what would students be doing instead of homework

9 better alternatives to homework

by Katrina | Aug 31, 2022 | Lesson Ideas

Traditionally homework has been school work that students complete outside of the classroom and outside of school hours. This usually consists of textbook questions, worksheets, or research tasks.

Studies have been inconsistent in providing concrete evidence for the benefits of homework, and the effectiveness of set homework tasks depends greatly on the task itself.

This list of 9 alternatives to homework will help you give students a break from the norm while still impacting their learning and character development. 

alternatives to homework in middle school

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Alternatives to homework

It is worth noting that I don’t use the word ‘homework’. Why? Because it has such a deeply ingrained negative connotation for both students and parents.

Terms I prefer to use instead include:

• At home learning
• Daily / Weekly Practice
• Consolidation

These terms don’t have the same negative connotation as ‘homework’ and help the students think about the tasks in a more positive way. 

Before I get into my suggestions, here are some benefits of using alternatives to homework:

1. You don’t have to mark them. These activities are designed to be able to be marked simple as participated or not. Not all home learning tasks need to add to your workload!

2. They encourage the development of character traits and skills – not just academic ones.

3. They are simple and easy to assign to almost any topic – and in fact, they don’t need to be specifically linked to a topic at all.

4. The nature of the tasks remind students to maintain balance between school / study and home life. 

5. They can be easily differentiated to cater for the variation of student situations.

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1. Baking from a recipe

Following instructions is very important in life as well as most subjects. For example, in subjects, such as science, students need to be able to work safely in a laboratory.

Setting a home task where students need to bake something following a recipe is a great alternative that allows students to practice these skills in a fun way.

Have students either bring you a photo of them in action baking, or evidence of the product itself!

Be mindful: Check any food allergies of your students if you want students to bring in the treats they bake.

2. Photo challenge 

Having students take a photo of their learning as applied in real life. This is a great way to help students practice being observant and also see the relevance of their learning outside of the classroom.

Be mindful: Students may not have access to a camera or smartphone. They could just write a short description of what they saw and where they saw it.

3. Play a board/card game 

Playing board games or card games requires students to practice their social and problem-solving skills. These are skills that are essential in the classroom and also in the real world. 

I love alternatives to homework that help build student character in addition to academic skills. 

Be mindful: Depending on your context, students may not have access to board games or they may not have family members around each day to play a board game with. Often school libraries contain games that can be rented out.

4. Home learning / flipped learning

Flipped learning is different from homework in that rather than practicing a skill they have learned in class, they learn the skill so they come to class ready to practice the skill.

This is usually done with the teacher filming a short tutorial to be watched at home before the upcoming lesson.

Flipped learning helps to develop autonomy and allows students to take their learning at their own pace since they can pause, rewind and rewatch the video as many times as they need to. 

The videos are usually less than 10 minutes in length so it is also a nice quick learning opportunity. 

Be mindful: Ensure all students have access to the technology required to watch the video.

5. Activities that apply their learning 

Activities that focus on applying their learning in practical ways are effective alternatives to homework tasks of a traditional sense.

For example, have you taught students about the unit cost in maths? The home task could be going shopping with a parent and photographing different options and calculating the best buy option.

Or maybe you’ve been learning about density in science? Have students compare the density of various household items in water at home. 

6. Reflect on learning

Asking students to write a small paragraph to reflect on the things they learned in your class that day or week is a really valuable use of their time and a great alternative to homework.

Reflecting and writing it down helps their brain to recognize the information as important. 

Are you reading this thinking ‘yeah but its so annoying to mark’. 

Then don’t! Just mark it as a participation home task. Whether students submit their paragraph on Google Classroom or hold up their book in class for you to tick off ‘complete’, it doesn’t have to be an onerous task for you.

7. Interview someone

Interviewing someone can be as simple as giving the students 3 questions to ask someone at home. It could be about their own views on a topic, where they see the usefulness of your subject, or about their career. 

This activity builds student skills in communication and listening whilst also providing an opportunity to build or deepen connections with people.

Be mindful: Some students may not have access to someone to interview every day. Try to give a few days so students have the opportunity. If they don’t have anyone at home you could suggest they interview a teacher, another student or even the bus driver. 

8. Call someone you haven’t spoken to in a while

Promoting the continuation and building of connections during term time is important for students to maintain balance in their lives. Some students struggle to do this themselves and so may feel the need to have ‘permission’ from their teacher. 

Be mindful: Some students may not have access to a phone or enough credit to make long calls. Provide alternatives such as chatting with a neighbour in person. 

9. Spend time with family

If a student spends 60 minutes completing homework, then for a family whose parents don’t get home from work until after 5pm, and who go to bed around 9pm, that is one quarter of their family time taken away by homework every day. Add in an extracurricular activity or sport and students are missing out on significant family time.

The simple act of not setting any homework or task can make a significant difference in the home lives of our students. 

Encouraging them to spend quality time with their family instead is a valuable alternative to homework. 

Homework is not bad and it does have its benefits. However, having a range of alternatives to the typical homework tasks allows for students to enjoy a balanced life while also building skills other than just the academic ones. 

Have you tried any of these alternatives to homework?

Comment below!

Written by Katrina

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30+ activities your kids can do instead of homework

Too much homework for kids can be harmful. Here are other ways for your children to learn at home.

By Jessica Smock and Beau Brink Updated August 10, 2022

There are many aspects of my more than decade-long career as a teacher that I’m proud of. My reputation for  giving lots and lots of homework —sometimes over two hours’ worth—is not one of them. My intentions were good: I, like their parents, didn’t want my students to fall behind.

However, when I entered a doctoral program in education policy, I learned that some research suggests homework is not good for elementary school-aged kids. Not only does it fail to improve the academic performance of elementary students,  but it might actually be damaging to kids’ attitudes toward school , and to their physical health.

Related: Is school stressing out your child? 10 ways to tell—and help them feel better

After hours spent sitting and engaging in mostly adult directed activities , children’s minds and bodies need other kinds of experiences when they get home, not more academics. It’s not just that homework itself has few academic benefits for little kids (and may even be harmful), it’s also that homework is replacing other fun, developmentally appropriate and valuable after school activities—activities that help children grow into healthy, happy adults.

Who invented homework, anyway?

Modern homework was invented by Johann Gottlieb Fichte, who created a compulsory school system that was meant to support the effort to unify Germany (it had originally been a set of city-states, and reached unification in 1871). For Fichte, homework was a way for students to be involved in patriotism: They attended state-sponsored schools and spent their free time doing assignments related to their state-sponsored education. It was brought to America by Horace Mann, a pioneer of  public education in the United States , in the 1840s.

However, in the interim, a lot has changed in education. With time and research, educators are learning more and more about how children learn best and what kinds of work are developmentally appropriate at different ages and stages.

What does the research say about homework for kids?

While researchers think that homework  is  beneficial for academic achievement, the amount and type of homework makes a difference. One study published in the  Journal of Experimental Education  found that excessive homework leaves kids stressed, sleep deprived, and lacking balance for social and family activities even when those students come from upper-middle class families and go to top-performing schools—and many students  don’t  have those advantages.

Then there’s the issue of whether homework is actually effective at changing academic outcomes. Education researchers generally agree that kids get more benefit from homework the older they get, but one 2020 Rutgers study found that homework has become less effective at reinforcing classroom learning as smartphone use has become widespread. Kids use their phones to complete their assignments and get good grades on homework, but then don’t perform well on exams.

Here are a few ideas for after school activities for kids

1. spend time with family.

Many parents have daily battles with their elementary-aged kids over homework, and for many it negatively affects their relationships. Instead of parents nagging their overtired kids to do homework,  families can spend much more time talking together  about their day. In fact, conversation is the best way for all of us—especially young children—to learn about our world and cultivate empathy.

Encouraging  multigenerational relationships  can also yield many lessons for kids. By spending time with Grandma and Grandpa, they can learn how other adult role models in their lives who love them handle conflict, create and negotiate rules and routines, and embrace family traditions.

Suggested activities:

• Talking to parents
• Helping out with dinner
• Hanging out at grandma’s
• Reading a book together

2. Self care

Just like adults, kids  need time to take care of themselves  so that they can perform well in school. And also like adults, a lot of kids don’t have self-care basics in their routine.

Take sleep, for instance.  The National Sleep Foundation  estimates that between 25 and 50 percent of children aren’t getting enough sleep. Lack of sleep can cause all sorts of problems in kids, including poor attention, behavior problems, academic difficulties, irritability and weight gain. But even small amounts of additional sleep can have big impacts. One study found that only 20 additional minutes of sleep can improve kids’ grades.

Other self care activities benefit children, too: Reading aloud to a child helps them  build their vocabulary , having a bedtime routine  improves children’s social and behavioral habits  and having some relaxing downtime recharges their  ability to pay attention and concentrate .

• Building a consistent bedtime routine
• Cleaning their room
• Listening to classical music

3. Independent activities

Solitary activities—those that children can do  on their own, without the help of adults —build kids’ confidence and help them to relax. Plus, if there’s an element of learning, like your child acquiring a new skill on their own, it can  improve their motivation and memory in the long run .

Kids benefit in different ways from different independent activities. According to the National Literacy Trust,  reading for pleasure has a greater impact on children’s achievement  in school than their family’s economic status and not only builds vocabulary and comprehension but builds confidence. Knitting and crochet build fine motor skills, and gardening helps kids apply what they’re learning in their science and math classes to the real world.

• Independent reading
• Working on a puzzle
• Learning to knit
• Conducting a science experiment
• Planting a garden

An important part of how young kids’ minds develop is  through free, self-directed play . According to David Elkind, Ph.D., author of  The Power of Play: How Spontaneous, Imaginative Activities Lead to Happier, Healthier Children , free play is more critical now than ever, as recesses are shortened or eliminated and kids’ calendars are busier than ever.

There are a lot of different kinds of play: Risky play, sensory play, parallel play, constructive play, cooperative play, and more. All types of play have benefits for children, like building social skills, increasing creativity, improving problem-solving skills, and providing opportunities to explore the world in new ways. It’s even good for parents: As the  American Academy of Pediatrics  says, “Play offers parents a wonderful opportunity to engage fully with their children.”

• Go up a slide backward
• Dig in the dirt
• Play with a friend in a sandbox
• Play dress-up
• Create a collage
• Play Simon Says
• Make a fort

5. Physical activity

Kids who are physically active —as well as adults— have stronger hearts, lungs, and bones . They are less likely to develop cancer or be overweight and more likely to feel good about themselves. Even rough-housing can be beneficial. Rough and tumble play is not the same as aggression. It’s vigorous, freeform, whole body, energetic, happy play. Kids learn decision making skills, relieve stress, improve their ability to read social cues, and enhance their cardiovascular health.

And walking the dog counts: Kids who  help take care of family pets  may be less anxious, less likely to develop allergies and asthma, and are more active.

• Jumping rope
• Riding a bike
• Walking the dog
• Setting up an obstacle course in your living room
• Have a dance party

6. Volunteering

Through volunteering , kids can become  more grateful, empathetic, and feel more connected  to the wider community. Volunteering at an animal shelter can be especially enriching for children. Even kids who don’t have pets at home can benefit from being around animals. The emotional and psychological benefits of being around animals can also be found when kids care for injured animals and take on care-taking responsibilities for other people’s pets.

