Is homework necessary or just a burden on students and teachers? EdTech can assist in providing an answer.

A petition was delivered on February 4, 2023, asking the UK government to forbid homework unless absolutely necessary. The main justification was that it has an impact on student’s mental health, which is crucial because a healthy student performs well. Therefore, let’s examine the benefits and drawbacks of homework before making a choice. EdTech can help us make a well-informed decision on the matter.

Benefits of Homework

• In addition to enabling students to take pride in their accomplishments, homework helps students learn the discipline needed to finish tasks. It also translates to effective study techniques that aid in the future development of life skills. Homework exposes students to problems requiring critical thought, problem-solving scenarios, and time management skills. Furthermore, the concept of homework has the potential to improve a student’s performance in other classes by preparing them for more difficult work.
• Homework aids in reinforcing classroom lessons. Since only about half of what is learned is retained, more interesting course material is assigned as homework to help students retain the other half.
• Parents have the opportunity to participate in their children’s daily learning through homework. If the parents help their children with their homework, that is. It helps parents identify the abilities, limitations, and even learning disabilities of their kids. When parents are advising their children on career paths, these points can be helpful.
  

Challenges of Homework

• It intensifies the disparities in students’ backgrounds. In general, students from wealthier backgrounds perform better on their homework than students from less wealthy backgrounds. The reason for this is that parents expect more from the former because they have access to more resources. While students from less affluent families have more domestic duties that cut into their free time, Thus, 56% of students listed their homework as their top source of stress.
• inability to determine how much homework to assign. Students should spend 10 minutes per grade per night on homework, but the research found that they spent much longer. Students in high school complete nearly 7 hours of homework each week! That’s the equivalent of a full school day, which might be a lot.
• This third issue is something I personally deal with frequently. One student completes one assignment, and the remaining students copy it. The process of reviewing those answer scripts feels repetitive. Therefore, sometimes having too much homework overwhelms students and makes them want to copy. Consequently, this kind of behavior has become increasingly common in the current educational system
• The biggest problem with homework is that it is often given to students at a level above their developmental capacity, which is counterproductive to their learning and growth. When students in younger grades cannot even read, should writing assignments be given? Or projects that will end up being completed by the parents due to their complexity ( this is most common in science experiments)? This kind of excessive and often unnecessary workload can be detrimental to a student’s well-being and mental health.
  

Where does EdTech fit in?

Homework is “difficult to source, copy, chase, and mark,” according to one teacher. Another teacher remarked that, due to homework, the imbalance between work and life starts in school. Students don’t go home to relax or recharge. As technology advances, educational institutions are finding ways to reduce this imbalance through the implementation of EdTech.

The biggest problem is that homework is simply insufficient in terms of quantity, quality, and relevance. For that, there is an EdTech solution. In-class digital assessment tools are used to generate homework. A quick assessment quiz is given in class to find out which learning objectives students have a grasp of. Additional tasks or reading materials are provided for the learning objectives that the students have not yet mastered. Then, these could be completed as homework. Such homework has the advantage of being tailored to the needs of the student, requiring little to no effort from the teacher. The amount of work can also be changed to fit the student’s particular grade and proficiency level.

How does that assist? It aids educators in assigning and grading homework. Second, since reading material has already been provided, there are fewer large disparities at home. There is no such thing as too much homework because quantity can be changed. Online digital submission eliminates the need for marking and chasing down unsubmitted work. As a result, the teacher’s dream of staggered homework assignments for each class and student is finally a reality.

We at E-spaces are pleased to inform you that this application is now accessible. With the help of this application, teachers will soon be able to easily assign homework that is customized for each student’s skills, schedule, and preferences. Simply sign up here, and someone will get in touch with you to discuss the next steps. Thanks to the new E-spaces application, teachers will soon give students personalized homework assignments with ease. Teachers and students now have a rare opportunity to interact in a more personalized way thanks to this new application.