Imaginative Teaching Ideas: Using Homework to Promote Progress on "The Road to Success"

As a new school year starts, new students begin their journey through secondary education, and most importantly to me, students start looking towards taking their exams and think what the future might have install for them. As at the start of every year one of the most decisive topics is home work and do we need it? The questions that have to be asked are:

What is the purpose of homework?
What are the benefits of homework?
Who are we doing homework for?
Is the time homework takes both in terms of time for staff and students, worth the returns?
How can we use homework to drive progress?

As I have progressed through my career my view, and opinions on home work have changed drastically. 10 years ago like many other teachers, I viewed homework as something that needed to be set as it was expected. As I now move into my 11th year my opinion has changed drastically. I now like to think of homework as an opportunity to help drive student progress, and a vital area of a students education that is often neglected. I don't claim all these ideas as my own, however, I hope some of my musings go some way towards starting to move peoples mind set on the purpose of homework.

What is the purpose of homework? Traditionally homework has often just been a tag on or to complete tasks not finished during lesson time. There was once a time when the worksheet was king. Finishing off tasks not completed in the lesson or doing yet another pointless worksheet will not however, improve progress. While I accept that there will always be the need for students to finish off work, the thought of homework consisting of endless amounts of worksheets horrifies me. What is the purpose of giving students yet another worksheet to do? I'd suggest very little. Homework should only be set if it will improve student progress either by structuring their revision or by challenging them. One of the more recent ideas about homework is the concept of flipped learning, where students cover the content before the lesson so that lesson time can be devoted to developing skills. If you have not given this a go I would highly recommend giving it a go.

What are the benefits of homework? If you go looking you'll find plenty of research devoted to homework, it's benefits an draw backs. From my point of view, the benefits of homework is to aid in the progression student's make. If structured correctly, homework can be used to help students learn to work independently and structure their time effectively. Students need to get into the habit of doing a bit of work every night as when it comes to revision, this is the sort of self discipline students will need to have. Students can stay focused on a task for around 20 minutes so is it worth making them do more than that at once? If a student did this short amount of work for a subject by the end of the year it would work out to around 90 hours extra learning time.

Who are we doing homework for? This is a question that will get virtually a different answer from everyone you ask. Some teachers set homework because it states in their school policy that they have to. Some teachers set homework because parents demand that homework is set because that's what happened when they were at school. Many parents also think more homework, is better than quality homework. The only reason that homework should be set is to improve student progress. If when you look at what you are setting you think that the task you set won't improve progress don't set it!

How can we use homework to drive progress? This is something that I've spent a lot of time working on over the last year. If you speak to students they want to achieve, and if they can see the purpose of what they are doing, they will engage. So, after consulting with students and other members of staff this is my plan for this year.

Start students on the road to success early. If students start KS4 in Y9 they can start revising slowly from the start of year 10.
Explain the purpose of early revision to students. At the start of this year I spent a bit of time talking to students about how well structured revision will improve the progress they make.
Be organised. For the entire year I have put together daily small revision tasks for students to work through. This has ensured that I've not missed anything out.
Set up display boards with more detailed instructions about the tasks they need to work through with an example of what it should look like.
Set students specific youtube videos to watch
Use instagram. I will be setting up a profile where I post pictures of the task instructions and youtube links that they can use. I have also used Instagram to remind students when revision sessions are on.
So I don't have to constantly check up on students, I have put up tick sheets for students to mark off when they have completed a task.
Every week I will set students around 15 marks work of exam questions, then after this homework has been marked, go through this homework with students to improve their exam technique.

Below I have attached a few pictures to show some of my ideas in action, more will be coming however, I've had IT issues so have lost all of my photos from the start of the term.