• Playing with animals at a shelter
• Bringing flowers to seniors in nursing homes
• Organizing or contributing to a toy drive
• Donating clothes to a shelter
• Picking up litter in the neighborhood

7. Creative expression

According to the  American Psychological Association , creative expression has incredible benefits for children’s mental health. Various studies have found that  engaging in creative expression  while experiencing negative emotions like anger and sadness helps people, including children, to process those emotions healthily. It doesn’t matter what kind of creative expression it is: Drawing, acting, writing, playing music and more can all build resilience along with improving kids’ imaginations, fine motor skills, and communication.

• Practice an instrument
• Draw a picture
• Write a story
• Take pictures
• Create with slime, play dough or kinetic sand

No homework? No problem

Homework takes away from the time available to engage in endless other forms of learning, such as social, physical, and emotional, as well as rest. And in any case, the learning done in school is only one form of learning.

Our kids deserve a chance to spend all their other hours outside of school doing their most important job of all:  being a kid .

With additional reporting by Beau Brink and Diva Anwari. 

A version of this post was originally published on Parent.com . It has been updated.

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Are You Down With or Done With Homework?

• Posted January 17, 2012
• By Lory Hough

The debate over how much schoolwork students should be doing at home has flared again, with one side saying it's too much, the other side saying in our competitive world, it's just not enough.

It was a move that doesn't happen very often in American public schools: The principal got rid of homework.

This past September, Stephanie Brant, principal of Gaithersburg Elementary School in Gaithersburg, Md., decided that instead of teachers sending kids home with math worksheets and spelling flash cards, students would instead go home and read. Every day for 30 minutes, more if they had time or the inclination, with parents or on their own.

"I knew this would be a big shift for my community," she says. But she also strongly believed it was a necessary one. Twenty-first-century learners, especially those in elementary school, need to think critically and understand their own learning — not spend night after night doing rote homework drills.

Brant's move may not be common, but she isn't alone in her questioning. The value of doing schoolwork at home has gone in and out of fashion in the United States among educators, policymakers, the media, and, more recently, parents. As far back as the late 1800s, with the rise of the Progressive Era, doctors such as Joseph Mayer Rice began pushing for a limit on what he called "mechanical homework," saying it caused childhood nervous conditions and eyestrain. Around that time, the then-influential Ladies Home Journal began publishing a series of anti-homework articles, stating that five hours of brain work a day was "the most we should ask of our children," and that homework was an intrusion on family life. In response, states like California passed laws abolishing homework for students under a certain age.

But, as is often the case with education, the tide eventually turned. After the Russians launched the Sputnik satellite in 1957, a space race emerged, and, writes Brian Gill in the journal Theory Into Practice, "The homework problem was reconceived as part of a national crisis; the U.S. was losing the Cold War because Russian children were smarter." Many earlier laws limiting homework were abolished, and the longterm trend toward less homework came to an end.

The debate re-emerged a decade later when parents of the late '60s and '70s argued that children should be free to play and explore — similar anti-homework wellness arguments echoed nearly a century earlier. By the early-1980s, however, the pendulum swung again with the publication of A Nation at Risk , which blamed poor education for a "rising tide of mediocrity." Students needed to work harder, the report said, and one way to do this was more homework.

For the most part, this pro-homework sentiment is still going strong today, in part because of mandatory testing and continued economic concerns about the nation's competitiveness. Many believe that today's students are falling behind their peers in places like Korea and Finland and are paying more attention to Angry Birds than to ancient Babylonia.

But there are also a growing number of Stephanie Brants out there, educators and parents who believe that students are stressed and missing out on valuable family time. Students, they say, particularly younger students who have seen a rise in the amount of take-home work and already put in a six- to nine-hour "work" day, need less, not more homework.

Who is right? Are students not working hard enough or is homework not working for them? Here's where the story gets a little tricky: It depends on whom you ask and what research you're looking at. As Cathy Vatterott, the author of Rethinking Homework , points out, "Homework has generated enough research so that a study can be found to support almost any position, as long as conflicting studies are ignored." Alfie Kohn, author of The Homework Myth and a strong believer in eliminating all homework, writes that, "The fact that there isn't anything close to unanimity among experts belies the widespread assumption that homework helps." At best, he says, homework shows only an association, not a causal relationship, with academic achievement. In other words, it's hard to tease out how homework is really affecting test scores and grades. Did one teacher give better homework than another? Was one teacher more effective in the classroom? Do certain students test better or just try harder?

"It is difficult to separate where the effect of classroom teaching ends," Vatterott writes, "and the effect of homework begins."

Putting research aside, however, much of the current debate over homework is focused less on how homework affects academic achievement and more on time. Parents in particular have been saying that the amount of time children spend in school, especially with afterschool programs, combined with the amount of homework given — as early as kindergarten — is leaving students with little time to run around, eat dinner with their families, or even get enough sleep.

Certainly, for some parents, homework is a way to stay connected to their children's learning. But for others, homework creates a tug-of-war between parents and children, says Liz Goodenough, M.A.T.'71, creator of a documentary called Where Do the Children Play?

"Ideally homework should be about taking something home, spending a few curious and interesting moments in which children might engage with parents, and then getting that project back to school — an organizational triumph," she says. "A nag-free activity could engage family time: Ask a parent about his or her own childhood. Interview siblings."

Instead, as the authors of The Case Against Homework write, "Homework overload is turning many of us into the types of parents we never wanted to be: nags, bribers, and taskmasters."

Leslie Butchko saw it happen a few years ago when her son started sixth grade in the Santa Monica-Malibu (Calif.) United School District. She remembers him getting two to four hours of homework a night, plus weekend and vacation projects. He was overwhelmed and struggled to finish assignments, especially on nights when he also had an extracurricular activity.

"Ultimately, we felt compelled to have Bobby quit karate — he's a black belt — to allow more time for homework," she says. And then, with all of their attention focused on Bobby's homework, she and her husband started sending their youngest to his room so that Bobby could focus. "One day, my younger son gave us 15-minute coupons as a present for us to use to send him to play in the back room. … It was then that we realized there had to be something wrong with the amount of homework we were facing."

Butchko joined forces with another mother who was having similar struggles and ultimately helped get the homework policy in her district changed, limiting homework on weekends and holidays, setting time guidelines for daily homework, and broadening the definition of homework to include projects and studying for tests. As she told the school board at one meeting when the policy was first being discussed, "In closing, I just want to say that I had more free time at Harvard Law School than my son has in middle school, and that is not in the best interests of our children."

One barrier that Butchko had to overcome initially was convincing many teachers and parents that more homework doesn't necessarily equal rigor.

"Most of the parents that were against the homework policy felt that students need a large quantity of homework to prepare them for the rigorous AP classes in high school and to get them into Harvard," she says.

Stephanie Conklin, Ed.M.'06, sees this at Another Course to College, the Boston pilot school where she teaches math. "When a student is not completing [his or her] homework, parents usually are frustrated by this and agree with me that homework is an important part of their child's learning," she says.

As Timothy Jarman, Ed.M.'10, a ninth-grade English teacher at Eugene Ashley High School in Wilmington, N.C., says, "Parents think it is strange when their children are not assigned a substantial amount of homework."

That's because, writes Vatterott, in her chapter, "The Cult(ure) of Homework," the concept of homework "has become so engrained in U.S. culture that the word homework is part of the common vernacular."

These days, nightly homework is a given in American schools, writes Kohn.

"Homework isn't limited to those occasions when it seems appropriate and important. Most teachers and administrators aren't saying, 'It may be useful to do this particular project at home,'" he writes. "Rather, the point of departure seems to be, 'We've decided ahead of time that children will have to do something every night (or several times a week). … This commitment to the idea of homework in the abstract is accepted by the overwhelming majority of schools — public and private, elementary and secondary."

Brant had to confront this when she cut homework at Gaithersburg Elementary.

"A lot of my parents have this idea that homework is part of life. This is what I had to do when I was young," she says, and so, too, will our kids. "So I had to shift their thinking." She did this slowly, first by asking her teachers last year to really think about what they were sending home. And this year, in addition to forming a parent advisory group around the issue, she also holds events to answer questions.

Still, not everyone is convinced that homework as a given is a bad thing. "Any pursuit of excellence, be it in sports, the arts, or academics, requires hard work. That our culture finds it okay for kids to spend hours a day in a sport but not equal time on academics is part of the problem," wrote one pro-homework parent on the blog for the documentary Race to Nowhere , which looks at the stress American students are under. "Homework has always been an issue for parents and children. It is now and it was 20 years ago. I think when people decide to have children that it is their responsibility to educate them," wrote another.

And part of educating them, some believe, is helping them develop skills they will eventually need in adulthood. "Homework can help students develop study skills that will be of value even after they leave school," reads a publication on the U.S. Department of Education website called Homework Tips for Parents. "It can teach them that learning takes place anywhere, not just in the classroom. … It can foster positive character traits such as independence and responsibility. Homework can teach children how to manage time."

Annie Brown, Ed.M.'01, feels this is particularly critical at less affluent schools like the ones she has worked at in Boston, Cambridge, Mass., and Los Angeles as a literacy coach.

"It feels important that my students do homework because they will ultimately be competing for college placement and jobs with students who have done homework and have developed a work ethic," she says. "Also it will get them ready for independently taking responsibility for their learning, which will need to happen for them to go to college."

The problem with this thinking, writes Vatterott, is that homework becomes a way to practice being a worker.

"Which begs the question," she writes. "Is our job as educators to produce learners or workers?"

Slate magazine editor Emily Bazelon, in a piece about homework, says this makes no sense for younger kids.

"Why should we think that practicing homework in first grade will make you better at doing it in middle school?" she writes. "Doesn't the opposite seem equally plausible: that it's counterproductive to ask children to sit down and work at night before they're developmentally ready because you'll just make them tired and cross?"

Kohn writes in the American School Board Journal that this "premature exposure" to practices like homework (and sit-and-listen lessons and tests) "are clearly a bad match for younger children and of questionable value at any age." He calls it BGUTI: Better Get Used to It. "The logic here is that we have to prepare you for the bad things that are going to be done to you later … by doing them to you now."

According to a recent University of Michigan study, daily homework for six- to eight-year-olds increased on average from about 8 minutes in 1981 to 22 minutes in 2003. A review of research by Duke University Professor Harris Cooper found that for elementary school students, "the average correlation between time spent on homework and achievement … hovered around zero."

So should homework be eliminated? Of course not, say many Ed School graduates who are teaching. Not only would students not have time for essays and long projects, but also teachers would not be able to get all students to grade level or to cover critical material, says Brett Pangburn, Ed.M.'06, a sixth-grade English teacher at Excel Academy Charter School in Boston. Still, he says, homework has to be relevant.

"Kids need to practice the skills being taught in class, especially where, like the kids I teach at Excel, they are behind and need to catch up," he says. "Our results at Excel have demonstrated that kids can catch up and view themselves as in control of their academic futures, but this requires hard work, and homework is a part of it."

Ed School Professor Howard Gardner basically agrees.

"America and Americans lurch between too little homework in many of our schools to an excess of homework in our most competitive environments — Li'l Abner vs. Tiger Mother," he says. "Neither approach makes sense. Homework should build on what happens in class, consolidating skills and helping students to answer new questions."

