More than minutes: Teachers' roles in designing homework

Homework has long been a topic of social research, but relatively few studi es have focused on the teacher's role in the homework process. Most researc h examines what students do, and whether and how the completion of homework or time spent affects student achievement or success in school (Cooper, 19 89; Paschal, Weinstein, & Walberg, 1984; and see Cooper & Valentine, 2001). Yet, the homework process begins with teachers who choose the topics and c ontent of assignments to help students meet particular learning goals. Thus , teachers not only assign homework, they also design homework. Designing h omework requires teachers to consider the purposes, format, and other eleme nts of assignments that will engage students and help them succeed. Assignm ents not only reflect teachers' knowledge of the curriculum, but also their understanding of the skills, abilities, and needs of their students, and t he characteristics and situations of their students' families (Epstein, 200 1). Homework is recognized as one indicator of successful schools and successfu l students. Coleman, Hoffer, and Kilgore (1982) conclude that more homework and better discipline were two reasons why private schools were more succe ssful learning environments than public schools. Similarly, studies have sh own that students in the United States do less homework than do students in other countries (Chen & Stevenson, 1989; Stevenson et al., 1990). The impl ication is that if teachers in U.S. public schools assigned more homework, students would learn more and the schools would be more effective. This prescription may be too simple. Just assigning "more" homework is a me chanical response to a set of complex issues. Students who presently do lit tle or no homework are unlikely to work harder and longer just because more homework is assigned (Como, 1996). The call for more homework is based on a belief that the more time students spend on schoolwork, the more they wil l learn. However, as the next sections show, the purposes of homework are v aried and the connections of time on homework and student achievement are c omplex. In addition to time, other aspects of homework design also are impo rtant for encouraging more students to do their assignments. For example, p arental involvement is one element of homework design that may encourage st udents to spend more time and complete their assignments with higher qualit y work (Epstein, 2001; Hoover-Dempsey et al, 2001). This article begins with a review of the purposes of homework that have bee n identified by educators in survey research, and in interviews and worksho ps on homework. We then draw from research to understand how homework compl etion, time on homework, and parental involvement inform and affect the tea cher's role in the homework process. Finally, we review the results of rese arch on one new homework design-interactive homework-that teachers have imp lemented in language arts, math, and science to meet the specific purposes of improving student skills, increasing parent-teacher communication, and i mproving parent-child relations.