schedule and getting everything in. I realized I wasn’t allowing my reluctant students time to actually complete the review, and they were definitely taking advantage of that. They knew that I would go ahead and start going over review with or without them. Here is what I do now:

• Review is started as homework the night before or immediately when we start a new subject, and I teach my reluctant students that if they think they will not have time to get it done in the 10-15 minutes I give them, then they need to get a jump start on it (by taking it home, starting it when they finish another task, or just hustling to get started). Note: Any students who legitimately struggle (without or without an IEP) are given fewer problems to complete.
• Teach the students how to skip a tricky or time-consuming one to get the most done in the time given. This doubles as a good test prep strategy, too.
• Teach the students how to use their resources to complete the review.
• While I am circulating, I zone in on my struggling or reluctant students and ensure they have entry points for the problems, are using their resources, or are skipping ones they truly need help on.

Here are how I define the terms used in this section:

Struggling Students : Students who legitimately struggle with the skill, either because of a learning disability or another issue.

Reluctant Students : Students who are fully capable of completing grade level work but don’t have the drive, grit, or perseverance to get the work done quickly.

7. Review previous grade level standards when you get to related grade level standards.

Now, this may not work for every teacher and every student, but I want to share a different perspective with you. A lot of 5th grade teachers have their first month’s review be 4th grade skills, and so do I, but I do it a bit differently.

I don’t review all of the fourth grade standards at once in one fell swoop. At the beginning of the year, I review place value, multiplication, division, and word problems, because those are closely related to the standards I will be teaching first. Then, right before we start decimals, I throw in the 4th grade decimal skills as review. I do the same for fractions, measurement, and geometry.

I have found this to be much more effective because it is related to my content, and it is reviewing the skills they will directly need for the next few weeks’ lessons. This helps make the connection between the review and the current learning.

How do you use spiral review in your classroom? Do you have any tips to share to maximizing the effectiveness of review? Let us know in the comments!

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Reader interactions.

March 28, 2018 at 9:25 pm

Hi Jennifer, I am loving your blog! I was just wondering when you say you use Language Review once per week, would you put one of each activity from your Language Bundle and have groups all working on Language Centers once per week? I am new to fifth grade and working on centers and guided reading. I was thinking of including a Language Center in my rotation but was just looking to see how you do this. Thanks for all of the helpful info here!!

November 8, 2018 at 4:21 pm

I absolutely love the worksheets that are titled, Math Review. I am in need of a 4th and 5th grade workbook that I can you with the children I tutor. I have looked all over your website and can find everything but the Math Review sheets. Please help and I’d love to order them asap.

Thank you so much!

Lori Taylor

November 8, 2018 at 4:23 pm

I absolutely love the worksheets that are titled, Math Review. I am in need of a 4th and 5th grade workbook that I can you with the children I tutor. I have looked all over your website and can find everything but the Math Review sheets. Please help and I’d love to order them asap. They’re wonderful!

Example: Worksheet 1 has Algebraic Thinking, Base Ten Numbers, Fractions, Measurement and Data and Geometry.

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I’m Jennifer Findley: a teacher, mother, and avid reader. I believe that with the right resources, mindset, and strategies, all students can achieve at high levels and learn to love learning. My goal is to provide resources and strategies to inspire you and help make this belief a reality for your students.

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What’s the Right Amount of Homework?

Decades of research show that homework has some benefits, especially for students in middle and high school—but there are risks to assigning too much.

Many teachers and parents believe that homework helps students build study skills and review concepts learned in class. Others see homework as disruptive and unnecessary, leading to burnout and turning kids off to school. Decades of research show that the issue is more nuanced and complex than most people think: Homework is beneficial, but only to a degree. Students in high school gain the most, while younger kids benefit much less.

The National PTA and the National Education Association support the “ 10-minute homework guideline ”—a nightly 10 minutes of homework per grade level. But many teachers and parents are quick to point out that what matters is the quality of the homework assigned and how well it meets students’ needs, not the amount of time spent on it.

The guideline doesn’t account for students who may need to spend more—or less—time on assignments. In class, teachers can make adjustments to support struggling students, but at home, an assignment that takes one student 30 minutes to complete may take another twice as much time—often for reasons beyond their control. And homework can widen the achievement gap, putting students from low-income households and students with learning disabilities at a disadvantage.

However, the 10-minute guideline is useful in setting a limit: When kids spend too much time on homework, there are real consequences to consider.

Small Benefits for Elementary Students

As young children begin school, the focus should be on cultivating a love of learning, and assigning too much homework can undermine that goal. And young students often don’t have the study skills to benefit fully from homework, so it may be a poor use of time (Cooper, 1989 ; Cooper et al., 2006 ; Marzano & Pickering, 2007 ). A more effective activity may be nightly reading, especially if parents are involved. The benefits of reading are clear: If students aren’t proficient readers by the end of third grade, they’re less likely to succeed academically and graduate from high school (Fiester, 2013 ).

For second-grade teacher Jacqueline Fiorentino, the minor benefits of homework did not outweigh the potential drawback of turning young children against school at an early age, so she experimented with dropping mandatory homework. “Something surprising happened: They started doing more work at home,” Fiorentino writes . “This inspiring group of 8-year-olds used their newfound free time to explore subjects and topics of interest to them.” She encouraged her students to read at home and offered optional homework to extend classroom lessons and help them review material.

Moderate Benefits for Middle School Students

As students mature and develop the study skills necessary to delve deeply into a topic—and to retain what they learn—they also benefit more from homework. Nightly assignments can help prepare them for scholarly work, and research shows that homework can have moderate benefits for middle school students (Cooper et al., 2006 ). Recent research also shows that online math homework, which can be designed to adapt to students’ levels of understanding, can significantly boost test scores (Roschelle et al., 2016 ).

There are risks to assigning too much, however: A 2015 study found that when middle school students were assigned more than 90 to 100 minutes of daily homework, their math and science test scores began to decline (Fernández-Alonso, Suárez-Álvarez, & Muñiz, 2015 ). Crossing that upper limit can drain student motivation and focus. The researchers recommend that “homework should present a certain level of challenge or difficulty, without being so challenging that it discourages effort.” Teachers should avoid low-effort, repetitive assignments, and assign homework “with the aim of instilling work habits and promoting autonomous, self-directed learning.”

In other words, it’s the quality of homework that matters, not the quantity. Brian Sztabnik, a veteran middle and high school English teacher, suggests that teachers take a step back and ask themselves these five questions :

• How long will it take to complete?
• Have all learners been considered?
• Will an assignment encourage future success?
• Will an assignment place material in a context the classroom cannot?
• Does an assignment offer support when a teacher is not there?

More Benefits for High School Students, but Risks as Well

By the time they reach high school, students should be well on their way to becoming independent learners, so homework does provide a boost to learning at this age, as long as it isn’t overwhelming (Cooper et al., 2006 ; Marzano & Pickering, 2007 ). When students spend too much time on homework—more than two hours each night—it takes up valuable time to rest and spend time with family and friends. A 2013 study found that high school students can experience serious mental and physical health problems, from higher stress levels to sleep deprivation, when assigned too much homework (Galloway, Conner, & Pope, 2013 ).

Homework in high school should always relate to the lesson and be doable without any assistance, and feedback should be clear and explicit.

Teachers should also keep in mind that not all students have equal opportunities to finish their homework at home, so incomplete homework may not be a true reflection of their learning—it may be more a result of issues they face outside of school. They may be hindered by issues such as lack of a quiet space at home, resources such as a computer or broadband connectivity, or parental support (OECD, 2014 ). In such cases, giving low homework scores may be unfair.

Since the quantities of time discussed here are totals, teachers in middle and high school should be aware of how much homework other teachers are assigning. It may seem reasonable to assign 30 minutes of daily homework, but across six subjects, that’s three hours—far above a reasonable amount even for a high school senior. Psychologist Maurice Elias sees this as a common mistake: Individual teachers create homework policies that in aggregate can overwhelm students. He suggests that teachers work together to develop a school-wide homework policy and make it a key topic of back-to-school night and the first parent-teacher conferences of the school year.

Parents Play a Key Role

Homework can be a powerful tool to help parents become more involved in their child’s learning (Walker et al., 2004 ). It can provide insights into a child’s strengths and interests, and can also encourage conversations about a child’s life at school. If a parent has positive attitudes toward homework, their children are more likely to share those same values, promoting academic success.

But it’s also possible for parents to be overbearing, putting too much emphasis on test scores or grades, which can be disruptive for children (Madjar, Shklar, & Moshe, 2015 ). Parents should avoid being overly intrusive or controlling—students report feeling less motivated to learn when they don’t have enough space and autonomy to do their homework (Orkin, May, & Wolf, 2017 ; Patall, Cooper, & Robinson, 2008 ; Silinskas & Kikas, 2017 ). So while homework can encourage parents to be more involved with their kids, it’s important to not make it a source of conflict.

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Teaching time savers: reviewing homework, by jane murphy wilburne.

The classroom practice of assigning homework is a necessity to reinforce the topic of the day's lesson, review skills and practice them in a variety of problems, or challenge students' thinking and application of the skills. Effective mathematics teachers know how to choose worthwhile assignments that can significantly impact students' learning and understanding of the mathematics. The challenge, however, is how to manage and review the assignments in a manner that will benefit students' learning, and use classroom time effectively.

Over the years, I have tried various approaches to reviewing and assessing students' homework. Collecting and grading every students' homework can be very time consuming, especially when you have large classes and no graduate assistants to help review students' work. On the other hand, while it is important to provide students with immediate feedback on their homework, it does not benefit them much to have the professor work out each problem in front of the class.

I believe it is important for college students to take responsibility for their learning. By promoting opportunities for them to communicate with and learn from each other, we can help students come to rely less on the professor to provide them with all the answers, and teach them to pose questions that enhance each others' understanding.