So how can schools come to a happy medium, a way that allows teachers to cover everything they need while not overwhelming students? Conklin says she often gives online math assignments that act as labs and students have two or three days to complete them, including some in-class time. Students at Pangburn's school have a 50-minute silent period during regular school hours where homework can be started, and where teachers pull individual or small groups of students aside for tutoring, often on that night's homework. Afterschool homework clubs can help.

Some schools and districts have adapted time limits rather than nix homework completely, with the 10-minute per grade rule being the standard — 10 minutes a night for first-graders, 30 minutes for third-graders, and so on. (This remedy, however, is often met with mixed results since not all students work at the same pace.) Other schools offer an extended day that allows teachers to cover more material in school, in turn requiring fewer take-home assignments. And for others, like Stephanie Brant's elementary school in Maryland, more reading with a few targeted project assignments has been the answer.

"The routine of reading is so much more important than the routine of homework," she says. "Let's have kids reflect. You can still have the routine and you can still have your workspace, but now it's for reading. I often say to parents, if we can put a man on the moon, we can put a man or woman on Mars and that person is now a second-grader. We don't know what skills that person will need. At the end of the day, we have to feel confident that we're giving them something they can use on Mars."

Read a January 2014 update.

Homework Policy Still Going Strong

Ed. Magazine

The magazine of the Harvard Graduate School of Education

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5 Alternatives to Homework

September 7, 2021 | Leave a Comment

Are you tired, stressed out, and need alternatives to homework? Assigning homework can sometimes seem like a pointless task. Students that need the practice don’t complete or turn in homework, and students that generally excel complete the homework. Then there’s the decision to make about grading homework. Can it be a grade if you don’t know who completed it or how much help they received? Is it worth grading when you are so far behind?

At my Title I school I am mindful that not every student has a family member available to help them in the evenings complete homework. For this reason if I assign homework I try to make it something that can be completed independently. Since I teach second grade I might send home first grade reading passages for fluency practice with a multiple choice option for the comprehension section. Math pages might be a game to practice or flashcards to study. 

This year I am not assigning homework. It feels so freeing! Some schools do require homework though so the following is a list of 5 alternatives to homework in an elementary school if you do not have a choice.

No matter what type of homework I use I always tell parents that I recommend 15-20 minutes of nightly reading and a quick 5 minute practice of their sight word and math flash cards. To me reading is one of the best things a student can do to improve in elementary school.

1 - Monthly Family Homework

Having a monthly themed family homework was my favorite homework when I taught first grade. There was little to nothing to grade and students loved getting creative. Each month is a different task and students are given most of the month to complete the homework.

The picture shown was our December holiday homework where students were given a tree outline and asked to decorate their tree using a “hidden holiday pattern.” Students that turned in the homework gave a super short presentation about how they created their pattern and the class guessed the pattern.

During November, the task was to disguise a turkey outline. This is a hilarious (and common) activity to do every year. Some families come up with some amazingly creative ideas. A few other ideas I did throughout the year for family homework was decorating pumpkins as a favorite book character, creating a leprechaun trap, and an all about my family poster.

2 - Choice Boards

Choice Boards are becoming very common for homework. I used choice boards as a gifted education teacher many years ago and brought them back last year when we transitioned to online learning due to COVID-19. It was an easy way to communicate homework with no access to a copy machine or a way to pass out packets.

Catherine, the Brown Bag Teacher, talks about how she uses a choice board in her first grade class as a homework alternative that focuses on non-academic skills her students needed. Click here to read her blog article about homework alternatives .

Fisyrobb also uses a choice sheet (choice board) and has a free, editable version on her website. Click here to find the article and free download.

Choice boards can be assigned for a week or a month depending on how many choices you add. I like to include choices that hit all of the learning styles so students can choose what best interests them. I also like to require that not all squares be completed.

3 - Unhomework Task Cards

This unhomework alternative is one of my favorites I’ve seen lately. I stumbled across this idea by Debbie of live, laugh, love to learn. While task cards are not a new concept I just love how she breaks down the tasks into four main categories: acts of kindness, good habits, create, and real world math and science. 

Debbie’s tasks are super easy for students to complete and she assigns the whole class the same task each week. Students track their task such as how many times in the week they help their family. Then on Fridays the class has a meeting to discuss. Debbie also takes this a step further by compiling the information for a class graph or chart. Click here to go to Debbie’s blog post where she details everything you need to know to get started.

4 - Hands On Activities

Hands-on activities for alternatives to homework can really help your homework completion rate. Young students love doing activities. If you have a school population like mine, asking families to complete hands-on activities might mean going out of pocket to send additional materials home. For that reason, I recommend a Donors Choose project to help offset costs or making the hands-on activities a monthly requirement.

Some of my favorite hands-on activities revolve around spelling and sight word practice. At the beginning of each school year I send all my families my Sight Word Practice at Home booklets . Inside the booklets detail easy ways to practice sight words such as writing words in play dough or shaving cream. 

Hands-on activities are also a great way to introduce families to partner games. One year I sent home photocopies of several math partner games, a die, and a paperclip alongside a sheet protector and a whiteboard marker. After we learned the games in class, students were able to play them again at home. Several families loved learning these games and found it a fun and enjoyable way to get in some math practice.

5 - STEM Projects

My last idea for alternatives to homework is to send home STEM or STEAM projects. I don’t know about you but I rarely have the time in my day to spend on these type of activities. Having students complete them at home with families is a great way of exposing them to the importance of STEM/STEAM but also frees up time in my school day.

Encourage families to take pictures or write a response to what they learned through the completion of their project. If time allows, have students share these pictures and responses during class. Seeing other students completing the projects is a great way to entice others to complete the work.

Last Thoughts for Successful Homework Alternatives

When considering any of these ideas for your year of unhomework, make sure to factor in how you want to make students accountable for completion. Will homework be a grade? Will you be tracking or rewarding students who complete the projects or tasks? Will you be supplying any materials needed to complete the assignment? How much time will you be giving for completing the work outside of class? Will your families be receptive to this new style of homework? Will the activities you send home be meaningful to your class and their learning? What is the main goal with this unhomework?

I hope you were able to get some great ideas for ditching the traditional homework and finding an alternative. I’d love to hear what is working in your classroom for homework. Do you offer homework? Leave me a comment below.

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Shared Ideas

Does Homework Really Help Students Learn?

A conversation with a Wheelock researcher, a BU student, and a fourth-grade teacher

“Quality homework is engaging and relevant to kids’ lives,” says Wheelock’s Janine Bempechat. “It gives them autonomy and engages them in the community and with their families. In some subjects, like math, worksheets can be very helpful. It has to do with the value of practicing over and over.” Photo by iStock/Glenn Cook Photography

Do your homework.

If only it were that simple.

Educators have debated the merits of homework since the late 19th century. In recent years, amid concerns of some parents and teachers that children are being stressed out by too much homework, things have only gotten more fraught.

“Homework is complicated,” says developmental psychologist Janine Bempechat, a Wheelock College of Education & Human Development clinical professor. The author of the essay “ The Case for (Quality) Homework—Why It Improves Learning and How Parents Can Help ” in the winter 2019 issue of Education Next , Bempechat has studied how the debate about homework is influencing teacher preparation, parent and student beliefs about learning, and school policies.

She worries especially about socioeconomically disadvantaged students from low-performing schools who, according to research by Bempechat and others, get little or no homework.

BU Today  sat down with Bempechat and Erin Bruce (Wheelock’17,’18), a new fourth-grade teacher at a suburban Boston school, and future teacher freshman Emma Ardizzone (Wheelock) to talk about what quality homework looks like, how it can help children learn, and how schools can equip teachers to design it, evaluate it, and facilitate parents’ role in it.

BU Today: Parents and educators who are against homework in elementary school say there is no research definitively linking it to academic performance for kids in the early grades. You’ve said that they’re missing the point.

Bempechat : I think teachers assign homework in elementary school as a way to help kids develop skills they’ll need when they’re older—to begin to instill a sense of responsibility and to learn planning and organizational skills. That’s what I think is the greatest value of homework—in cultivating beliefs about learning and skills associated with academic success. If we greatly reduce or eliminate homework in elementary school, we deprive kids and parents of opportunities to instill these important learning habits and skills.

We do know that beginning in late middle school, and continuing through high school, there is a strong and positive correlation between homework completion and academic success.

That’s what I think is the greatest value of homework—in cultivating beliefs about learning and skills associated with academic success.

You talk about the importance of quality homework. What is that?

Quality homework is engaging and relevant to kids’ lives. It gives them autonomy and engages them in the community and with their families. In some subjects, like math, worksheets can be very helpful. It has to do with the value of practicing over and over.

What are your concerns about homework and low-income children?

The argument that some people make—that homework “punishes the poor” because lower-income parents may not be as well-equipped as affluent parents to help their children with homework—is very troubling to me. There are no parents who don’t care about their children’s learning. Parents don’t actually have to help with homework completion in order for kids to do well. They can help in other ways—by helping children organize a study space, providing snacks, being there as a support, helping children work in groups with siblings or friends.

Isn’t the discussion about getting rid of homework happening mostly in affluent communities?

Yes, and the stories we hear of kids being stressed out from too much homework—four or five hours of homework a night—are real. That’s problematic for physical and mental health and overall well-being. But the research shows that higher-income students get a lot more homework than lower-income kids.

Teachers may not have as high expectations for lower-income children. Schools should bear responsibility for providing supports for kids to be able to get their homework done—after-school clubs, community support, peer group support. It does kids a disservice when our expectations are lower for them.

The conversation around homework is to some extent a social class and social justice issue. If we eliminate homework for all children because affluent children have too much, we’re really doing a disservice to low-income children. They need the challenge, and every student can rise to the challenge with enough supports in place.

What did you learn by studying how education schools are preparing future teachers to handle homework?

My colleague, Margarita Jimenez-Silva, at the University of California, Davis, School of Education, and I interviewed faculty members at education schools, as well as supervising teachers, to find out how students are being prepared. And it seemed that they weren’t. There didn’t seem to be any readings on the research, or conversations on what high-quality homework is and how to design it.

Erin, what kind of training did you get in handling homework?

Bruce : I had phenomenal professors at Wheelock, but homework just didn’t come up. I did lots of student teaching. I’ve been in classrooms where the teachers didn’t assign any homework, and I’ve been in rooms where they assigned hours of homework a night. But I never even considered homework as something that was my decision. I just thought it was something I’d pull out of a book and it’d be done.

I started giving homework on the first night of school this year. My first assignment was to go home and draw a picture of the room where you do your homework. I want to know if it’s at a table and if there are chairs around it and if mom’s cooking dinner while you’re doing homework.

The second night I asked them to talk to a grown-up about how are you going to be able to get your homework done during the week. The kids really enjoyed it. There’s a running joke that I’m teaching life skills.

Friday nights, I read all my kids’ responses to me on their homework from the week and it’s wonderful. They pour their hearts out. It’s like we’re having a conversation on my couch Friday night.

It matters to know that the teacher cares about you and that what you think matters to the teacher. Homework is a vehicle to connect home and school…for parents to know teachers are welcoming to them and their families.

Bempechat : I can’t imagine that most new teachers would have the intuition Erin had in designing homework the way she did.

