While schools around the nation reconsider homework policies, teachers, students, and parents continue to ride the wave of either too much, too little, too easy, or too hard homework assignments. In the expectation that children complete homework, sometimes they are assigned mindless “busy work.” Kathy Collins and Janine Bempechat take on the stormy topic of homework by re-focusing the conversation from “to assign or not to assign” to how we can design engaging homework that harnesses children’s interests and fosters their learning. “Janine and I give you a research-based rationale and a more expansive view of homework that enables you to envision meaningful alternatives to worksheets, packets, and tasks that simply occupy children’s afterschool time,” Kathy writes. As Janine notes, “More than just ‘getting it done,’ homework can be an opportunity to foster positive beliefs about learning, establish meaningful habits of mind, and forge an academic identity.”
With strategies for adding choice, differentiation, relevance, and authentic feedback into homework assignments, you’ll discover how to reimagine homework in ways that promote lifelong learning habits in your students.
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Author Bio
Kathy Collins is a graduate of Syracuse University with a B.A. in advertising/art history, and she also earned a master's degree in teaching English to speakers of other languages from Teachers College. During her career, she's been an English as a second language teacher in Japan, a first-grade teacher in Brooklyn, N.Y., and an adjunct instructor at the University of Alaska in Anchorage. She currently teaches at reading institutes across the country and consults with schools and districts.