One technique that has been effective in my classes is to assign homework problems that vary in concept application and level of difficulty. The students were instructed to solve each problem and place a check (’) next to any problem they could not solve. As the students entered class the next day, they would list the page number and problem number of the problems they could not solve, on the front board in a designated area. If the problem was already listed, they placed a check (’) next to it. Once the class started, they were not allowed to record problem numbers at the board. Other students, who were successful in solving these problems, immediately went to the board when they entered the class, indicated that they would solve one of the listed problems, and worked it out in detail. When they finished they signed their name to the problem.

By the time I entered the classroom, students were busy solving problems at the board while others were checking their homework at their seats. If there were any questions about the problems, the student who solved the problem at the board would explain his work to the class. If there was a problem in which no one was able to solve, I would provide a few details about the problem and reassign it for the next class. In a short period of time, all homework was reviewed, and I recorded notes as to which students posted solutions on the board. Rather than collecting every student's homework, I noted the problems that gave most students difficulty and would assign similar problems in a future assignment. Students who listed the problems they had difficulty with were not penalized. Instead, those who solved the problems would receive a plus (+) in my grade book. A series of five pluses (+) would earn them a bonus point on a future exam.

My classroom quizzes would always include several homework problems to help keep students accountable for completing their assignments and motivate them to review problems they had difficulty with. Those who did typically received an A!

Time spent in class: approximately 5-12 minutes reviewing the homework. Time saved: about 30 minutes per class

Jane M. Wilburne is assistant professor of mathematics at Penn State Harrisburg.

Teaching Time Savers Archives

Teaching Time Savers are articles designed to share easy-to-implement activities for streamlining the day-to-day tasks of faculty members everywhere. If you would like to share your favorite time savers with the readers of FOCUS, then send a separate email description of each activity to Michael Orrison at [email protected] . Make sure to include a comment on "time spent" and "time saved" for each activity, and to include pictures and/or figures if at all possible.

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Homework: Facts and Fiction

• Living reference work entry
• First Online: 09 November 2021
• Cite this living reference work entry

• Rubén Fernández-Alonso 4 , 5 &
• José Muñiz 6  

Part of the book series: Springer International Handbooks of Education ((SIHE))

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4 Citations

Homework is a universal student practice. Despite this universality, the role that homework plays in student academic performance is complex and open to various interpretations. This chapter reviews the current available evidence about the relationships between homework and achievement. We begin by examining the differences between countries and follow that by reviewing the influence of variables related to student homework behavior, teaching practices around assigning homework, and the role of the family in helping with homework. The results indicate that the relationship between time spent on homework and school results is curvilinear, and the best results are seen to be associated with moderate amounts of daily homework. With regard to student homework behavior, there is abundant evidence indicating that the “how” is much more important than the “how much.” Commitment and effort, the emotions prompted by the task, and autonomous working are three key aspects in predicting academic achievement. Effective teaching practice around homework is determined by setting it daily and systematic review. Although family involvement in the educational process is desirable, in the case of homework, direct help has doubtful effects on student achievement.

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Bembenutty, H., & White, M. C. (2013). Academic performance and satisfaction with homework completion among college students. Learning and Individual Differences, 24 , 83–88. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2012.10.013

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Dettmers, S., Trautwein, U., Lüdtke, M., Kunter, M., & Baumert, J. (2010). Homework works if homework quality is high: Using multilevel modeling to predict the development of achievement in mathematics. Journal of Educational Psychology, 102 , 467–482. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0018453

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Dettmers, S., Trautwein, U., Lüdtke, O., Goetz, T., Pekrun, R., & Frenzel, A. (2011). Students‘ emotions during homework in mathematics: Testing a theoretical model of antecedents and achievement outcomes. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 36 , 25–35. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2010.10.001

Dumont, H., Trautwein, U., Nagy, G., & Nagengast, B. (2014). Quality of parental homework involvement: Predictors and reciprocal relations with academic functioning in the reading domain. Journal of Educational Psychology, 102 , 144–161. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0034100

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Fernández-Alonso, R., Álvarez-Díaz, M., Suárez-Álvarez, J., & Muñiz, J. (2017). Students’ achievement and homework assignment strategies. Frontiers in Psychology, 8 , 286. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00286

Fernández-Alonso, R., Álvarez-Díaz, M., Woitschach, P., Suárez-Álvarez, J., & Cuesta, M. (2017). Parental involvement and academic performance: Less control and more communication. Psicothema, 29 , 453–461. https://doi.org/10.7334/psicothema2017.181

Fernández-Alonso, R., Suárez-Álvarez, J., & Muñiz, J. (2015). Adolescents’ homework performance in mathematics and science: Personal factors and teaching practices. Journal of Educational Psychology, 107 (4), 1075–1085. https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000032

Fernández-Alonso, R., Suárez-Álvarez, J., & Muñiz, J. (2016). Homework and performance in mathematics: The role of the teacher, the family and the student’s background. Revista de Psicodidáctica, 21 (1), 5–23. https://doi.org/10.1387/RevPsicodidact.13939

Fernández-Alonso, R., Woitschach, P., Álvarez-Díaz, M., González-López, A. M., Cuesta, M., & Muñiz, J. (2019). Homework and academic achievement in Latin America: A multilevel approach. Frontiers in Psychology, 10 , 95. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00095

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Fernández-Alonso, R., Muñiz, J. (2021). Homework: Facts and Fiction. In: Nilsen, T., Stancel-Piątak, A., Gustafsson, JE. (eds) International Handbook of Comparative Large-Scale Studies in Education. Springer International Handbooks of Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38298-8_40-1

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Homework: Only Review What You Need to Review

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A lot of teachers think that if you assign homework, you must review it with students the following day. This makes sense in that it’s important for students to correct and learn from their mistakes.

But what if they didn’t make any mistakes? I realize it’s unlikely every student will have the correct answer for any given question. Yet even if only half the class got it right, what should those students do while you review something they already know how to do? Well, I can tell you what they did in my classroom before I changed my approach: they talked or slept or worked on assignments for other classes.

The root of the problem is the same as what I described in the context of class openers (or Do Nows ): teachers reviewing an assignment without knowing whether students need them to review it. In extreme cases, teachers go over every homework assignment, beginning to end. I’m reminded of my high school math teacher working through problem after problem on the board, oblivious to snoozing and socializing students.

Then there are those teachers who act like disc jockeys by taking audience requests: “What questions would you like me to go over?” And if just one kid requests #3, the teacher reviews #3. Same goes for #4, #5, and so on. I did this until it backfired for a couple of reasons. First, just because Michael needs you to review #3 doesn’t mean Maria and Marcus do, which is why many students don’t pay attention when teachers use the DJ approach. Second, if students want to keep you from moving on to the next activity, all they have to do is request another question. And if you think kids won’t play you like this, think again. Nothing rankled me more than students asking me to go over problems, and then yakking or putting their heads on their desks as I obliged them.

Of course, you can’t look over students’ shoulders while they’re doing homework, so you’ll need to identify in class those homework questions most students need you to review. And here’s a great way to do this:

As you wrap up the class opener, show the answers to homework on your interactive whiteboard or projector screen. Then give students five minutes or so to check their answers and troubleshoot their errors, while you circulate to identify questions worth reviewing as a class (i.e., those most students struggled with)--and identify students to present the correct solutions to the class.

This process not only saves time, but also improves student learning. By working backward from the correct answers, students often figure out where they went wrong, and have a better grasp of the material as a result. And in the end, you’ll have fewer questions to review as a class, and a more captive audience for those questions you do need to review--as captive as any DJ could hope for!

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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.

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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.

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PROTOCOL: The relationship between homework time and academic performance among K‐12 students: A systematic review

1 Evidence‐Based Medicine Center, School of Basic Medical Sciences, and Evidence‐based Social Sciences Research Center, School of Public Health, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou China

Xiaoling Hu

2 School of Higher Education, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou China

Chunyan Liu

3 Evidence‐based Social Sciences Research Center, School of Public Health, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou China

Howard White

4 Campbell Collaboration, New Delhi India

Associated Data

This review will synthesize the results from publications focused on homework time and academic performance, and estimate the relationship between the two. Our objectives are: (1) To identify the extent of the relationship between homework time and students' academic performance; (2) To analyze the differences in the effectiveness of homework time across genders, grades, subject and regions; and (3) To identify the potential factors that affect homework time, such as academic subject, task difficulty, type of homework, mode of homework, parental involvement, and feedback on homework.

1. BACKGROUND

1.1. description of the condition.

Homework is defined as “any task assigned by schoolteachers intended for students to carry out during non‐school hours” (Cooper,  1989 ). This definition explicitly excludes (a) in‐school guided study; (b) home study courses delivered through the mail, television, audio or videocassette, or the internet; and (c) extracurricular activities such as sports and participation in clubs (Cooper et al.,  2006 ). With the development of technology, web‐based homework has become more popular among teachers, with online platforms such as Blackboard, WebCT ( www.webct.com ), Homework Service ( https://hw.utexas.edu/bur/overview.html ), WebWorK, Study Island, and PowerSchool (Mendicino et al.,  2009 ), as these allow students to do their homework online, and teachers to give feedback to students immediately (Callahan,  2016 ; Lucas,  2012 ; Mendicino et al.,  2009 ). Therefore, in this systematic review, homework also includes online tasks performed outside the school.

The purpose of homework can be divided into instructional and noninstructional objectives (Lee & Pruitt,  1979 ). The most common instructional purpose of homework includes review, preview, and extension (Becker & Epstein,  1982 ; Lee & Pruitt,  1979 ; Mulhenbruck et al.,  1999 ). The review assignments mainly offer the students an opportunity to practise newly acquired skills or review material learnt in class. The preview assignments introduce new skills or materials to help students prepare for unfamiliar knowledge before the class (Mulhenbruck et al.,  1999 ), and the extension assignments involve the transfer of previously learned skills to new situations (Cooper et al.,  2006 ; Lee & Pruitt,  1979 ). The noninstructional purpose of homework varies. It can be used to form better study habits, increase the students' sense of responsibility, enhance awareness of independent learning, and build communication between parents, children, and teachers (Becker & Epstein,  1982 ; González et al.,  2001 ; Lee & Pruitt,  1979 ; Mulhenbruck et al.,  1999 ; Van Voorhis,  2003 ). Homework can also be used to punish students (Epstein & Van Voorhis,  2001 ).