Ardizzone : Conversations with kids about homework, feeling you’re being listened to—that’s such a big part of wanting to do homework….I grew up in Westchester County. It was a pretty demanding school district. My junior year English teacher—I loved her—she would give us feedback, have meetings with all of us. She’d say, “If you have any questions, if you have anything you want to talk about, you can talk to me, here are my office hours.” It felt like she actually cared.

Bempechat : It matters to know that the teacher cares about you and that what you think matters to the teacher. Homework is a vehicle to connect home and school…for parents to know teachers are welcoming to them and their families.

Ardizzone : But can’t it lead to parents being overbearing and too involved in their children’s lives as students?

Bempechat : There’s good help and there’s bad help. The bad help is what you’re describing—when parents hover inappropriately, when they micromanage, when they see their children confused and struggling and tell them what to do.

Good help is when parents recognize there’s a struggle going on and instead ask informative questions: “Where do you think you went wrong?” They give hints, or pointers, rather than saying, “You missed this,” or “You didn’t read that.”

Bruce : I hope something comes of this. I hope BU or Wheelock can think of some way to make this a more pressing issue. As a first-year teacher, it was not something I even thought about on the first day of school—until a kid raised his hand and said, “Do we have homework?” It would have been wonderful if I’d had a plan from day one.

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Senior Contributing Editor

Sara Rimer A journalist for more than three decades, Sara Rimer worked at the Miami Herald , Washington Post and, for 26 years, the New York Times , where she was the New England bureau chief, and a national reporter covering education, aging, immigration, and other social justice issues. Her stories on the death penalty’s inequities were nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and cited in the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision outlawing the execution of people with intellectual disabilities. Her journalism honors include Columbia University’s Meyer Berger award for in-depth human interest reporting. She holds a BA degree in American Studies from the University of Michigan. Profile

She can be reached at [email protected] .

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There are 81 comments on Does Homework Really Help Students Learn?

Insightful! The values about homework in elementary schools are well aligned with my intuition as a parent.

when i finish my work i do my homework and i sometimes forget what to do because i did not get enough sleep

same omg it does not help me it is stressful and if I have it in more than one class I hate it.

Same I think my parent wants to help me but, she doesn’t care if I get bad grades so I just try my best and my grades are great.

I think that last question about Good help from parents is not know to all parents, we do as our parents did or how we best think it can be done, so maybe coaching parents or giving them resources on how to help with homework would be very beneficial for the parent on how to help and for the teacher to have consistency and improve homework results, and of course for the child. I do see how homework helps reaffirm the knowledge obtained in the classroom, I also have the ability to see progress and it is a time I share with my kids

The answer to the headline question is a no-brainer – a more pressing problem is why there is a difference in how students from different cultures succeed. Perfect example is the student population at BU – why is there a majority population of Asian students and only about 3% black students at BU? In fact at some universities there are law suits by Asians to stop discrimination and quotas against admitting Asian students because the real truth is that as a group they are demonstrating better qualifications for admittance, while at the same time there are quotas and reduced requirements for black students to boost their portion of the student population because as a group they do more poorly in meeting admissions standards – and it is not about the Benjamins. The real problem is that in our PC society no one has the gazuntas to explore this issue as it may reveal that all people are not created equal after all. Or is it just environmental cultural differences??????

I get you have a concern about the issue but that is not even what the point of this article is about. If you have an issue please take this to the site we have and only post your opinion about the actual topic

This is not at all what the article is talking about.

This literally has nothing to do with the article brought up. You should really take your opinions somewhere else before you speak about something that doesn’t make sense.

we have the same name

so they have the same name what of it?

lol you tell her

totally agree

What does that have to do with homework, that is not what the article talks about AT ALL.

Yes, I think homework plays an important role in the development of student life. Through homework, students have to face challenges on a daily basis and they try to solve them quickly.I am an intense online tutor at 24x7homeworkhelp and I give homework to my students at that level in which they handle it easily.

More than two-thirds of students said they used alcohol and drugs, primarily marijuana, to cope with stress.

You know what’s funny? I got this assignment to write an argument for homework about homework and this article was really helpful and understandable, and I also agree with this article’s point of view.

I also got the same task as you! I was looking for some good resources and I found this! I really found this article useful and easy to understand, just like you! ^^

i think that homework is the best thing that a child can have on the school because it help them with their thinking and memory.

I am a child myself and i think homework is a terrific pass time because i can’t play video games during the week. It also helps me set goals.

Homework is not harmful ,but it will if there is too much

I feel like, from a minors point of view that we shouldn’t get homework. Not only is the homework stressful, but it takes us away from relaxing and being social. For example, me and my friends was supposed to hang at the mall last week but we had to postpone it since we all had some sort of work to do. Our minds shouldn’t be focused on finishing an assignment that in realty, doesn’t matter. I completely understand that we should have homework. I have to write a paper on the unimportance of homework so thanks.

homework isn’t that bad

Are you a student? if not then i don’t really think you know how much and how severe todays homework really is

i am a student and i do not enjoy homework because i practice my sport 4 out of the five days we have school for 4 hours and that’s not even counting the commute time or the fact i still have to shower and eat dinner when i get home. its draining!

i totally agree with you. these people are such boomers

why just why

they do make a really good point, i think that there should be a limit though. hours and hours of homework can be really stressful, and the extra work isn’t making a difference to our learning, but i do believe homework should be optional and extra credit. that would make it for students to not have the leaning stress of a assignment and if you have a low grade you you can catch up.

Studies show that homework improves student achievement in terms of improved grades, test results, and the likelihood to attend college. Research published in the High School Journal indicates that students who spent between 31 and 90 minutes each day on homework “scored about 40 points higher on the SAT-Mathematics subtest than their peers, who reported spending no time on homework each day, on average.” On both standardized tests and grades, students in classes that were assigned homework outperformed 69% of students who didn’t have homework. A majority of studies on homework’s impact – 64% in one meta-study and 72% in another – showed that take home assignments were effective at improving academic achievement. Research by the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) concluded that increased homework led to better GPAs and higher probability of college attendance for high school boys. In fact, boys who attended college did more than three hours of additional homework per week in high school.

So how are your measuring student achievement? That’s the real question. The argument that doing homework is simply a tool for teaching responsibility isn’t enough for me. We can teach responsibility in a number of ways. Also the poor argument that parents don’t need to help with homework, and that students can do it on their own, is wishful thinking at best. It completely ignores neurodiverse students. Students in poverty aren’t magically going to find a space to do homework, a friend’s or siblings to help them do it, and snacks to eat. I feel like the author of this piece has never set foot in a classroom of students.

THIS. This article is pathetic coming from a university. So intellectually dishonest, refusing to address the havoc of capitalism and poverty plays on academic success in life. How can they in one sentence use poor kids in an argument and never once address that poor children have access to damn near 0 of the resources affluent kids have? Draw me a picture and let’s talk about feelings lmao what a joke is that gonna put food in their belly so they can have the calories to burn in order to use their brain to study? What about quiet their 7 other siblings that they share a single bedroom with for hours? Is it gonna force the single mom to magically be at home and at work at the same time to cook food while you study and be there to throw an encouraging word?

Also the “parents don’t need to be a parent and be able to guide their kid at all academically they just need to exist in the next room” is wild. Its one thing if a parent straight up is not equipped but to say kids can just figured it out is…. wow coming from an educator What’s next the teacher doesn’t need to teach cause the kid can just follow the packet and figure it out?

Well then get a tutor right? Oh wait you are poor only affluent kids can afford a tutor for their hours of homework a day were they on average have none of the worries a poor child does. Does this address that poor children are more likely to also suffer abuse and mental illness? Like mentioned what about kids that can’t learn or comprehend the forced standardized way? Just let em fail? These children regularly are not in “special education”(some of those are a joke in their own and full of neglect and abuse) programs cause most aren’t even acknowledged as having disabilities or disorders.

But yes all and all those pesky poor kids just aren’t being worked hard enough lol pretty sure poor children’s existence just in childhood is more work, stress, and responsibility alone than an affluent child’s entire life cycle. Love they never once talked about the quality of education in the classroom being so bad between the poor and affluent it can qualify as segregation, just basically blamed poor people for being lazy, good job capitalism for failing us once again!

why the hell?

you should feel bad for saying this, this article can be helpful for people who has to write a essay about it

This is more of a political rant than it is about homework

I know a teacher who has told his students their homework is to find something they are interested in, pursue it and then come share what they learn. The student responses are quite compelling. One girl taught herself German so she could talk to her grandfather. One boy did a research project on Nelson Mandela because the teacher had mentioned him in class. Another boy, a both on the autism spectrum, fixed his family’s computer. The list goes on. This is fourth grade. I think students are highly motivated to learn, when we step aside and encourage them.

The whole point of homework is to give the students a chance to use the material that they have been presented with in class. If they never have the opportunity to use that information, and discover that it is actually useful, it will be in one ear and out the other. As a science teacher, it is critical that the students are challenged to use the material they have been presented with, which gives them the opportunity to actually think about it rather than regurgitate “facts”. Well designed homework forces the student to think conceptually, as opposed to regurgitation, which is never a pretty sight

Wonderful discussion. and yes, homework helps in learning and building skills in students.

not true it just causes kids to stress

Homework can be both beneficial and unuseful, if you will. There are students who are gifted in all subjects in school and ones with disabilities. Why should the students who are gifted get the lucky break, whereas the people who have disabilities suffer? The people who were born with this “gift” go through school with ease whereas people with disabilities struggle with the work given to them. I speak from experience because I am one of those students: the ones with disabilities. Homework doesn’t benefit “us”, it only tears us down and put us in an abyss of confusion and stress and hopelessness because we can’t learn as fast as others. Or we can’t handle the amount of work given whereas the gifted students go through it with ease. It just brings us down and makes us feel lost; because no mater what, it feels like we are destined to fail. It feels like we weren’t “cut out” for success.

homework does help

here is the thing though, if a child is shoved in the face with a whole ton of homework that isn’t really even considered homework it is assignments, it’s not helpful. the teacher should make homework more of a fun learning experience rather than something that is dreaded

This article was wonderful, I am going to ask my teachers about extra, or at all giving homework.

I agree. Especially when you have homework before an exam. Which is distasteful as you’ll need that time to study. It doesn’t make any sense, nor does us doing homework really matters as It’s just facts thrown at us.

Homework is too severe and is just too much for students, schools need to decrease the amount of homework. When teachers assign homework they forget that the students have other classes that give them the same amount of homework each day. Students need to work on social skills and life skills.

I disagree.

Beyond achievement, proponents of homework argue that it can have many other beneficial effects. They claim it can help students develop good study habits so they are ready to grow as their cognitive capacities mature. It can help students recognize that learning can occur at home as well as at school. Homework can foster independent learning and responsible character traits. And it can give parents an opportunity to see what’s going on at school and let them express positive attitudes toward achievement.

Homework is helpful because homework helps us by teaching us how to learn a specific topic.

As a student myself, I can say that I have almost never gotten the full 9 hours of recommended sleep time, because of homework. (Now I’m writing an essay on it in the middle of the night D=)

I am a 10 year old kid doing a report about “Is homework good or bad” for homework before i was going to do homework is bad but the sources from this site changed my mind!

