Having students start the assignment in class or during synchronous learning will help you estimate how long it may take different students to do and if they need help. Suggested time limits should be based on the purpose of the assignment as well as student age and ability. How much time should this assignment take? If you are going to assign homework, consider how much time the assignment should take and recommend an appropriate cut-off time for students without penalty.Skill practice, such as learning when and how to apply algorithms in math or parsing difficult text passages, might be more effective during class, where teachers can clarify misunderstandings and provide feedback and coaching.

These tasks might be better to assign as homework or during asynchronous learning.

Is this assignment better done in class versus as homework? Some activities can't be done effectively or efficiently in class or during synchronous online learning, such as reading a book chapter to prepare for class discussion or interviewing a community member for an oral history project.

Teachers can use a variety of formative assessment strategies, such as student check-ins and daily exit tickets to strive for the “just-right” challenge for each student and ensure that homework can be done without help from parents or tutors - especially because not all students have the resources to get outside help.

Will all students be able to do the task independently? It is challenging to design homework assignments that meet every child’s academic and developmental needs, but students are more likely to disengage when an assignment feels either too hard or too easy.

Teachers can also allow students to stop when they believe they understand the concept.

Educators can increase engagement by clarifying the purpose of the work and allowing students to choose which problems to do or which topics to research. Do students understand the purpose and value of the assignment? When students perceive homework as busy work, meaningless, or of little value to the teacher, they are less likely to complete it and may become less interested in learning and in school in general.

Schools without homework