Homework is a common and widespread educational activity for many students across the world. As an achievement of the educational excellence movement, the level of homework was generalized, which was supported by the parents at the beginning. However, as homework increased more and more, parents and scholars realized the burden of homework on students. They complained that the students lost their childhood and called for less homework (Gill & Schlossman,  2003 ). Similarly, in the United Kingdom homework became common in the mid‐19th century, and was a matter of much debate in the 1880s as levels of homework increased in response to the introduction of payment by results for teachers and other factors (Hallam,  2004 ).

Recently, the World Health Organization (WHO) found that students feel the most pressured by the amount of homework (WHO,  2016 ). Meanwhile, parents continued to complain about excessive homework assigned to their children (Gill & Schlossman,  2003 ,  2004 ; Jerrima et al.,  2019 ; Xue & Zhang,  2019 ).

Homework is often argued to improve academic performance. However, the relationship between homework and academic performance has been debated for more than one hundred years (Cheema & Sheridan,  2015 ; Cooper,  1989 ; Cooper et al.,  2006 ; Kitsantas et al.,  2011 ; Kralovec & Buell,  2000 ; Trautwein,  2007 ). Although several meta‐analyses of the relationship between homework and performance have found a positive correlation between homework time and academic performance (Baş et al.,  2017 ; Cooper,  1989 ; Cooper et al.,  2006 ; Fan et al.,  2017 ), it is difficult to establish causality. More academically inclined students, who get better grades regardless, may complete their homework more conscientiously. Conversely, students who are doing badly may study harder at home to catch up.

Still, it may also be the case that the effect is not linear. Some evidence has shown that academic performance increases with the increase in homework time, but begins to decline when homework time exceeds the optimal amount of time (Ackerman et al.,  2011 ; Krzysztof et al.,  2018 ; Reteig et al.,  2019 ). Based on data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) survey of 58,000 high school students in grades one and two, Keith ( 1982 ) found that for anyone with any level of ability, increasing the amount of homework will improve their performance. Homework plays a compensatory role; however, the amount of homework cannot be increased indefinitely, only moderately. If it exceeds a certain limit, it will lead to a decline in performance (Keith,  1982 ).

1.2. Description of the intervention

The intervention is the homework assigned by schoolteachers for nonschool hours, and completed independently by students without additional teaching, such as online tasks and activities in study club. The comparison condition is different time spent on the homework, and we plan to divide the comparisons into several groups, such as 0–15, 16–30, 31–45, 46–60, 61–90, 90–120 min, and more than 120 min. Any type of homework will be included, such as written, oral, or practical homework. We excluded homework allocated by other people such as parents or teachers from extracurricular schools, and in‐school guided study, home study courses, and extracurricular activities such as sports and participation in clubs were excluded. Homework related to psychotherapy was also outside our definition of homework.

1.3. Conceptual framework

The conceptual framework for this review is the theory of change that describes how homework may affect academic performance. Figure  1 below demonstrates the conceptual framework through which the interventions are hypothesized to lead to the intended outcomes.

Conceptual framework for intervention and outcomes of homework

As in Figure  1 , the law of readiness reveals that before commencing a certain learning activity, if the learners do well in the preparatory stages (including physiological and psychological) related to the corresponding learning activities, they can grasp the learning content more rapidly (Muhammad,  2015 ). Second, the law of exercise suggests that for a certain kind of connection formed by learners, the correct repetition of this action in practice will effectively enhance this connection. And, third, the law of effect indicates that all kinds of positive or negative feedback that learners get in the process of learning will strengthen or weaken the connection that learners have formed in their mind.

However, there are limits to our ability to stay focused, and when students spend too much time on homework, their cognitive load and mental fatigue increase, and they will feel tired and even lead to mental distress, such as anxiety, which may reduce rather than improve readiness.

Furthermore, if the purpose of homework is to achieve mastery or covering additional material, then when the content of homework has been fully understood by a student, doing more homework won't help. That is there are diminishing returns to the time spent on homework, which can reach zero.

Finally, if the students miss sleep because of long homework hours, they may be tired in school and so do worse in class or tests. Hence readiness is reduced, and the law of effect undermined as the student is not in a good condition to receive feedback or perform well.

In addition, a student's development should be multifaceted, while if they spent too much time on homework, they will lose time to take part in other activities which can contribute to their overall development.

1.4. Why it is important to do this review

Several systematic reviews have explored the effectiveness of homework in improving students' performance, but all the conclusions were based on the assumption of a linear correlation between homework time and performance, and none of them considered the impact of homework time on students' autonomous motivation. A summary of the evidence by Hallam ( 2004 ) makes no recommendation on the time spent on the homework. The UK Education Endowment Foundation's toolkit entry for homework for secondary school students notes quality is more important than quantity but gives no explicit recommendation on the amount of time that should be spent on homework.

Existing reviews leave the important practical question of homework time unanswered.

In 1989, Cooper conducted a review related to the relationship between homework and performance. The results showed that the average correlation for students in primary school, middle school, and high school between the amount of homework and performance was nearly r  = 0; for students in middle school, it was r  = .07; and for high school students, it was r  = .25 (Cooper,  1989 ). In 2006, Cooper et al. ( 2006 ) conducted another systematic review to explore the effectiveness of homework to improve academic performance. The results showed that the correlation between homework time and performance for high school students was still 0.25, but for middle school students, it was nearly 0. However, they did not look explicitly at homework time.

All the above studies assumed that the correlation between homework and performance was linear, that is, that either more or less homework was better. Indeed, their reported effect size is the correlation coefficient, which is a measure of the linearity of a relationship. While homework can be a dull task that requires full mental effort, and there are limits to our ability to stay focused. Therefore, it is important for teachers, school managers, parents, and children themselves to establish the optimum duration of homework to improve its effectiveness.

1.5. The contribution of this review

Regardless of its aims of preparation, practice, extension or application, homework can be an effective means to improve student's academic achievement. Previous reviews indeed testify to the effectiveness of homework in relation to academic performance. More is not always better, and is restricted by students' ability to maintain their attention for a long time. The present systematic review plans to divide the participants into several groups according to the amount of time spent on homework, such as 0–15, 16–30, 31–45, 46–60, 61–90, 90–120 min, and more than 120 min to compare the test scores of different groups to identify the extent of the relationship between homework time and students' academic performance. We aim to investigate the role of homework in academic achievement, and to determine the optimum homework time by comparing the differences in outcomes between different groupings of homework time. This will be helpful for teachers and parents to better understand the role and utility of homework, and provide theoretical support for teachers to arrange homework.

2. OBJECTIVES

This review will synthesize the results from publications focused on homework time and academic performance, and estimate the relationship between the two. Our objectives are:

• 1. To identify the extent of the relationship between homework time and students' academic performance;
• 2. To analyze the differences in the effectiveness of homework time across genders, grades, subject and regions; and
• 3. To identify the potential factors that affect homework time, such as academic subject, task difficulty, type of homework, mode of homework, parental involvement, and feedback on homework.

3.1. Criteria for considering studies for this review

3.1.1. types of studies.

We will include treatment‐control group design or a comparison group design studies, to adequately address the effect of differing homework time on the academic performance of K‐12 students.

Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that aim to explore the effect of homework time on academic performance by comparing the test score differences between different groups before and after the intervention will be included. In addition, non‐RCTs such as cohort studies (NRCTs), controlled before and after studies, and interrupted time series studies also will be included if they explicitly take homework as intervention, and report the time spent on homework and the mean and standard deviation of academic achievement.

Relevant correlational studies without mean and standard deviation of academic achievement will be excluded. Other study designs such as case studies, narrative reviews, and nonprimary studies such as editorials, book reviews, commentaries, and letters to the editor, will also be excluded. Qualitative evidence is also beyond the inclusion criteria in the present systematic review.

3.1.2. Types of participants

This review will include studies of K‐12 school students. We excluded children with disabilities, since the context and effects may be different for that population group. Students from special education schools are excluded. If the primary study includes mixed samples (e.g., special education and nonspecial education students), we will use the sub sample excluding special needs students if reported.

3.1.3. Types of interventions

In this review, we will explore the relationship between homework time and academic performance by comparing the academic scores with different amounts of time spent on homework. The eligible intervention studies must be clear that the intervention is homework assigned to students to complete during nonschool hours regularly by schoolteachers which aims to improve academic achievement. This does not mean that the intervention must consist of academic activities, but rather that the explicit expectation must be that the homework, regardless of the nature of the homework content, will result in improved academic performance. Furthermore, we will only include school‐based interventions, that is, homework allocated by other people such as parents or teachers from extracurricular schools, study clubs, and extracurricular activities such as sports and participation in clubs are excluded. Homework related to psychotherapy will also be excluded.

The comparison condition is different time spend on the homework, and we plan to divide the comparisons into several groups, such as 0–15, 16–30, 31–45, 46–60, 61–90, 90–120 min, and more than 120 min.

3.1.4. Types of outcome measures

The objective of the review is to explore the impact of homework on students' academic outcomes. We will extract the homework time and academic performance provided in the primary study. The homework time is the exact time or a time frame reported by students or parents. Academic performance will be measured by the teacher, exam results and/or by the research team using any valid standardized test and reported as test scores.

As valid standardized tests, we will consider norm‐referenced tests (e.g., Gates‐MacGinitie Reading Tests and Star Math), state‐wide tests (e.g., Iowa Test of Basic Skills), national tests (e.g., National Assessment of Educational Progress). If it is not clear from the description of outcome measures in the studies, we will use electronic sources to determine whether a test is standardized or not.