Homeowkr is god for stusenrs

I agree with hunter because homework can be so stressful especially with this whole covid thing no one has time for homework and every one just wants to get back to there normal lives it is especially stressful when you go on a 2 week vaca 3 weeks into the new school year and and then less then a week after you come back from the vaca you are out for over a month because of covid and you have no way to get the assignment done and turned in

As great as homework is said to be in the is article, I feel like the viewpoint of the students was left out. Every where I go on the internet researching about this topic it almost always has interviews from teachers, professors, and the like. However isn’t that a little biased? Of course teachers are going to be for homework, they’re not the ones that have to stay up past midnight completing the homework from not just one class, but all of them. I just feel like this site is one-sided and you should include what the students of today think of spending four hours every night completing 6-8 classes worth of work.

Are we talking about homework or practice? Those are two very different things and can result in different outcomes.

Homework is a graded assignment. I do not know of research showing the benefits of graded assignments going home.

Practice; however, can be extremely beneficial, especially if there is some sort of feedback (not a grade but feedback). That feedback can come from the teacher, another student or even an automated grading program.

As a former band director, I assigned daily practice. I never once thought it would be appropriate for me to require the students to turn in a recording of their practice for me to grade. Instead, I had in-class assignments/assessments that were graded and directly related to the practice assigned.

I would really like to read articles on “homework” that truly distinguish between the two.

oof i feel bad good luck!

thank you guys for the artical because I have to finish an assingment. yes i did cite it but just thanks

thx for the article guys.

Homework is good

I think homework is helpful AND harmful. Sometimes u can’t get sleep bc of homework but it helps u practice for school too so idk.

I agree with this Article. And does anyone know when this was published. I would like to know.

It was published FEb 19, 2019.

Studies have shown that homework improved student achievement in terms of improved grades, test results, and the likelihood to attend college.

i think homework can help kids but at the same time not help kids

This article is so out of touch with majority of homes it would be laughable if it wasn’t so incredibly sad.

There is no value to homework all it does is add stress to already stressed homes. Parents or adults magically having the time or energy to shepherd kids through homework is dome sort of 1950’s fantasy.

What lala land do these teachers live in?

Homework gives noting to the kid

Homework is Bad

homework is bad.

why do kids even have homework?

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The Pros and Cons of Homework

Updated: December 7, 2023

Published: January 23, 2020

Homework is a word that most students dread hearing. After hours upon hours of sitting in class , the last thing we want is more schoolwork over our precious weekends. While it’s known to be a staple of traditional schooling, homework has also become a rather divise topic. Some feel as though homework is a necessary part of school, while others believe that the time could be better invested. Should students have homework? Have a closer look into the arguments on both sides to decide for yourself.

Photo by  energepic.com  from  Pexels

Why should students have homework, 1. homework encourages practice.

Many people believe that one of the positive effects of homework is that it encourages the discipline of practice. While it may be time consuming and boring compared to other activities, repetition is needed to get better at skills. Homework helps make concepts more clear, and gives students more opportunities when starting their career .

2. Homework Gets Parents Involved

Homework can be something that gets parents involved in their children’s lives if the environment is a healthy one. A parent helping their child with homework makes them take part in their academic success, and allows for the parent to keep up with what the child is doing in school. It can also be a chance to connect together.

3. Homework Teaches Time Management

Homework is much more than just completing the assigned tasks. Homework can develop time management skills , forcing students to plan their time and make sure that all of their homework assignments are done on time. By learning to manage their time, students also practice their problem-solving skills and independent thinking. One of the positive effects of homework is that it forces decision making and compromises to be made.

4. Homework Opens A Bridge Of Communication

Homework creates a connection between the student, the teacher, the school, and the parents. It allows everyone to get to know each other better, and parents can see where their children are struggling. In the same sense, parents can also see where their children are excelling. Homework in turn can allow for a better, more targeted educational plan for the student.

5. Homework Allows For More Learning Time

Homework allows for more time to complete the learning process. School hours are not always enough time for students to really understand core concepts, and homework can counter the effects of time shortages, benefiting students in the long run, even if they can’t see it in the moment.

6. Homework Reduces Screen Time

Many students in North America spend far too many hours watching TV. If they weren’t in school, these numbers would likely increase even more. Although homework is usually undesired, it encourages better study habits and discourages spending time in front of the TV. Homework can be seen as another extracurricular activity, and many families already invest a lot of time and money in different clubs and lessons to fill up their children’s extra time. Just like extracurricular activities, homework can be fit into one’s schedule.

The Other Side: Why Homework Is Bad

1. homework encourages a sedentary lifestyle.

Should students have homework? Well, that depends on where you stand. There are arguments both for the advantages and the disadvantages of homework.

While classroom time is important, playground time is just as important. If children are given too much homework, they won’t have enough playtime, which can impact their social development and learning. Studies have found that those who get more play get better grades in school , as it can help them pay closer attention in the classroom.

Children are already sitting long hours in the classroom, and homework assignments only add to these hours. Sedentary lifestyles can be dangerous and can cause health problems such as obesity. Homework takes away from time that could be spent investing in physical activity.

2. Homework Isn’t Healthy In Every Home

While many people that think homes are a beneficial environment for children to learn, not all homes provide a healthy environment, and there may be very little investment from parents. Some parents do not provide any kind of support or homework help, and even if they would like to, due to personal barriers, they sometimes cannot. Homework can create friction between children and their parents, which is one of the reasons why homework is bad .

3. Homework Adds To An Already Full-Time Job

School is already a full-time job for students, as they generally spend over 6 hours each day in class. Students also often have extracurricular activities such as sports, music, or art that are just as important as their traditional courses. Adding on extra hours to all of these demands is a lot for children to manage, and prevents students from having extra time to themselves for a variety of creative endeavors. Homework prevents self discovery and having the time to learn new skills outside of the school system. This is one of the main disadvantages of homework.

4. Homework Has Not Been Proven To Provide Results

Endless surveys have found that homework creates a negative attitude towards school, and homework has not been found to be linked to a higher level of academic success.

The positive effects of homework have not been backed up enough. While homework may help some students improve in specific subjects, if they have outside help there is no real proof that homework makes for improvements.

It can be a challenge to really enforce the completion of homework, and students can still get decent grades without doing their homework. Extra school time does not necessarily mean better grades — quality must always come before quantity.

Accurate practice when it comes to homework simply isn’t reliable. Homework could even cause opposite effects if misunderstood, especially since the reliance is placed on the student and their parents — one of the major reasons as to why homework is bad. Many students would rather cheat in class to avoid doing their homework at home, and children often just copy off of each other or from what they read on the internet.

5. Homework Assignments Are Overdone

The general agreement is that students should not be given more than 10 minutes a day per grade level. What this means is that a first grader should be given a maximum of 10 minutes of homework, while a second grader receives 20 minutes, etc. Many students are given a lot more homework than the recommended amount, however.

On average, college students spend as much as 3 hours per night on homework . By giving too much homework, it can increase stress levels and lead to burn out. This in turn provides an opposite effect when it comes to academic success.

The pros and cons of homework are both valid, and it seems as though the question of ‘‘should students have homework?’ is not a simple, straightforward one. Parents and teachers often are found to be clashing heads, while the student is left in the middle without much say.

It’s important to understand all the advantages and disadvantages of homework, taking both perspectives into conversation to find a common ground. At the end of the day, everyone’s goal is the success of the student.

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More than two hours of homework may be counterproductive, research suggests.

A Stanford education researcher found that too much homework can negatively affect kids, especially their lives away from school, where family, friends and activities matter.   "Our findings on the effects of homework challenge the traditional assumption that homework is inherently good," wrote Denise Pope , a senior lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Education and a co-author of a study published in the Journal of Experimental Education .   The researchers used survey data to examine perceptions about homework, student well-being and behavioral engagement in a sample of 4,317 students from 10 high-performing high schools in upper-middle-class California communities. Along with the survey data, Pope and her colleagues used open-ended answers to explore the students' views on homework.   Median household income exceeded $90,000 in these communities, and 93 percent of the students went on to college, either two-year or four-year.   Students in these schools average about 3.1 hours of homework each night.   "The findings address how current homework practices in privileged, high-performing schools sustain students' advantage in competitive climates yet hinder learning, full engagement and well-being," Pope wrote.   Pope and her colleagues found that too much homework can diminish its effectiveness and even be counterproductive. They cite prior research indicating that homework benefits plateau at about two hours per night, and that 90 minutes to two and a half hours is optimal for high school.   Their study found that too much homework is associated with:   • Greater stress : 56 percent of the students considered homework a primary source of stress, according to the survey data. Forty-three percent viewed tests as a primary stressor, while 33 percent put the pressure to get good grades in that category. Less than 1 percent of the students said homework was not a stressor.   • Reductions in health : In their open-ended answers, many students said their homework load led to sleep deprivation and other health problems. The researchers asked students whether they experienced health issues such as headaches, exhaustion, sleep deprivation, weight loss and stomach problems.   • Less time for friends, family and extracurricular pursuits : Both the survey data and student responses indicate that spending too much time on homework meant that students were "not meeting their developmental needs or cultivating other critical life skills," according to the researchers. Students were more likely to drop activities, not see friends or family, and not pursue hobbies they enjoy.   A balancing act   The results offer empirical evidence that many students struggle to find balance between homework, extracurricular activities and social time, the researchers said. Many students felt forced or obligated to choose homework over developing other talents or skills.   Also, there was no relationship between the time spent on homework and how much the student enjoyed it. The research quoted students as saying they often do homework they see as "pointless" or "mindless" in order to keep their grades up.   "This kind of busy work, by its very nature, discourages learning and instead promotes doing homework simply to get points," said Pope, who is also a co-founder of Challenge Success , a nonprofit organization affiliated with the GSE that conducts research and works with schools and parents to improve students' educational experiences..   Pope said the research calls into question the value of assigning large amounts of homework in high-performing schools. Homework should not be simply assigned as a routine practice, she said.   "Rather, any homework assigned should have a purpose and benefit, and it should be designed to cultivate learning and development," wrote Pope.   High-performing paradox   In places where students attend high-performing schools, too much homework can reduce their time to foster skills in the area of personal responsibility, the researchers concluded. "Young people are spending more time alone," they wrote, "which means less time for family and fewer opportunities to engage in their communities."   Student perspectives   The researchers say that while their open-ended or "self-reporting" methodology to gauge student concerns about homework may have limitations – some might regard it as an opportunity for "typical adolescent complaining" – it was important to learn firsthand what the students believe.   The paper was co-authored by Mollie Galloway from Lewis and Clark College and Jerusha Conner from Villanova University.

Clifton B. Parker is a writer at the Stanford News Service .

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Study shows students in ‘active learning’ classrooms learn more than they think

For decades, there has been evidence that classroom techniques designed to get students to participate in the learning process produces better educational outcomes at virtually all levels.

And a new Harvard study suggests it may be important to let students know it.

The study , published Sept. 4 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that, though students felt as if they learned more through traditional lectures, they actually learned more when taking part in classrooms that employed so-called active-learning strategies.

Lead author Louis Deslauriers , the director of science teaching and learning and senior physics preceptor, knew that students would learn more from active learning. He published a key study in Science in 2011 that showed just that. But many students and faculty remained hesitant to switch to it.

“Often, students seemed genuinely to prefer smooth-as-silk traditional lectures,” Deslauriers said. “We wanted to take them at their word. Perhaps they actually felt like they learned more from lectures than they did from active learning.”

