Homework, is it obsolete? - lessons from NZ

Recently I managed to obtain a copy of the Ditch that Homework by Matt Miller and Alice Keeler with its manifesto on making homework obsolete. Straight off the bat, I would say I would like to make the word homework obsolete as we are wanting to create learners not just workers, so I prefer the term home learning.

There is little doubt that globally schools find home learning a challenge. In my home country New Zealand, Karori Normal has banned traditional home learning as it causes too much stress for parents and students and was seen by educators as not actually helping them learn.

At Wanganui Intermediate students are expected to spend up to 40 minutes on home learning after school, however just like at Karori Normal staff are unsure if such a strategy has much impact on their learning. Principal Charles Oliver states:

“We do it for two reasons. Firstly so the children become self-managing learners, and secondly because parents like it. Parents judge a school partly on whether it gives homework, and if it does they think it must be good.” 

Not convinced of the relevance and impact of home learning as it was previously set, the school has introduced cloud based home learning, whereby the students log on, bring up their own learning from the day and continue a piece of learning they started in class, or complete a series of challenges tailored for their ability level. So with doubt from educators beginning to build, what is the evidence that home learning is actually hampering rather than assisting learning?

From Ditch that Homework, Matt and Alice use the research of John Hattie to justify their stance that home learning is obsolete:

Homework has been found to have no effect on the progress of primary school children. To get it right without getting rid of it, children at primary level should be given less projects and more activities that reinforce what they learnt in the lesson that day instead. Whilst homework does make more of a difference to secondary school children, too much emphasis is placed on it; 5-10 minutes of practising what was taught that day at school has the same effect as 1-2 hours does.

I would have to agree with the sentiment of getting home learning right not getting rid of home learning. So the title of the book is a misnomer. We have to reimagine home learning. So how can we do this? The New Zealand Ministry of Education’s report School Leadership and Student Outcomes: Identifying what works and why has a range of research that measures the effects on student learning of different kinds of home learning. Researchers found that in NZ schools the average overall impact of home learning on student outcomes was small to negligible. This on the face of it would support the central thesis of Ditch that Homework. However, digging deeper into the research provided further insights.

The research showed that the efficacy of home learning depending on the task being set. To illustrate this point, teacher-designed interactive home learning which involved parents had a great impact on student learning. When this was compared that with the average gain from a year’s teaching based on summative assessments using 'traditional homework' strategies it was substantial. The principal researcher Dr Alton-Lee concluded that:

“The absolute standout is when schools develop the capacity to help parents support their children’s learning in ways that are feasible for both parents and teachers,” 

As an example of this was a literacy programme called Read Together where parents are assisted in effective ways to support their child's reading. The programme had a significant impact on reading achievement in poorer, less resourced schools. As a principal involved in the program stated:

“Parents find it very helpful in that it gives them simple but effective strategies for helping their children with their reading and they get a chance to actually practice these strategies with their children at one of the workshops”

That is not to say that involving parents is easy. The research also suggests that you can involve parents but that does not mean that will have a positive effect on student learning.

“Evidence suggests that schools can waste a lot of time, money and effort trying to harness parental engagement in ways that have minimal impact on children’s learning. “For example, when schools develop lending libraries of mathematical games that match student learning needs, these have a more positive effect on student mathematics achievement than any other school-home intervention,” 

The report’s researchers found that the quality of implementation rather than frequency of use was more strongly associated with greater student achievement.

In terms of negative effects, the report found that the least effective kind of home learning is parent 'help’ with home learning, where the parents often think they are helping but in fact are having a negative effect.

This includes 'help’ which conflicts with classroom practices, imposes controls, or challenges the school's approach. By contrast, parents’ support for their children when doing home learning has positive effects, says Dr Alton-Lee. 

“Parents who have participated in the Reading Together workshops report they have a closer relationship with their children as a result, as illustrated by this typical comment:˜It helped me to know how to calm down when my child made a mistake. It brings that mother/daughter bond. Reading is fun time not shouting time, and what I really like now is that my daughter likes to read’." 

Dr Alton-Lee says the challenge for schools is that despite home learning being the most important interface between the what is happening in the classroom and home, there is little support for schools or teachers to implement effective homework policies. 

“From my point of view, when you have an area of practice in education that is inadvertently doing harm, I believe it should be a priority to get much stronger support to support whanau (family), parents and teachers.”

Dr Alton-Lee also says there are things that schools can be doing around home learning that will bring fast, positive impacts. These include teachers giving feedback on home learning; strong clear rules for parents; stating the time to be spent on home learning, and a facility for parents to give feedback.

“We need to take more professional leadership and assist parents to understand how they can support their children. We have to counter vexatious effects of home learning and set things up to make it work because the educational benefits of home learning can be so significant.”

Home learning is the cause of more friction between school and home than any other aspect of education. The key is to turn home learning into a cooperative effort to promote student learning and place the family back into the relationship through improving communication.