3.1.5. Primary outcomes

The primary outcome is academic performance (test score and standard deviation), and studies that have measured academic performance (and homework time) will be included.

3.1.6. Secondary outcomes

Academic motivation and quality of homework will be included as secondary outcomes.

3.2. Search methods for identification of studies

3.2.1. electronic searches.

The following databases will be searched from inception to present:

• Social Sciences Citation Index (Web of Science)
• ScienceDirect ( https://www.sciencedirect.com/ )
• Taylor & Francis Online Database ( https://www.tandfonline.com/ )
• The Campbell Library ( https://www.campbellcollaboration.org/better-evidence.html )
• ERCI (EBSCOhost)
• EBSCO ( http://search.ebscohost.com/ )
• JSTOR ( https://www.jstor.org/ )
• PsychArticles (ProQuest)
• PsychInfo (EBSCOhost)
• ProQuest Dissertations ( https://www.proquest.com/index )
• OCLC FirstSearch ( https://firstsearch.oclc.org/ )

Below, the search strategy for Web of Science is provided:

#1 TI = homework OR AB = homework

#2 TI = home‐work OR AB = home‐work

#3 #1 OR #2

#4 TS = K‐12 OR TS = preschool student* OR TS = pre‐school student* OR TS = Kindergarten

student* OR TS = middle school student* OR TS = high school student* OR TS = senior school

student* OR TS = primary school student* OR TS = pupil OR TS = schoolchild OR TS = junior

high school student* OR TS = school‐age

#5 TS = achievement OR TS = performance OR TS = grade OR TS = score OR TS = academic

achievement* OR TS = GPA OR TS = academic performance

#6 #3 AND #4 AND #5

3.2.2. Searching other resources

We will consult the following sources of gray literature, and search the websites of organizations devoted to the education research, to identify relevant unpublished studies and reports. The following gray literature resources will be searched with the keyword “homework”:

• What Works Clearinghouse ( https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/ )
• Education Endowment Foundation ( https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/ )
• European Educational Research Association ( http://www.eera-ecer.de/ )
• American Educational Research Association ( http://www.aera.net/ )
• Best Evidence Encyclopedia ( http://www.bestevidence.org/ )
• Open Grey ( http://www.opengrey.eu/ )

We will also search the Google Scholar with the keyword “homework,” and we will stop scan if there are 5 consecutive pages with no relevant studies.

The following international journals will be hand searched for relevant studies with the keyword “homework”:

• American Educational Research Journal
• Educational Psychologist
• Learning and Instruction
• Journal of Educational Research
• Journal of Educational Psychology
• Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness
• Journal of Experimental Education.

Additionally, the primary studies included in the previous systematic reviews on the relationship between homework and academic performance will be scanned, and the reference lists will also be searched. Furthermore, the studies of experts in the research of homework (such as Cooper Harris, Trautwein Ulric, and Xu jianzhong) will be searched systematically to check our search strategy, and they will be contacted to help identify other relevant studies if possible.

3.3. Data collection and analysis

3.3.1. selection of studies.

The selection of studies will be performed independently by the first two reviewers (Guo LP and Jieyun Li) in Rayyan ( https://rayyan.qcri.org/ ). All titles and abstracts of the records identified after retrieval will be screened, the potentially relevant references will be located with full‐text, and the primary studies that meet our criteria will be included for further analysis. Studies that meet the selection criteria and have the outcomes of interest measured, but do not report these outcome data, will be included and described in the results section of the review. Any discrepancies between the two reviewers will be resolved by consensus with another reviewer involved (Kehu Yang). The whole process of study screening will be based on the PRISMA guidelines (Moher et al.,  2009 ).

3.3.2. Data extraction and management

Information extraction and coding will consist of two parts. The first is general information, including the information of primary study (publication, the year of publication, and the year of data collection), sample characteristics (e.g., sample size, gender, grade level, region, family economic status, parental education level), methodological characteristics (e.g., sampling method, measures of homework time, and the measure of academic performance), and the intervention characteristics (e.g., subject, mode of homework and the type of homework). The other is the effect size, including the homework time and the test score (The details are shown in Supporting Information Annex  1 ). This process will be conducted independently by two authors (Zheng Xu and Xing Xin), and disagreements between coders will be resolved by discussions with another author (Xiuxia Li).

• If a study contains multiple interventions (e.g., different homework modalities such as online vs. book‐based), the reviewers will only extract data that are eligible for this review.
• For academic performance, means, standard deviations (or information to estimate standard deviations), and the number of participants in each group will be extracted. If more than one measure is reported, we will extract all of them and analyze the measurement method as a moderator.
• For the homework time, we will extract the homework time interval reported in the primary studies and code the data as presented, either categorical or continuous. We will then create a continuous variable measure data set (using the mid‐point for data reported in categorical form) and at least two categorical data sets. The multiple categorical data sets will be used to test for sensitivity to the chosen thresholds, and then calculate the mean and standard deviations in each group. If the weekly homework time is reported instead of the daily homework time, we divide the total homework time by 5, and if the homework time is in hours, we convert it to minutes.

In case of controlled before and after studies, mean or median change from baseline scores will be extracted or computed by the reviewers if all necessary data are available. If change scores are not available or cannot be computed, post‐intervention values will be extracted by the reviewers.

3.3.3. Assessment of risk of bias in included studies

For RCTs, the Cochrane bias risk tool will be used to assess the quality of the method and potential defects (Higgins & Green,  2011 ). For nonrandomized studies (including cohort studies, controlled before and after studies, and interrupted time series studies), the risk of bias in nonrandomized studies of interventions (ROBINS‐I) will be used to check the quality of the individual study (Sterne et al.,  2016 ). In addition, the grade will be used to rate the overall quality of the evidence included in this review, ranging from high, moderate, low, and very low, based on the assessment to study design, imprecision, inconsistency, indirectness, and publication bias (Atkins et al.,  2004 ; Schünemann et al.,  2013 ). The risk of bias assessment will be conducted by the two authors (Zheng Xu and Xing Xin), and any disaccord will be solved by discussion with another author (Xiuxia Li).

3.3.4. Dealing with missing data

If there are any missing data, we will contact the author at least twice to obtain more information if the correspondence address is available. If these data are unavailable, we will only analyze the available data, and the studies with missing data will be described in the Results section. Besides, the potential impact of missing data on comprehensive estimates will be considered in the Discussion section.

3.3.5. Assessment of heterogeneity

Forest plots will be inspected to visually investigate overlaps in the confidence intervals (CIs) of the results of the individual studies. The χ 2 test will be performed, and the Q statistics, I 2 and τ 2 index will be adopted to evaluate heterogeneity across studies. For Q statistics, a p value of .05 will be used as a threshold for statistical significance. The I 2 index refers to the truly observed variation ratio (Borenstein et al.,  2009 ), and 25%, 50%, and 75% of the I 2 indicate low, medium, and high heterogeneity (Higgins & Thompson,  2002 ). And the parameter τ 2 is the between‐studies variance (the variance of the effect size parameters across the population of studies), that is, the variance of true effect sizes (across an infinite number of studies).

3.3.6. Assessment of reporting biases

Reporting bias, also called publication bias, refers to the potential of the studies with statistically significant findings to be accepted for publication, whilst those with statistically nonsignificant findings would hardly be accepted for publication. These studies would have a higher probability of being left in the “file drawer,” according to the so‐called “file drawer problem.” If 10 or more studies were identified, visual funnel plots and Egger's test of funnel plot symmetry were performed to evaluate potential publication bias (Rosenthal,  1979 ). If there is evidence of funnel plot asymmetry from a test, we will attempt to conduct the comparisons between the effect with that after trim and fill. The possible reasons for this (e.g., nonreporting biases, poor methodological quality leading to spuriously inflated effects in smaller studies, true heterogeneity, artefactual, and chance) will also be considered (Page et al.,  2019 ).

3.3.7. Data synthesis

We will include all intervention studies that meet our inclusion criteria and extract the mean (M) and SD of test scores. We will take the standard mean difference (SMD) and CI as our effect size index. For subgroups, we plan to divide the outcomes into several groups by time spent on the homework, such as 0–15, 16–30, 31–45, 46–60, 61–90, 90–120 min, and more than 120 min, and then compare the difference of SMD between groups to explore the role of homework time on academic achievement.

If two or more studies are identified that have investigated the effect of homework time on academic performance with sufficiently available data, a random‐effects meta‐analysis will be performed to estimate the comprehensive effect due to the expected heterogeneity between groups using the Review Manager 5 software. The pooled estimates will be presented in forest plots. If quantitative synthesis is not suitable, narrative synthesis will be adopted.

3.3.8. Planned moderators

If statistically significant heterogeneity is detected, subgroup analyses with stratification analysis will be conducted to explore the source of heterogeneity based on the available data.