In addition to Deslauriers, the study is authored by director of sciences education and physics lecturer Logan McCarty , senior preceptor in applied physics Kelly Miller, preceptor in physics Greg Kestin , and Kristina Callaghan, now a physics lecturer at the University of California, Merced.

The question of whether students’ perceptions of their learning matches with how well they’re actually learning is particularly important, Deslauriers said, because while students eventually see the value of active learning, initially it can feel frustrating.

“Deep learning is hard work. The effort involved in active learning can be misinterpreted as a sign of poor learning,” he said. “On the other hand, a superstar lecturer can explain things in such a way as to make students feel like they are learning more than they actually are.”

To understand that dichotomy, Deslauriers and his co-authors designed an experiment that would expose students in an introductory physics class to both traditional lectures and active learning.

For the first 11 weeks of the 15-week class, students were taught using standard methods by an experienced instructor. In the 12th week, half the class was randomly assigned to a classroom that used active learning, while the other half attended highly polished lectures. In a subsequent class, the two groups were reversed. Notably, both groups used identical class content and only active engagement with the material was toggled on and off.

Following each class, students were surveyed on how much they agreed or disagreed with statements such as “I feel like I learned a lot from this lecture” and “I wish all my physics courses were taught this way.” Students were also tested on how much they learned in the class with 12 multiple-choice questions.

When the results were tallied, the authors found that students felt as if they learned more from the lectures, but in fact scored higher on tests following the active learning sessions. “Actual learning and feeling of learning were strongly anticorrelated,” Deslauriers said, “as shown through the robust statistical analysis by co-author Kelly Miller, who is an expert in educational statistics and active learning.”

Those results, the study authors are quick to point out, shouldn’t be interpreted as suggesting students dislike active learning. In fact, many studies have shown students quickly warm to the idea, once they begin to see the results. “In all the courses at Harvard that we’ve transformed to active learning,” Deslauriers said, “the overall course evaluations went up.”

Co-author Kestin, who in addition to being a physicist is a video producer with PBS’ NOVA, said, “It can be tempting to engage the class simply by folding lectures into a compelling ‘story,’ especially when that’s what students seem to like. I show my students the data from this study on the first day of class to help them appreciate the importance of their own involvement in active learning.”

McCarty, who oversees curricular efforts across the sciences, hopes this study will encourage more of his colleagues to embrace active learning.

“We want to make sure that other instructors are thinking hard about the way they’re teaching,” he said. “In our classes, we start each topic by asking students to gather in small groups to solve some problems. While they work, we walk around the room to observe them and answer questions. Then we come together and give a short lecture targeted specifically at the misconceptions and struggles we saw during the problem-solving activity. So far we’ve transformed over a dozen classes to use this kind of active-learning approach. It’s extremely efficient — we can cover just as much material as we would using lectures.”

A pioneer in work on active learning, Balkanski Professor of Physics and Applied Physics Eric Mazur hailed the study as debunking long-held beliefs about how students learn.

“This work unambiguously debunks the illusion of learning from lectures,” he said. “It also explains why instructors and students cling to the belief that listening to lectures constitutes learning. I recommend every lecturer reads this article.”

Dean of Science Christopher Stubbs , Samuel C. Moncher Professor of Physics and of Astronomy, was an early convert. “When I first switched to teaching using active learning, some students resisted that change. This research confirms that faculty should persist and encourage active learning. Active engagement in every classroom, led by our incredible science faculty, should be the hallmark of residential undergraduate education at Harvard.”

Ultimately, Deslauriers said, the study shows that it’s important to ensure that neither instructors nor students are fooled into thinking that lectures are the best learning option. “Students might give fabulous evaluations to an amazing lecturer based on this feeling of learning, even though their actual learning isn’t optimal,” he said. “This could help to explain why study after study shows that student evaluations seem to be completely uncorrelated with actual learning.”

This research was supported with funding from the Harvard FAS Division of Science.

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November 8, 2010 / 8 Comments

15 things kids can do instead of homework

If you are a parent (or a teacher who wants to give a recommendation to an interested parent), and you believe the arguments against homework (see my previous post: 25 Myths of Homework ) then you might be asking yourself now, okay so my kid isn’t doing homework: what else should they do instead? These are some suggestions although I highly recommend doing these activities with your child and giving them as much choice in the activity as you can. I also recommend that you approach these suggestions from a perspective of balance rather than a list of "things I must do with my child every night." Claw back the time you spend on homework so you can spend more time with your children or so that children can have more time to self-direct themselves. Obviously there are lots of other things you can do…

Here’s an example of my son learning how to ride a bicycle. Tell me this isn’t more valuable than any homework assignment he could be given.

Kids need to learn how to cook somehow. I’m so glad my mom taught me how to cook. I will admit that I forgot this skill when I hit adolescence because it was no longer cool, but when I became a bachelor and now that I am married, this is a very valuable skill.

Whether this means a local farm, a full sized zoo, or even just a walk in the right section of the woods, it is important that our kids learn about animals from first hand experience.

Kids need play time. Nuff said.

While I’ll admit this isn’t a daily or even weekly activity for us, it is an awesome opportunity for our son to see a completely different part of the world than his everyday experience.

This could be something as simple as some pillows from the couch propped together, or when your kids are a bit older they can work with you and build something more permanent. If you build something outside, it’s also a great opportunity for your kid’s friends to come over and help out!

Music is enriching part of our lives and is unfortunately being cut from many schools as budgets are being slashed during the economic recession. Fortunately you can always learn how to play an instrument, and I would recommend learning an instrument at the same time as your kid.

I’m lucky enough to live in a cooperative housing complex in Vancouver which according to my wife is set up much differently than a co-op in the USA. I don’t know about co-ops elsewhere in the world, but one of the huge benefits of our "community mandated time" is that we know our neighbours in the building. We have five potential babysitters in our building alone and lots of kids with whom our son can play.

Our own parents are an excellent source of fun and enjoyment for our kids. They can share some of their ideas, and explain how the world used to be, or they can just have fun.

According to relatively recent research , less than 50% of all parents read to their children regularly before the age of 5. This hopefully has nothing to do with the amount of homework they are receiving, but does set them up for future success in literacy. It is also a fun thing to do! We find it is a great way to calm our son down for a bit and get him to sit still because he loves stories.

You may not have a backyard or a garden yourself, but most cities and towns do have community gardens. There are also opportunities to volunteer in a garden in most cities.

This one I think is obvious and the benefits of creating artwork are awesome. At the very least it can be a really welcome gift for your relatives.

Science is fun! You can find lots of websites which will give you simple experiments you can do at home. Here’s part of a video I taped of my son and I learning about reasons why things float or sink. 

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Add yours →

Janet Wees says:

Play dress up using various hats to be various characters, or other clothing. Hats are good to make a statement. Write a book. Make a giant scribble on drawing paper and color in the spaces with different colors. Look at everything around the house and yard with an octoscope. Dance to ABBA. Make up funny songs. Do something nice for people from making them something or giving them something – instill the sense of charity early – older kids can work with you at the food bank. Write a letter to someone and mail it in a mailbox. Or make fridge art if you are not writing yet. (Hint, hint!) Go to the library.

November 9, 2010 — 12:22 am

Anonymous says:

Sometimes we write together as a family. Each person grabs a notebook and pencil, and we scatter throughout the house, working each on our own, but knowing that our home is full of everyone writing. One person may write a poem, another may work on a long story, another an article. After 30-40 minutes pass, we come back together in the living room, and anyone who would like to share reads aloud. It is beautiful to see the encouragement and excitement about the different projects, and such independent work also builds a sense that writing can help us understand our lives and give us joy! Through these writing times, my husband and I have come to know things about our children we might not have learned otherwise, and they expand their writing interests and possibilities beyond the assignments given to them in school.

December 7, 2010 — 12:07 pm

@pmcash says:

What you suggest is applicable to all students. I can only imagine the benefits to our society if we did half of your suggestions with teenaged students!

January 1, 2011 — 11:11 am

@famousmistered says:

Great ideas. My daughter loves to help me cook. I also use it as a hands-on way to practice fractions — I try to use as few spoons or cups as possible and add them up to the required measurements.

September 4, 2011 — 7:56 am

Shine says:

I just love this post! I enjoyed the pictures. As a mother of 5 boys, I realized that spending time with my kids is not just playing with them but also teaching them while having fun. Kids like to learn new things.

October 10, 2011 — 2:13 am

Amara says:

Hi there! When I saw your site I was really cute looking all the good time you shared with your boy. Well I have also a kid and she is a girl. We make sure that we do always have a quality time for her. We usually do role playing co’z she loves acting.And she is really an artist co’z she will cry if I am going to pretend dead.lol..

March 2, 2012 — 8:18 am

Peter L.Griffiths says:

On the whole hobbies are badly neglected in our schools. This does give an opportunity in the homes which are substantially covered in the previous comments. I would emphasise wood-work, photography, musical instruments (with the consent of the neighbours), gardening, looking after animals, sewing and dress making for girls (possibly tailoring or even knitting for boys). Some of these activities may require experienced teachers which our educational institutions are failing to provide, or even encourage.

April 9, 2012 — 12:46 pm

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Too Much Homework Hurts Your Students. Here’s What to Do Instead.

• Post author: The CTTL
• Post published: February 28, 2019
• Post category: Teaching Strategies

At the CTTL , we’re focused on using the best of Mind, Brain, and Education Science research to help teachers maximize their effectiveness and guide students toward their greatest potential. Doing that often means addressing what we like to call “Learning Myths”—those traditional bits of teaching wisdom that are often accepted without question, but aren’t always true. We also like to introduce new insight that can change the classroom for the better. In our Learning Myths series, we’ll explore true-or-false statements that affect teacher and student performance; for each, we’ll dive into the details that support the facts, leaving teachers with actionable knowledge that they can put to work right away.

True or False? Homework should be given every night, as this routine promotes learning.

Answer: False! Nightly homework is unnecessary—and can actually be harmful.

Homework for homework’s sake, or homework that’s not tied into the classroom experience, is a demotivating waste of your students’ time and energy. The Education Endowment Foundation Teaching and Learning Toolkit puts it this way: “Planned and focused activities are more beneficial than homework, which is more regular, but may be routine or not linked with what is being learned in class.”

How might teachers put this insight into action?

Homework, in itself, isn’t a bad thing. The key is to make sure that every homework assignment is both necessary and relevant—and leaves students with some time to rest and investigate other parts of their lives. Here are four key mindsets to adopt as an educator:

Resist the traditional wisdom that equates hardship with learning. Assigning constant homework is often tied into the idea that the more rigorous a class is, the better it is. However, according to research from Duke University’s Professor Harris Cooper, this belief is mistaken: “too much homework may diminish its effectiveness, or even become counterproductive.” A better guideline for homework, Cooper suggests, is to assign 1-2 hours of total homework in high school, and only up to 1 hour in junior high or middle school. This is based on the understanding that school-aged children are developing quickly in multiple realms of their lives; thus, family, outside interests, and sleep all take an unnecessary and damaging hit if students are spending their evenings on busy work. Even for high schoolers, more than two hours of homework was not associated with greater levels of achievement in Cooper’s study.