• Gender. Previous studies showed that girls more frequently reported managing their homework than boys (Mau & Lynn,  2000 ; Xu,  2007 ), and zero‐time homework students are most often male (Hagborg,  1991 ). Therefore, it is worth identifying the influence of gender on homework time and academic performance.
• Grade level. Existing reviews on homework suggest that the relationship between homework and performance is mediated by grade level (Baş et al.,  2017 ; Cooper,  1989 ; Cooper et al.,  2006 ; Fan et al.,  2017 ). Thus, we include the grade level as a potential factor that moderates the linkage of homework time and academic performance.
• Region. Numerous studies indicated that there are regional differences in homework policies and practices (Chen & Stevenson,  1989 ; Tam & Chan,  2009 ; Zhu,  2015 ). The samples involved in the primary study on homework are from different regions (e.g., the United States and Asia); thus, we included the sampling region as a potential moderator in the present review.
• Publication year: Education systems are susceptible to influence of societal changes; thus, publication year is likely to be a moderator, as the homework time may change systematically over time (Cooper et al.,  2006 ; Gill & Schlossman,  2004 ; Twenge et al.,  2004 ). Thus, publication year may also potentially affect the effect sizes of homework time on performance.
• Mode of homework. With web‐learning popularized in education, online homework is being adopted by more teachers, and several researchers have argued about the effects of online homework compared to traditional homework (Callahan,  2016 ; Elias et al.,  2017 ; Jonsdottir et al.,  2017 ; Mendicino et al.,  2009 ). In the present review, we will explore whether the relationship between homework time and academic performance is affected by the mode of homework.
• Type of homework. Teachers typically assign different kinds of homework according to their purpose. Such as reading story to parents, writing math exercises, and trying scientific experiments. In this review, we will divide the academic achievement into three groups: oral homework, paper homework and practical homework and explore whether the relationship between homework time and academic performance is different depending on the type of homework.
• The measure of academic performance: The methods used in previous homework studies included standardized tests and unstandardized assessments (Fan et al.,  2017 ). Several studies suggested that the influence of homework on performance is larger with unstandardized assessments than with standardized tests (e.g., Cooper et al., 1998 ); therefore, there is a need to consider the measure of performance as a potential moderator.
• Subject. Several studies showed that time and effort input in homework varies depending on the subject (e.g., Trautwein,  2007 ; Trautwein & Lüdtke,  2009 ), and it is reasonable to suspect that homework may play a different role in different subjects (e.g., Cooper et al.,  2006 ; Fan et al.,  2017 ; Paschal et al.,  1984 ).

3.3.9. Sensitivity analysis

In addition to the implicit sensitivity analysis in both the analysis of heterogeneity and subgroup analysis, the “One‐leave‐out” method is adopted for sensitivity analysis to check for outliers that potentially influence the overall results, and test the robustness of the meta‐analysis.

CONTRIBUTIONS OF AUTHORS

Liping Guo drafted the protocol, and all authors reviewed the draft and approved the final version.

DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST

All authors declare no potential interest.

INTERNAL SOURCES

This review is supported by funding of the Major Project of the National Social Science Fund of China: Research on the Theoretical System, International Experience, and Chinese Path of Evidence‐based Social Science.

Supporting information

Supplementary Information

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This review is supported by funding of the Major Project of the National Social Science Fund of China: Research on the Theoretical System, International Experience, and Chinese Path of Evidence‐based Social Science (No.: 19ZDA142).

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‘Kinds of Kindness’ Review: Yorgos Lanthimos Keeps You Squirming for Nearly Three Hours in Bizarre, Biting Parody

The mordant Greek auteur reunites with his 'Dogtooth' screenwriter, putting Jesse Plemons, Emma Stone and Willem Dafoe through an unpredictable surrealistic triptych.

By Peter Debruge

Peter Debruge

Chief Film Critic

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A submissive office worker lets his boss dictate everything, from what he wears to the woman he marries. In the next segment, the same actor ( Jesse Plemons ) assumes a different role, playing a cop grieving his wife’s disappearance. When she resurfaces (in the form of Emma Stone), he’s less than enthused when she tries to dominate him in the bedroom. Finally, a woman (also Stone) abandons her marriage to follow a kinky cult leader (Willem Dafoe) who’s ordered her to find an elusive faith healer.

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That is perhaps the only way in which Lanthimos’ latest could be said to satisfy anyone’s expectations: At no point during “Kinds of Kindness” can audiences pretend to anticipate what will happen next. This long, scaldingly original film enthralls even as it frustrates, defying conventional logic while presenting an absurdist riff on modern society. It’s never boring, and yet, Lanthimos’ outré sensibility demands a special brand of patience (not to mention wariness) from viewers, many of whom will come to see Plemons and Stone stretching beyond their respective comfort zones, only to have the same limits tested in themselves.

Stone, who starred in the director’s previous two films, takes a while to appear, leaving audiences to figure out Plemons’ first character, a pathetic corporate lackey named Robert who does as his boss Raymond (Dafoe) tells him, even if that means smashing his shiny new Bronco into a stranger’s car. Raymond rewards Robert’s loyalty with one-of-a-kind sports memorabilia and a generous modern home, which he shares with his wife, Sarah (Hong Chau). For years, Robert has gone along with the arrangement, but this latest request — which is tantamount to manslaughter — is a step too far, forcing him to refuse Raymond’s orders for the first time. Like much of the film, what follows is much funnier on second viewing, as Robert spirals out of control before crawling back to his boss.

What do the various principals in this dynamic represent? Does Raymond embody all bosses, whose expectations shape so much of how the American workforce must behave? Could he be a lawmaker, religious leader or other figure of authority, to whom followers cede their free will? Maybe even a demanding film director? The answer is all of the above and perhaps none at all, as Lanthimos invites us to make what we will of the situation. Unlike “Dogtooth” and “The Lobster,” which provided fairly straightforward critiques of socialization and romantic coupling, respectively, the themes are less clearly defined in this case, making for a blurrier allegory overall. Technically, kindness is offered without thought of reward, whereas these three vignettes are about characters desperately trying to prove their love.

There’s a fair amount of overlap between the first and second chapter, in which Plemons now plays Daniel, a police officer who hasn’t been the same since his wife, Liz (Stone), went missing. When she miraculously reappears, he becomes convinced that she’s not the same person, and because Lanthimos makes the rules, it’s impossible for audiences to determine whether Daniel is acting rationally. Certainly, his mind games — macabre little tests of Liz’s devotion — would seem cruel in the real world. But when we don’t know how gravity works in this universe, how to interpret his behavior? Again, it’s funnier on subsequent viewings, once we’ve gotten over the initial shock.

With no offense intended to any of the actors who bare all in the film, Lanthimos treats sex (and death) as laughable and absurd. That’s one way of undercutting the importance people place on both, to say nothing of abortion, rape and suicide. His irreverence can be disarming at times, laugh-out-loud funny at others. It’s not clear in the end whether he aims to amuse, alarm or enlighten — quite likely all three. There’s an off-kilter precision to the entire project, heightened by “Poor Things” composer Jerskin Fendrix’s use of discordant pianos and stress-inducing choirs. Meanwhile, DP Robbie Ryan pivots from the trick photography of “Poor Things” to meticulous widescreen compositions, centered on some of New Orleans’ least-scenic locations.

When Lanthimos made “Dogtooth,” audiences may not have picked up on the dry, disaffected way the Greek actors delivered their lines. But now that he’s directing in English, it’s impossible not to notice — or be unnerved by — the way the cast underplay situations that would be wrenching in real life. The exception is Plemons, who evokes a young Philip Seymour Hoffman: His emotional commitment to these three roles is commendable, if on a slightly different wavelength from his mostly blank-faced co-stars. With a total of four parts to her name (including twins), Margaret Qualley has more to do here than she did in “Poor Things,” while Mamoudou Athie (who plays her husband in the second chapter) feels underused.

Lanthimos and longtime editor Yorgos Mavropsaridis strike a rhythm that’s totally distinct from that of other filmmakers, creating tension less from suspense than surprise. Each of the segments abruptly concludes with a Saki-esque twist, before moving on to the next. While certain themes carry over, the only real continuity is the title character of each chapter, R.M.F. (Yorgos Stefanakos), whose shifting status gives a clue to their order. To see him eat a sandwich, stick around through the end credits. And to fully appreciate the dark humor of it all, do yourself a kindness: Buckle up and take the whole ride again.

Reviewed at Cannes Film Festival, May 17, 2024. MPA Rating: R. Running time: 164 MIN.

• Production: A Searchlight Pictures release, presented in association with Film4, TSG Entertainment of an Element Pictures production. Producers: Ed Guiney, Andrew Lowe, Yorgos Lanthimos, Kasia Malipan.
• Crew: Director: Yorgos Lanthimos. Screenplay: Yorgos Lanthimos, Efthimis Filippou. Camera: Robbie Ryan. Editor: Yorgos Mavropsaridis. Music: Jerskin Fendrix.
• With: Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Willem Dafoe, Margaret Qualley, Hong Chau, Joe Alwyn, Mamoudou Athie, Hunter Schafer.

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Review: The End of Homework: How Homework Disrupts Families, Overburdens Children, and Limits Learning

(An updated version of this piece is available at this link.)

The End of Homework by Etta Kralovec and John Buell offers a succinct and researched account of why homework does little to actually improve academic performance, and instead hurts a family’s overall well-being. Kralovec and Buell analyze and dissect homework studies over the last few decades, finding that most research supports their claims or, at-best, makes dubious claims on the affects of homework. Although written in 2000, The End of Homework makes arguments that are only strengthened today: homework is discriminatory toward the poor (and the wealth gap has grown), it separates families from their children (and families work longer hours, and homework assigned has increased), and academic results are mixed (and recent studies reflect this.)

At Human Restoration Project , one of the core systemic changes we suggest is the elimination of homework. Throughout this piece, I will include more recent research studies that add to this work. I believe that the adverse affects of homework are so strong that any homework assigned, outside of minor catching up or incredibly niche cases, does more harm than good.

Summarized within The End of Homework , as well as developmental psychologists, sociologists, and educators, are the core reasons why homework is not beneficial:

Homework is Inequitable

In the most practical terms, calls for teachers to assign more homework and for parents to provide a quiet, well-lit place for the child to study must always be considered in the context of the parents’ education, income, available time, and job security. For many of our fellow citizens, jobs have become less secure and less well paid over the course of the last two decades.

Americans work the longest hours of any nation . Individuals in 2006 worked 11 hours longer than their counterparts in 1979. In 2020, 70% of children live in households where both parents work. And the United States is the only country in the industrial world without guaranteed family leave. The results are staggering: 90% of women and 95% of men report work-family conflict . According to the Center for American Progress , “the United States today has the most family-hostile public policy in the developed world due to a long-standing political impasse.”