Remember that some assignments help learning more than others—and they tend to be simple, connected ones. Research suggests that the more open-ended and unstructured assignments are, the smaller the effect they have on learning. The best kind of homework is made of planned, focused activities that help reinforce what’s been happening in class. Using the spacing effect is one way to help students recall and remember what they’ve been learning: for example, this could include a combination of practice questions from what happened today, three days ago, and five days ago. (You can also consider extending this idea by integrating concepts and skills from other parts of your course into your homework materials). Another helpful approach is to assign an exercise that acts as a simple introduction to material that is about to be taught. In general, make sure that all at-home activities are a continuation of the story that’s playing out in class—in other words, that they’re tied into what happened before the assignment, as well as what will happen next.

When it comes to homework, stay flexible. Homework shouldn’t be used to teach complex new ideas and skills. Because it’s so important that homework is closely tied with current learning, it’s important to prepare to adjust your assignments on the fly: if you end up running out of time and can’t cover all of a planned subject on a given day, nix any homework that relies on it.

Never use homework as a punishment. Homework should never be used as a disciplinary tool or a penalty. It’s important for students to know and trust that what they’re doing at home is a vital part of their learning.

Make sure that your students don’t get stuck before they begin. Teachers tend to under-appreciate one very significant problem when it comes to homework: often, students just don’t know how to do the assignment! Being confused by the instructions—and without the means to remedy the situation—is extremely demotivating. If you find (or suspect) that this might be a problem for your students, one helpful strategy is to give students a few minutes in class to begin their homework, so that you can address any clarifying questions that arise.

In order for students to become high academic achievers, they have to be learning in a way that challenges them at the right level— much like the porridge in the Goldilocks story, it’s got to be just right. Homework is a great tool, but it must be used wisely. Part of our role as teachers is to make sure that the time we ask our students to give us after they leave class is meaningful to their learning; otherwise, the stress and demotivation of “just because” homework can be detrimental to their well-being. As the CTTL’s Dr. Ian Kelleher advises, “The best homework assignments are just 20 minutes long, because those are the ones that the teacher has really planned out carefully.” Put simply: quality beats out quantity, every time.

Here at the CTTL, we’re all about quality over quantity. Case in point: our newest endeavor, Neuroteach Global , helps teachers infuse their classroom practices with research-informed strategies for student success—in just 3-5 minutes a day, on a variety of devices.

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31 Things Your Kids Should Be Doing Instead of Homework

by Jessica Smock October 17, 2016

There are many aspects of my more than decade-long career as a teacher that I’m proud of. My reputation for giving lots and lots of homework is not one of them.

For most of my teaching career, I taught fifth or sixth grade. Sometimes I gave more than two hours of homework. Kids complained a lot, though parents rarely did, at least not to my face. I think parents mostly felt the same way I did: that homework was the best way to practice new skills, that it teaches responsibility and helps to develop a strong work ethic, and that it's an opportunity to reflect on new learning.

But most of all, my students' parents and I were more than a little afraid that our kids would fall behind – behind their classmates in the next classroom, behind the kids in a neighboring school, behind the kids in other countries. Homework was considered one of many ways to prevent that from happening.

I wasn’t entirely wrong about all of that, and I still believe a lot of those things. But only for middle and high school students (and not hours of assignments). Not for elementary students, and certainly not for kindergarteners or preschoolers.

When I entered a doctoral program in education policy, I learned about the research that suggests that homework is not good for young kids. Not only does it fail to improve the academic performance of elementary students, but it might actually be damaging to kids’ attitudes toward school, and to their physical health . In a review of available research studies, Harris Cooper, a leading researcher who has spent decades studying the effect of homework, concluded that “t here is no evidence that any amount of homework improves the academic performance of elementary students.”

When I became a parent during graduate school, I experienced for myself just how tired and overwhelmed kids can be after a full day at daycare, preschool, or elementary school, often followed by more after school activities. After hours spent sitting and engaging in mostly adult-directed activities, children's minds and bodies need other kinds of experiences when they get home, not more academics.

It’s not just that homework itself has no academic benefits for little kids, and may even be harmful, it's also that homework is replacing other fun, developmentally appropriate, and valuable activities – activities that help them grow into healthy, happy adults.

So, what are some of the things kids could be doing in those hours between the end of the school day and bed time?

1 | Jump rope.

An important part of how young kids’ minds develop is through free, self-directed play . According to David Elkind, Ph.D., author of The Power of Play: How Spontaneous, Imaginative Activities Lead to Happier, Healthier Children , free play is critical now more than ever, as recesses are shortened or eliminated, and kids’ calendars are busier than ever.

“Through play,” Elkind writes , “children create new learning experiences, and those self-created experiences enable them to acquire social, emotional, and intellectual skills they could not acquire any other way.”

2 | Talk with parents.

I’ve heard from countless friends about their daily battles with their elementary-aged kids struggling to do homework, and the way it’s negatively affected their relationships.

Instead, of parents nagging their overtired kids to do homework they’re too young to do independently, families should spent much time talking together about their day. In fact, conversation is the best way for all of us – especially young children – to learn about our world and cultivate empathy.

The National Sleep Foundation estimates that between 25 and 30% of children aren’t getting enough sleep. Lack of sleep can cause all sorts of problems in kids, including poor attention, behavior problems, academic difficulties, irritability, and weight gain. But even small amounts of additional sleep can have big impacts. One study found that only 20 additional minutes of sleep can improve kids’ grades.

4 | Independent reading.

Most of us know that developing good habits (and hopefully a love of reading) is critical to doing well at school. However, homework can actually interfere with the time that kids can spend on reading.

5 | Listen to a book.

Studies show that kids who are read aloud to do better in school and have better vocabularies.

6 | Work on a puzzle.

Being able to play on their own without adults (called “solitary play”) builds confidence in kids and makes them more relaxed.

7 | Go up a slide backwards.

“Risky” play -- activities like climbing a tree -- is good for kids. Children need to explore their own limits, to be able to assess risks, and to learn how to negotiate their environments.

Researchers theorize that risky play, found across all cultures and in other mammals, has a evolutionary role in preparing offspring for life without their caretakers.

8 | Dig in the dirt.

Another type of play, sensory play, is also critical for kids’ development. When kids knead clay or finger paint, they are stimulating their senses. “Sensory experiences,” explains one early childhood educator , “provide open-ended opportunities where the process is more important than the product; how children use materials is much more important than what they make with them.”

9 | Playing with a friend in a sandbox.

Parallel play , or the type of play in which kids play next to each other, begins in toddlers. But even for older kids, parallel play can help develop critical social skills.

10 | Help with dinner.

Kids who learn about new foods, and how to prepare them, may be more likely to choose more nutritious foods later on.

11 | Walk the dog.

Kids who help take care of family pets may be less anxious, less likely to develop allergies and asthma, and are more active.

12 | Volunteer at an animal shelter.

Even kids who don’t have pets at home can benefit from being around animals. The emotional and psychological benefits of being around animals can also be found when kids care for injured animals and take on care-taking responsibilities for other people’s pets.

13 | Plant a garden.

Kids who work in gardens may have higher achievement scores in science than those who don’t. That’s because they’re actively engaging in scientific concepts and practicing math skills as they learn about plants.

14 | Practice an instrument.

Kids who participate in musical activities – those who practice an instrument regularly and participate actively in music groups – may have brains who are better wired for literacy skills, according to one study .

15 | Hang out at Grandma’s.

Encouraging multi-generational relationships can yield many lessons for kids. They can learn how other adult role models in their lives who love them handle conflict, create and negotiate rules and routines, and embrace family traditions.

16 | Participate in a community service project.

Through volunteering, kids can become more grateful, empathetic, and feel more connected to the wider community.

17 | Draw a picture.

For kids who have trouble expressing themselves verbally, drawing can be a way for them to relax and communicate in a different way.

18 | Do a science experiment.

Kids are naturally curious and want to know how things work. Scientific exploration outside the classroom may be particularly effective at teaching kids about scientific thinking.

19 | Play dress up.

The significance of imaginative “pretend” or “fantasy” play for kids’ creativity and future problem-solving skills is difficult to overstate. When kids pretend they’re superheroes or talk to stuffed animals, they’re learning about social roles, setting the stage for later learning, and processing ideas from the world around them. In fact, some research suggests that kids who don’t engage in fantasy play may actually struggle in the classroom later.

20 | Wrestle with a sibling.

“ Rough and tumble" play is not the same as aggression. It’s vigorous, free-form, whole-body, energetic, happy play. Kids learn decision-making skills, relieve stress, improve their ability to read social cues, and enhance their cardio-vascular health.

21 | Clean their room.

When kids are spending their afternoons working on homework, there’s often not time for them to help out with housework and other chores. A University of Minnesota researcher, Marty Rossman, found that one of the best predictors of a kid’s future success is whether they contributed to household chores as a young child.

According to Rossman, “Through participating in household tasks, parents are teaching children responsibility, how to contribute to family life, a sense of empathy and how to take care of themselves.”

22 | Write a story.

By writing down stories, kids can express their feelings, stretch their imaginations, and practice their fine motor skills.

23 | Zone out.

Just as important as play is “down time.” The authors of " Overloaded and Underprepared: Strategies for Stronger Schools and Happy, Successful Kids " argue that every kids needs PDF: playtime, downtime, and family time.

Downtime is when kids are allowed to literally do not much of anything, like sit around and listen to music or stare at the ceiling. These moments allow children to reflect, rest, and reset their minds and bodies.

24 | Meditate.

Kids also benefit from meditation. Studies have found that mindfulness and meditation can improve behavior, focus, and reduce impulsiveness.

25 | Create a collage.

" Constructive play " – building a fort, making a snowman – is goal-oriented and involves kids building something using tools and materials. Constructive play also has an important role in developing children’s communication, mathematical, and socio-emotional skills.

26 | Listen to classical music.

One study found that playing classical music to children can improve their listening and concentration skills, as well as self-discipline.

27 | Learn to knit.

Knitting, sewing, and crocheting are hobbies that can help enhance fine motor skills, improve coordination, and develop longer attention spans.

28 | Take pictures.

“Photography can help develop a child’s voice, vision and identity as it pertains to their family, friends and community,” according to one photographer who teaches photography to children in Canada.

29 | Ride a bike.

Kids who are physically active – as well as adults! – have stronger hearts, lungs, and bones. They are less likely to develop cancer or be overweight and more likely to feel good about themselves.

30 | Listen to a long bedtime story.

Babies, children, and adult sleep better when they have a regular (not rushed) bedtime routine. Kids who don’t have bedtime routines are more likely to have behavior problems, be hyperactive, and suffer from emotional difficulties.

31 | Play "Simon Says."

During cooperative games , kids collaborate to reach a common goal. There may be a leader, and kids start to learn about social contracts and social rules.

When homework is assigned to young children, it doesn’t improve academic learning. In any case, the learning done in school is only one form of learning. Homework takes away from the time available to engage in endless other forms of learning, such as social, physical, and emotional, as well as rest.

Our kids deserve a chance to spend all their other hours outside of school doing their most important job of all: being a kid.

Jessica Smock

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Better Classroom Management Can’t Wait. How to Make Changes Now

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Next year. Whenever I talk to new teachers, whether informally or within a teacher education course that I instruct, there is consistent talk of the changes they will make “next year.”

Many first-year teachers in particular speak longingly about how their actions and classrooms will be improved the following school year. They describe all their mistakes this past year and how they will fix them in the fall.

Undoubtedly, one will eventually regurgitate some version of the old saw: “The first two weeks of the school year are crucial for classroom management and establishing rules and expectations.”