As a result, parents have much less time to connect with their children. This is not a call to a return to traditional family roles, or even to have stay-at-home parents. Rather, our occupational society is structured inadequately to allow for the use of homework, and Americans must change how labor laws demand their time. For those who work in entry level positions, such as customer service and cashiers, there is an average 240% turnover per year due to lack of pay, poor conditions, work-life balance, and mismanagement. Family incomes continue to decline for lower- and middle-class Americans, leaving more parents to work increased hours or multiple jobs. In other words, parents, especially poor parents, have less opportunities to spend time with their children, let alone foster academic “gains” via homework.

In an effort to increase engagement in homework, teachers have been encouraged to create interesting, creative assignments. Although this has good intentions, rigorous homework with increased complexity places more impetus on parents. As Gary Natrillo, an initial proponent of creative homework, stated later:

‘…not only was homework being assigned as suggested by all the ‘experts,’ but the teacher was obviously taking the homework seriously, making it challenging instead of routine and checking it each day and giving feedback. We were enveloped by the nightmare of near total implementation of the reform recommendations pertaining to homework…More creative homework tasks are a mixed blessing on the receiving end. On the one hand, they, of course, lead to higher engagement and interest for children and their parents. On the other hand, they require one to be well rested, a special condition of mind not often available to working parents…’

Time is a luxury to most Americans. With increased working hours, in conjunction with extreme levels of stress, many Americans don’t have the necessary mindset to adequately supply children with the attention to detail for complex homework. As Kralovec and Buell state,

To put it plainly, I have discovered that after a day at work, the commute home, dinner preparations, and the prospect of baths, goodnight stories, and my own work ahead, there comes a time beyond which I cannot sustain my enthusiasm for the math brain teaser or the creative story task.

Americans are some of the most stressed people in the world. Mass shootings, health care affordability, discrimination, sexual harassment, climate change, the presidential election, and literally: staying informed have caused roughly 70% of people to report moderate or extreme stress , with increased rates for people of color, LGBTQIA Americans, and other discriminated groups. 90% of high schoolers and college students report moderate or higher stress, with half reporting depression and lack of energy and motivation .

Perhaps the solution to academic achievement in America isn’t doubling down on test scores or increasing the work students do at home, but solving the underlying systemic inequities : the economic and discriminatory problems that plague our society? Kralovec and Buell note,

Citing the low test scores of American students has become a favorite cocktail party game. However, some scholars have offered a more nuanced explanation for the poor showing by U.S. students in international academic performance comparisons, suggesting that it may have more to do with high levels of childhood poverty and a lack of support for families in the United States than with low academic standards, shorter school days, and fewer hours spent on homework.

Finland, frequently cited as a model education system, enjoys some of the highest standards of living in the world:

• Finland’s life expectancy is 81.8 years, compare to the US’ 78.7 years and a notable difference exists in the US between rich and poor . Further, America’s life expectancy is declining, the only industrialized country with this statistic .
• Finland’s health care is rated best in the world and only spends $3,078 per capita, compared to $8,047 in the US.
• Finland has virtually no homelessness , compared to 500,000 homeless in the United States .
• Finland has the lowest inequality levels in the EU , compared to the United States with one of the highest inequality levels in the world . Research has demonstrated that countries with lower inequality levels are happier and healthier .

Outside of just convincing you to flat-out move to Finland, these statistics reflect that potentially — instead of investing hundreds of millions of dollars in initiatives to increase national test scores , such as homework strategies, curriculum changes, and nationwide “raising the bar” initiatives — the US should invest in programs that universally help our daily lives, such as universal healthcare and housing. The solution to test scores is rooted in solving America’s underlying inequitable society — shining a light on our core issues — rather than making teachers solve all of our community’s problems.

But Wait, Despite All This…Does Homework Even Work!?

‘Extensive classroom research of ‘time on task’ and international comparisons of year-round time for study suggest that additional homework might promote U.S. students’ achievement.’ This written statement by some of the top professionals in the field of homework research raises some difficult questions. More homework might promote student achievement? Are all our blood, sweat, and tears at the kitchen table over homework based on something that merely might be true? Our belief in the value of homework is akin to faith. We assume that it fosters a love of learning, better study habits, improved attitudes toward school, and greater self-discipline; we believe that better teachers assign more homework and that one sign of a good school is a good, enforced homework policy.

Numerous studies of homework reflect an inconsistent result. Not only does homework rarely demonstrate large, if any, academic gains for testing, there are many negative impacts on the family that are often ignored.

• Countries that assigned the least amount of homework: Denmark, Czech Republic, had higher test scores than those with the most amount of homework: Iran, Thailand .
• Quality of instruction, motivation, and ability are all correlated with student success in school. Yet homework may be marginal or counterproductive .
• Of all homework assigned, homework only saw marginal increases in math and science standardized testing , and had no bearing on grades.
• Homework added pressure and societal stress to those who already experienced the same at home , causing a further divide in academic performance (due to lack of time and financial stress.)

By bringing schoolwork home, the well-intentioned belief of promoting equity through high standards has the adverse affect of causing further inequity. Private and preparatory schools are notorious for extreme levels of homework assignment . Yet, many progressive schools assign no homework and achieve the same levels of college and career success . Again, the biggest predictor of college success has nothing to do with rigorous preparation, and everything to do with family income levels. 77% of students from high income families graduated from a highly competitive college, whereas 9% of students from low income families did the same .

School curriculum obsession in homework is likely rooted in studies that demonstrate increased test scores as a result of assigned homework. The End of Homework deciphers this phenomena:

Cooper’s work provides us with one more example of a problem that routinely bedevils all the sciences: the relationship between correlation and causality. If A and B happen simultaneously, we do not know whether A causes B or B causes A, or whether both phenomena occur casually together or are individually determined by another set of variables…Thus far, most studies in this area have amounted to little more than crude correlations that cannot justify the sweeping conclusions some have derived from them.

If other countries demonstrate educational success (albeit measured through standardized testing) with little to no assigned homework and limited school hours , shouldn’t we take a step back and analyze the system as a whole, rather than figure out better homework schemes?

A Reflection of Neoliberal Society

According to New York State’s Teacher of the Year in 1990:

‘[Schools] separate parents and children from vital interaction with each other and from true curiosity about each other’s lives. Schools stifle family originality by appropriating the critical time needed for any sound idea of family to develop — then they blame the family for its family to be a family. It’s like a malicious person lifting a photograph from the developing chemicals too early, then pronouncing the photographer incompetent.’

Education often equates learning with work. I have to stop myself from behaving like an economics analysist: telling students to quit “wasting time”, stating that the purpose of the lesson is useful for future earnings, seeing everything as prep for college and career (and college is ultimately just for more earnings in a career), and making blanket assumptions that those who aren’t motivated will ultimately never contribute to society, taking on “low levels” of work that “aren’t as important” as other positions.

Since the nineteenth century, developmental psychology has been moving away from the notion that children are nothing more or less than miniature adults. In suggesting that children need to learn to deal with adult levels of pressure, we risk doing them untold damage. By this logic, the schoolyard shootings of recent years may be likened to ‘disgruntled employee’ rampages.

This mentality is unhealthy and unjust. The purpose of education should be to develop purpose. People live happier and healthier lives as a result of pursuing and developing a core purpose. Some people’s purpose is related to their line of work, but there is not necessarily a connection. However, the primary goal stated by districts, states, and the national government of the education system is to make “productive members of society.” When we double down on economic principles to raise complex individuals, it’s no wonder we’re seeing such horrific statistics related to childhood .

Further, the consistent pressure to produce for economic gain raises generations of young people to believe that wealth is a measurement of success and that specific lines of work create happiness. Teachers and parents are told to make their children “work hard” for future success and develop “grit.” Although grit is an important indicator of overcoming obstacles , it is not developed by enforcing grit through authoritarian classrooms or meaningless, long tasks . In fact, an argument could be made that many Americans accept their dramatically poor work-life balance and lack of access to needs such as affordable health care by being brought up in a society that rewards neoliberal tendencies of “working through it” to “eventually achieve happiness.”

Kralovec and Buell state,

Many of us would question whether our fighting with our children for twelve years about homework could possibly foster good habits. In contrast, participating in the decisions of the household and collaborating with others on common chores, from cooking to cleaning to doing routine repairs, are important life skills that also require good work habits. For many children, these habits are never learned because homework gets in the way of that work.

Americans have more difficulty than ever raising children, with increasing demands of time and rising childcare costs . Children often need to “pick up the slack” and help taking care of the home. In fact, children with chores show completely positive universal growth across the board . When teachers provide more and more homework, they take away from the parents’ ability to structure their household according to their needs. As written in The End of Homework ,

Most of us find we do not have enough time with our children to teach them these things; our ‘teaching’ time is instead taken up with school-mandated subjects. We often wonder if we wouldn’t have less tension in our society over prayer in schools if our children had more time for religious instruction at home and for participation in church activities. When school is the virtually exclusive center of the child’s educational and even moral universe, it is not surprising that so many parents should find school agendas (with which they may or may not agree) a threat to their very authority and identity.

Of course, this is not to say that it is all the teacher’s fault. Educators face immense pressure to carry out governmental/school policies that place test scores at the forefront. Many of these policies require homework , and an educator’s future employment is centered on enacting these changes:

As more academic demands are placed on teachers, homework can help lengthen the school day and thus ensure ‘coverage’ — that is, the completion of the full curriculum that each teacher is supposed to cover during the school year…This in itself places pressure on teachers to create meaningful homework and often to assign large amounts of it so that the students’ parents will think the teacher is rigorous and the school has high academic standards. Extensive homework is frequently linked in our minds to high standards.

Therefore, there’s a connection to be made between “work”-life balance of children and the people who are tasked with teaching them. 8% of the teacher workforce leaves every year , many concerned with work-life balance . Perhaps teachers see an increased desire to “work” students in their class and at home due to the pressures they face in their own occupation?

We have little opportunity to enjoy recreation, community events, local politics, or family life. Our diminished possibilities in this regard in turn reinforce our reliance on wages and the workplace. And even the family time that remains after the demands of work and commuting are met is increasingly structured by the requirements of the workplace and school.

The more we equate work with learning, and the more we accept a school’s primary purpose to prepare workers, the less we actually succeed at promoting academics. Instead, we bolster the neoliberal tendencies of the United States to work hard, yet comparably to other countries’ lifestyle gains, achieve little. The United States must examine the underlying inequities of peoples’ lives, rather than focus on increasing schools’ workloads and lessening children’s free time for mythical academic gains that lead to little change. Teacher preparation programs and popular authors need to stop promoting “ interesting and fun ways to teach ‘x’! ” and propose systemic changes that radically change the way education is done, including systemic changes to society at large. Only then will the United States actually see improved livelihoods and a better education system for all.

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I think when we were talking about what it gives us time to do, folks are able to get up and learn to paint, play guitar. What have folks been learning. This time isn't lost. Learning looks differently but I think we can lean into that. Who are the transmitters of knowledge? What does knowledge transmission look like? How do we constitute learning and what do those content areas look like in how we might think of things as more of...someone might call it transdisciplinary. So those are just what I was thinking but I think it's certainly a time. And we should, at least I'll say in my opinion, not think of this so much as a learning loss. It doesn't value what families and communities have been doing during this time and only puts out how knowledge translates in this academic sense and these structures that aren't always as flexible as we might add.

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Oh, Canada review – Paul Schrader looks north as Richard Gere’s draft dodger reveals all

Cannes film festival A dying director who fled from the US to Canada agrees to make a confessional film in Schrader’s fragmented and anticlimactic story

M uddled, anticlimactic and often diffidently performed, this oddly passionless new movie from Paul Schrader is a disappointment. It is based on the novel Foregone by Russell Banks (Schrader also adapted Banks’s novel Affliction in 1997) and reunites Schrader with Richard Gere, his star from American Gigolo. Though initially intriguing, it really fails to deliver the emotional revelation or self-knowledge that it appears to be leading up to. There are moments of intensity and promise; with a director of Schrader’s shrewdness and creative alertness, how could there not be? But the movie appears to circle endlessly around its own emotions and ideas without closing in.

The title is partly a reference to the national anthem of that nation, which is a place of freedom and opportunity which may have an almost Rosebud-type significance for the chief character, an avowed draft-resister refugee from the US in the late 60s, who becomes an acclaimed documentary film-maker in his chosen country. Maybe Vietnam was his real reason for fleeing and maybe it wasn’t. This central point is one of many things in this fragmented film which is unsatisfyingly evoked.

The scene is the heavily panelled and grand Canadian house belonging to celebrated director Leonard Fife, played by Gere, who is dying of cancer but has agreed to be interviewed for a highly personal and indeed confessional film co-directed in a spirit of homage by some former film-school pupils, most prominently Malcolm (Michael Imperioli). Leonard is frail and in physical pain and insists on having his wife in his eyeline at all time; this is Emma, played by Uma Thurman .

With what appears to be unflinching honesty, Leonard talks about things that Emma perhaps doesn’t know – and would prefer to believe are just hallucinations due to the pain medication. He had two wives and two children in the US before he met her, and having faked a campy “gay” identity at his army medical to delay the call-up, he fled over the border to Canada with money that his (second) father-in-law had given him to buy a house for him and his wife. Like Updike’s Rabbit, Leonard just decided to run.

How much of his American past does Emma know? She must know some of it; she is shown having to intervene diplomatically when Leonard’s grownup son from his second marriage tries approaching him at a film festival, to Leonard’s icy dismay. At one stage, Leonard seems to be implying that he met Emma when she was the partner of the painter and academic with whom he stayed in the US just before making his break for the border. Thurman plays this younger character herself in these scenes, alongside Jacob Elordi as the younger Leonard. So this could be an example of treacherously unreliable, fictionalised memory. But Schrader, in an earlier scene, has Gere himself play the younger Leonard and the purpose and effect of this is unclear. And there is no showdown with that formidable father-in-law of his, no scene of him ranting and raving at Leonard’s escape and betrayal.

In dramatic terms, the past is clearly in some way being challenged, upended, undermined. But this challenge is not suspenseful or enlightening, resulting merely in cloudiness. Leonard’s deception and self-deception, his various betrayals, if betrayals they are, are not dramatically interesting or even intelligible. As for Imperioli’s character Malcolm, he is apparently respectful and even oleaginous towards Leonard, but finally resorts to an outrageous trick to get hidden footage of the great man on his deathbed. Yet even that betrayal passes without consequence or meaning. This is a film which often seems to have no punches to pull.

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On beth gibbons' 'lives outgrown,' the portishead singer invites us in.

Grayson Haver Currin

On Lives Outgrown , her first solo album, Beth Gibbons has never appeared so unguarded, so free of mystery's shroud. Eva Vermandel/Courtesy of the artist hide caption

On Lives Outgrown , her first solo album, Beth Gibbons has never appeared so unguarded, so free of mystery's shroud.

Even at the height of Portishead 's fame, singer Beth Gibbons seemed in self-selected exile from usual music-industry machinations. For 30 years, or ever since the Bristol trio stumbled into surprising stardom and helped usher in trip-hop as a genre, Gibbons barely participated in the promotional hubbub around infrequent releases. A 2019 tally suggested she'd done just two brief interviews ever. In one , from 1995, she mostly smiles, laughs and pantomimes uncomfortably; in the other , she stands shivering by a boat, then waffles about whether she wants to do press at all.

She seemed to know, however, exactly what to do with the ostensible windfall: Where others, like Jack White or J. Cole or even Neil Young turned major-label cache and earnings into their own eccentric empires, Gibbons made something much more familiar — an almost entirely private life. Aside from the occasional charity single , Grammy-winning guest appearance , symphonic turn or very rare candid photo , Gibbons receded into the ordinary work of just being an adult.

It was stunning, then, when she seemed to fling open the doors to her home in early May, a week before the release of her solo debut, Lives Outgrown , at least for a frame. In a photograph posted to her Instagram account, Gibbons sat at a live-edge desk , turning upward to smile at the camera as she signed small white postcards to be mailed with her record's deluxe edition. "Final touches before my [album's] released," Gibbons wrote, signing off with a red heart. There is math homework shoved to one side of the desk, tins crammed with colored pencils to the other. Outside, through closed windows, the yard is a wash of triumphal springtime green.

The snapshot is a fittingly interior image for Lives Outgrown , where Gibbons eschews the complicated electronic textures and percussive snap-and-sway of her famous band for the sort of softer sounds one might get in a living room as Saturday night stretches into Sunday afternoon. The drum kit, after all, consisted of a paella dish and a cowhide water bottle. There is bowed saw and hammered dulcimer, baritone viola and pedal steel.

What's more, Gibbons first hinted at Lives Outgrown in 2013, nearing the edge of 50. She is releasing it now at the precipice of 60. Gibbons' lyrics — delivered alternately with a velveteen softness or a tensile strength, her generational voice having gained grain while losing little flexibility — are suffused with the stuff that comes during any such transitional decade: talk of time, encounters with ache, hems of horizons. "Moon time will linger / through the melody / of life's shortening, longing view," she patiently sings during the closing pastoral, "Whispering Love."

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As time advances, Lives Outgrown affirms, all we've ever known recedes a little more each day. Gibbons has never appeared so unguarded, so free of mystery's shroud. In Portishead, she always seemed to be summoning some unseen energy; it is surprising, reassuring, inspiring even how lyrically familiar Lives Outgrown seems, the testament of an uncanny singer simply making it through each day. It feels as if she's invited us over to sit a spell.

Indeed, Gibbons announced Lives Outgrown with a handwritten letter , the first sign she was letting the faithful into her bubble, at least briefly. "My 50's have brought forward a new yet older horizon," she offered. "It has been a time of farewells to family, friends, and even to who I was before." In the first 90 seconds of the album, she summons abandonment and self-doubt, crowning herself "a lonely love." Exhaustion and even a trace of aged callousness creep into the anxious "Burden of Life," an elegy for the energy and optimism we've had. "The time's never right," she concludes, her voice fading over the barbs of a baritone guitar, "when you're losing your soul." There is the abiding feeling that the party, if not already over, is soon ending: "Fooled ovulation, but no babe in me," Gibbons manages with a gasp, as if surprised at the starkness of her own confession.

All this talk of aging, things lost, nice desks piled with chores and crafts: Lives Outgrown probably suggests some precious domestic folk affair by now, all acoustic finery and coddled vocals. And to an extent, sure. Gibbons' pick-and-slide guitar during opener "Tell Me Who You Are Today" is a loping wonder, as are her pensive vocals, which feel forever like an exhalation. But the album's true majesty stems from arrangements that are simultaneously grand and intimate, as if Gibbons has tucked an entire symphony into her living room only to bend it at her command.

Though the London collective Orchestrate, led by Bridget Samuels, does appear on two tracks, much of Lives Outgrown is played by a tiny crew: Gibbons, former Talk Talk drummer Lee Harris and producer James Ford, whose multi-instrumental facility gives this music its breadth and gravity. (On two tracks, Ford musters 14 instruments himself, from the humble recorder to a panoply of keyboards.) The plangent strings and questioning clarinet during "Rewind," the noctilucent long tones and ominous whooshes beneath "Oceans," the percussive pulses and cobwebbed background vocals during "For Sale": These are meticulously composed songs, their nested layers having more to do with, say, the later works of Robert Wyatt than the revival of Vashti Bunyan .

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These instruments are forever responding to Gibbons, too, whether mapping the depravity and confusion of "Rewind" or ferrying along her sense of existential drift in "Floating on a Moment." End to end, this record is a response to Gibbons' personal testimony — no misdirection or guile, just an opening to an interior.

Lives Outgrown follows the release of another long-anticipated solo debut from someone else in an iconic act: André 3000 's New Blue Sun . No, Gibbons' heartfelt songs do not equal the hard left turn of that masterful rapper's "flute"-bound ascent into spiritual jazz. They do, however, represent the considered results of a similar retreat from the public eye, from making music, from meeting the demands of creative commerce.

This record, like New Blue Sun , feels like a concession to no one except oneself. It is a document of a life lived, a candid transmission from the many years that have passed since Gibbons' last songs. Just as André 3000's improvisations didn't absolutely sate all OutKast fans, Gibbons' inward acoustic hymns may miss some of Portishead's adherents. No matter: Lives Outgrown , where Gibbons molts any shell of expectation, is better for it, a little unexpected gift for which we've long been waiting.

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Billie Eilish shows us what she was made for

“Hit Me Hard and Soft,” her scrupulous third album, renders life after “Barbie” in high detail

It feels too early to draw a bright pink line through Billie Eilish’s recording career, but do we really have a choice? Her obliterating ballad from last summer’s “Barbie” soundtrack, “ What Was I Made For? ,” felt so delicately inventive and deeply existential that it automatically split her songbook into before-and-after. So into the post-pink we go with “Hit Me Hard and Soft,” a new album that finds Eilish singing in exponentially more exquisite detail, making her melodized whispers work like steamrollers, roller coasters, pneumatic jackhammers, bombs bursting in air, hard and soft for real.

On its face, this is a breakup album about separating yourself from the people you love, including whomever you used to be. Eilish establishes the framework right away with “ Skinny ,” steeping in her demolishing “Barbie” tone, explaining how “21 took a lifetime.” If your reflex is to roll your eyes at the idea of a 22-year-old feeling old, try a little harder to remember how difficult those initial seasons of adulthood are, when you’re beginning to understand that your past is irretrievable. On top of that, Eilish’s loneliness sounds compounded by the faceless cruelty of this digital world she was born into: “The internet is hungry for the meanest kind of funny and somebody’s gotta feed it.”

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By organizing those gentle syllables in a descending melody, she sounds like a puff of smoke falling down the stairs. Somehow, it lands like the truth. Her singing is so considered, so precise, so emotionally dialed-in — yet, in ways that almost always require dialing back. In one fantastically subtle passage of “ Chihiro ,” Eilish locates more than three-dozen notes inside eight words — “Did you take my love away from me?” — as if identifying flower petals scattered in a breeze. Her brother, producer and songwriting partner, Finneas, underscores the understatement, allowing a disco bass line to flap around on its own while the drums go pitter-pat on the precipice of total absence.

So is “Chihiro” a disco romp or a lullaby? And is “Skinny” bossa nova or neo-soul? The genre-blending is central to this album, but it doesn’t feel like two siblings making fruit smoothies so much as allowing their dream states to overlap. Other songs on “Hit Me Hard and Soft” go through their style mutations in a more linear fashion. “ The Greatest ” starts in the coffee shop, then transforms into a Britpop festival at Walt Disney World. “ L’Amour de Ma Vie ” starts in the cabaret, then goes emo-Nintendo. It’s tempting to look for themes of transformation and evolution in the turns and twists, but Eilish’s voice holds the center. As a chaotic world makes its violent changes, she’s going deeper inside of herself — a tacit refutation of the chameleonic pop-progress narratives established by the Beatles, David Bowie, Prince, Madonna, all the way down the line.

Eilish isn’t monolithically sad, though. There’s an almost shocking playfulness to “ Lunch ,” with Eilish reciting a dirty, crushed-out inner monologue before finally admitting, “She’s the headlights, I’m the deer.” Fantastic. And then there’s “ The Diner .” With Finneas making his synths bend like funhouse mirrors throughout, it’s hard to tell whether Eilish is joking around about the stalker’s fantasy she’s describing, ending the song in literal whispers as she mock-memorizes a victim’s phone number. Either way, (310)-807-3956 now joins 867-5309 and (281)-330-8004 as the most famous digits in pop music’s Yellow Pages.

And while those two cuts feel something like outliers, they still point toward this album’s fundamental question: Why don’t you love me? Eilish dives headlong into it during “The Greatest,” removing the emphasis from that question’s “you” and placing it entirely in the “me.” The comedown from the Oasis-in-Orlando mega-chorus goes like this: “Man, am I the greatest. God, I hate it. All my love and patience, unappreciated.” She doesn’t sound like a solipsist, or a egomaniac, or a brat. As ever, just listen to that voice. It’ll float you right back to the song’s title.

Review: In ‘Gasoline Rainbow,’ carefree kids hit the road during a fleeting moment when they can

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The New Orleans-based filmmaking brothers Bill and Turner Ross have made a name for themselves over the past 15 years with their lyrical, poetic documentaries. But with 2020’s “Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets,” they blurred the line between fiction and nonfiction, setting up an imaginary scenario in an actual dive bar on its last night of business, observing a curated group of regulars as they shut it down for good.

The new “Gasoline Rainbow” is their first official narrative feature, informed by their documentary roots and eye for capturing spontaneous beauty. During the Covid-19 quarantine of 2020, Bill and Turner Ross dreamed up a wild road film, which they loosely scripted and cast with five young first-time actors from Oregon. They play a group of friends from a small town called Wiley, who hit the road with the only things you need for an adventure: a dream, a posse, a van and the abiding belief that “anywhere’s better than here.”

The dream is to see the Oregon coast, 513 miles from their landlocked town. The posse is three boys — Makai Garza, Micah Bunch and Tony Aburto — and two girls, Nathaly Garcia and Nichole Dukes. The van gets them started on their adventure, but they soon learn that it’s not a necessary component. After spending the night partying in a cow field with a guy they meet on the side of the road, they return to find the van on blocks, vandalized, the tires stolen, and that’s when things really get interesting. They have to rely on each other and the kindness of strangers and community to make it all the way to the beach, to the Party at the End of the World, a mysterious event they hear about that becomes their ultimate destination.

Though the events on this journey are planned and produced by the filmmakers, the relationships are real, the interactions and conversations undeniably authentic. If pioneering English documentarian John Grierson’s definition of nonfiction filmmaking was the “creative treatment of actuality,” “Gasoline Rainbow” could ostensibly fit under that umbrella.

But this is not a documentary and it’s far more productive to consider the ways in which the Ross brothers have synthesized their influences and inspirations — such as “My Own Private Idaho,” “The Wizard of Oz,” “Easy Rider” and the 1984 documentary “Streetwise” — into their own unique form that exudes a singular kind of ragged, unpredictable vitality.

Each actor is a discovery with a special presence, but there is no one star or standout, which feels intentional. While “Gasoline Rainbow” is a heady slice of pure, uncut youthful energy, it is also a portrait of collectivism, caretaking and a celebration of mutual aid.

It’s apt that a film like this was born out of the isolation and confinement of 2020. There was a desire for freedom and movement, combined with the progressive value of taking care of each other that rose out of quarantine and the Black Lives Matter movement. In “Gasoline Rainbow,” the kids come by this sense of mutual protection naturally, but the value is reinforced along the way by the heavily-pierced punk hitchhikers who teach them how to hop a train to Portland in exchange for their leftover food, and the middle-aged rockers who provide a party, a couch to crash, breakfast and a boat ride. Micah’s cousin Noah underscores the importance, telling them, “I like the way you treat each other.”

These values of care and respect threaded throughout are why we never fear for their safety. They make decisions as a group, look out for each other and demonstrate their awareness by asking the strangers they meet, “Are you cool?” The film isn’t about the risks of a harrowing journey. In turn, it gives us a freedom as viewers to focus on their life stories that emerge in snippets of conversation, and those of the people they meet along the way. Their guides are fascinating in their own right, like Gary, a Portland skater who shepherds them through the city for a night, and later ferries them to the party.

What’s a movie shot on a set with a cast doing in Sundance’s documentary competition?

“Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets” directors wanted the vibe of a bar about to close. So they handpicked patrons, found a location and let the cameras roll.

Jan. 29, 2020

This age — not kids, not quite adults — is such an impossibly short time, and it’s poignant to drink in their openness and pliability as people, their youthful trust and imperviousness, to watch them blossom and bond. They haven’t hardened into grown-ups yet and they know they have this one moment in time to enjoy fleeting youth, before jobs, bills and responsibilities. Nichole says that she fears not having enough time to figure things out, and this film is a celebration of that moment.

“Gasoline Rainbow” is also stunningly gorgeous, with carefully composed shots capturing the vast Oregon landscape, raspberry sunsets, golden fields, the beach at night and in the misty morning. The gritty urban space of Portland is so wildly different from their one-stoplight town, it’s intoxicating, the gang drawn in by the all-night parties, skate parks, rock festivals and free-flying freak flags.

Though a larger cultural commentary is not overt, certain realities necessarily come through, with jokes about cops, corporate logos emblazoned on train cars, discussions about parents in rehab and what it’s like to be the only black kid in small-town Oregon (“It sucks”). It’s a depiction of today’s youth, shaped by contemporary culture, but there is also a timelessness to their experience. The Ross brothers capture those universal feelings of a certain age: possibility, togetherness with your tribe, unmoored from traditional family structures.

The structuring destination of the Party at the End of the World speaks to this idea of time running out, and it imparts a sense of existential dread that hovers around the edges, but forces the characters, and the audience to remain in the moment, to embrace serendipity, surprise, and coincidence. As it all coalesces, there is a sense of visceral, emotional catharsis that could only be achieved at the end of a long journey. That the Ross brothers manage to impart this feeling to an audience after an hour-and-48-minute cinematic adventure is a true triumph. This wild, vicarious ride through youthful adventure is absolutely worth taking, for your own nostalgia and for the reminder that the kids are indeed alright.

'Gasoline Rainbow'

Not rated Running time: 1 hour, 48 minutes Playing: Now in limited release

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