Teachers believe these two weeks are when they should develop the classroom structures that will allow students to know what to expect for the remainder of the school year. Conversely, because they were unable to establish such structures within their first two weeks of a school year, they can only look forward to correcting it the following year.

I’m here to say it’s all a lie.

Believing that one can establish their classroom management plan in the first two weeks of the school year is just one of the many “truths” about “managing” student behavior that teachers learn.

In my own first year of teaching , the first two weeks—and beyond —were full of difficulties. I struggled to understand which rules to enact or how to enforce consequences consistently. At some point, things improved but only well after two weeks. Through support and experience, I and many beginning teachers get better at managing the classroom.

But how? This is the question that all preservice and beginning teachers ask as they consider classroom management. Having now spent over a decade teaching preservice teachers and researching how teachers successfully manage classrooms , I’ve identified some key strategies that can improve classroom management at any point in the year.

Interestingly, these strategies have developed from repeated maxims—or what I deem as misconceptions:

“I build relationships before, between, and after classes.”

While informal conversations before class or between periods are positive, teachers can build relationships within lessons more effectively. Building relationships is central to every classroom, but it’s easier said than done. I love this meta-analysis (find the main table!) that lists concrete strategies from praise and check-ins to rewards and self-regulation.

You won’t know how to manage your students until you know who they are. This means ignoring other trite expressions, such as “not smiling before Christmas.”

“I need to focus on a good lesson, not classroom management.”

A good lesson engages students, reducing opportunities to misbehave. A good lesson also can be derailed if students’ perspectives are not considered. Here are a few tips:

• Think about what students do for each activity, not just what the teacher does. Interesting demonstrations and lectures often have students sitting quietly at their desks for a whole lesson. Consider other ways they could learn the material (e.g., small-group activities) and the appropriate directions and transitions needed to get there.
• Build from their interest. Whether it’s using examples about Paw Patrol or Taylor Swift, incorporating students’ interests engages them.
• Overplan material. Timing is difficult for beginning teachers, so it’s important to have an abundance of activities per day. You’d rather end long (and put a pin in it for tomorrow) than not have enough for your students to do. The more you have prepared, the less time you’ll spend dealing with misbehavior.

“I manage all my students the same.”

Consistent rules, procedures, and expectations are crucial in establishing the boundaries of your classroom. However, while the sentiment of treating everyone the same is understandable, we know that discipline is not administered equally.

Instead, teachers must be responsive to their class and understand that students may respond differently to consequences. Just like we do with instruction, it is important to manage behavior in a way that meets students where they are rather than treating them all the same.

Allow for some flexibility or have students offer suggestions for what’s important for their learning. Teachers can also find ways to promote positive interactions, such as utilizing nonverbal actions, specific praise, and parent partnerships to accommodate for student differences.

While these classroom management sayings are meant to help beginning teachers, they ultimately hurt students by ignoring how teachers can adapt classroom management skills throughout the school year. Of course, these recommendations are not exhaustive, and teachers must recognize that what works now may not work with next year’s students.

Instead of buying into these misnomers, teachers need to focus on skills that they can improve now. Don’t try to change everything all at once; find a few specific strategies to prioritize per day or week and solidify them in your classroom.

Teachers can even utilize the current classroom as a trial-and-error period to see which strategies they like best. Instead of waiting until next year’s first two weeks, how about changing things today?

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Doing Homework: Ins and Outs for Students

Difficulties in doing homework.

Have you ever thought about the most trouble-free period of your life? Most people would say “nursery school”. No wonder, as all you had to do was play and have fun. If you had an idea about your future responsibilities, did you have a desire to grow up? 

However, nobody can stop time, and here you are, a student who has little time to play but many duties to fulfill. Being a student means studying, doing homework, going to the library, and dealing with many other things that can sometimes be annoying. It’s really tough, especially in the first year of college or university. The new reality and surroundings require much mental and physical effort: new professors, new classmates, more disciplines, and more homework assignments as well. 

Doing homework at college can often be a challenge, as its complexity level differs from that of school. The dilemma becomes more apparent when you apply for sports and have training. Another obstacle arises when you’ve accumulated assignments with short deadlines for submission. It’s understandable if the question is, Can I pay money for someone to get homework assistance? MyPaperDone.com , and the website mentioned above, can be of great use in this situation. Your assignments will be completed within the required time limit. Difficulties with doing homework can appear at any moment and for any student. 

Can Someone Do Your Homework?

The huge amount of written academic papers to compose and theory to learn need a lot of time. Moreover, some personal circumstances can contribute to being overwhelmed with homework. In these moments, causing you some distress and anxiety, how many times have you thought, “Can someone do your homework?” instead of doing it yourself 

Actually, the answer to this question is affirmative, and you can refer to different websites on the Internet. Such a service was invented with the purpose of assisting students with their homework. As a rule, these companies have hired a team of specialists from various fields. Personnel working in these companies includes teachers, professors, and last year students as well. There is an option to read the reviews of completed works, students’ opinions, and general feedback about the provided service. 

By registering on one of these websites, you can rely on experts to do your homework as fast as you need. Over the years of studying at college or university, you will face tasks of different types, from the most important to the least significant. However, the less significant doesn’t mean the fastest. Sometimes, it can happen to spend hours writing academic work that, in reality, doesn’t have much research value. 

Useful Homework Helper App

Using technology in the right way can help you to solve many problems. The Internet is an enormous digital library, a well of knowledge to use correctly. If you learn how to effectively utilize its sources, you will definitely simplify your life. For example, the use of some homework helper apps can facilitate the process of completing assignments:

• Khan Academy: it was created by an engineer with the purpose of offering services and study materials for free, and it has become one of the most valuable sources. You can find playlists of exercises and problems, lessons in various subjects, videos, and other educational content.
• Photomath: this app helps you solve math problems instantaneously just by taking a photo with your tablet or smartphone. Moreover, it recognizes even handwritten tasks and provides step-by-step solutions. 
• Quizlet: by creating an account, you’re able to generate tests, quizzes, and other games, using available lexical items or creating your own study tools. It allows you to personalize the way you study according to the required level of difficulty. 
• The list of other useful and effective online platforms is very long, and you are able to examine them on this page . The ability to combine various accessible tools plays an important role in achieving successful results. Many platforms are free, and some of them are for payment. Based on your necessities, you may choose the most suitable for you. 

Unfortunately, learning in the classroom is not enough. By mixing traditional tools such as books, textbooks, and classroom learning with digital ones, your chances of becoming an excellent specialist are great. 

Help Doing Your Homework

The study schedules and other commitments often leave you little time for rest. As you can imagine, homework help with school subjects differs from help with college or university materials. The Internet provides many solutions for all types of students, including school, college, or university students. 

In the case of school, it’s not indispensable to have in-depth knowledge, unlike at the college level. When you need help doing your homework, take into consideration the person’s experience that counts a lot. When visiting websites that offer this service, examine the reviews and feedback. It will help you understand if their services suit you or not. Each reputable company has a skillful crew with knowledge in different fields of science. 

Don’t forget, therefore, to not exaggerate and ask for assistance when you really need it. On this website , you will discover interesting information that can be useful regarding homework. You learn from your mistakes, and trying to do your assignments alone is an effective method of learning. Nevertheless, having the possibility to ask for help with your homework gives you an assurance that it will be done in any case. So, if after several attempts, you fail to complete an assignment and don’t have time to retry, visit a website and ask for help. 

The post Doing Homework: Ins and Outs for Students appeared first on Mom and More .

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What Students Are Saying About Tech in the Classroom

Does technology help students be more organized, efficient and prepared for the future? Or is it just a distraction?

By The Learning Network

Is there a problem with screens in schools?

We invited students to weigh in on that question in our Picture Prompt Tech in the Classroom , which was based on an Opinion essay arguing that we should “get tech out of the classroom before it’s too late.”

Is there too much tech in your school day? — we asked students. Would you prefer more screen-free time while you are learning, or even during lunch or free periods?

Below, they share the good, the bad and the ugly about technology use in school.

Thank you to everyone who participated in the conversation on our writing prompts this week!

Please note: Student comments have been lightly edited for length.

Some students saw the value of technology in schools, including its ability to prepare students for the future.

I believe that technology in the classroom is a good thing when it is properly moderated. I think completely taking away screens from a student will not help them develop computer skills which they will most likely need in a world like ours, where most of everything is online. Sometimes phones cannot get the job done, and computers will be needed. If schools completely remove devices from the curriculum, then students will be completely clueless when they take classes involving a computer. Too much screen time can be bad for the student, but if it is well moderated, then screen time won’t be an issue.

— Saheed, GMS

I personally do not mind the amount of technology in the classroom. I personally find typing to be a lot easier instead of writing. On top of that, this amount of technology is used in adults’ day to day lives, too. Writing has become less and less relevant for everyone, because most jobs require a computer nowadays. So I think it’s actually better to have the amount of technology we do in the classroom.

— Timothy, Greenbelt Middle

They said, even though there might be down sides, the good outweighs the bad.

Screens in the classroom allows students to complete work in a more organized manner and use online resources to help them learn. It helps teachers to be able to make sure students turn work in before a certain time. However, having screens in the classroom raises students overall screen time which is bad for their eye health and sleep.

— Emily, Greenbelt Middle

I believe that computers should definitely be used at school because it has more pros than cons. They help with everything. The only problem with them is the people using them. The people using them are often misusing them and not charging them.

— Deegan, California

And they argued that tech is so entrenched in the student experience that taking it away would cause a lot of disruption.

There are no problems with screens in school. I believe without screens, school would be much less productive, produce so much waste of paper, and assignments would be lost a lot. Also when I have paper homework, which is almost never, almost every time I get it I forget because everything is on the iPad. This is important because if there is any change in the iPads we use, it’ll affect everyone drastically. Also it would just be really annoying to get used to a whole new thing.

— August, GBW

But another contingent of students said, “There is definitely a problem with screens in school.” They called them a distraction.

There is definitely a problem with screens in school. While regular technology use in school is highly efficient and much more convenient than using textbooks and paper, I still feel like using technology as the main method for learning is detrimental. There are plenty of students in my classes who are hiding behind their iPads to play games or go on their phones rather than utilizing their technology to enhance their learning experience. So in turn, I think we need to minimize (but not completely take away) the prominence of tech in our classrooms. This matters because it’s so important for students to learn how to completely pay attention and focus in on one task so that they are prepared for the moments in life where they don’t get the opportunity to look at their phone if they’re bored or to text their friends. Trust me, this may seem like I’m one hundred percent anti-phones but the truth is I love my phone and am somewhat addicted to it, so I realize that it’s a major distraction for myself in the classroom. Moreover, staring at an iPad screen for 7 hours a day puts significant strain on our eyes, so for the sake of our health and our attention spans, we need to minimize tech use in school.

— Mary, Glenbard West High School

Tech inside classrooms has had many positive effects and many negative effects. Without technology, it would take forever to find sources/information and it would also take ages to do complex things. With technology, people can easily find information and they can easily do many things but the big downside is that they can easily just search up games and get distracted. On one side, it has provided many different changes to students so they can learn in a fun and entertaining way but in another, people are mostly on their phones scrolling through YouTube or Instagram. Many people don’t have control over their body and have a big urge to go on their cellphones.

— Srikanth, Greenbelt Middle School

In my opinion, yes there is a problem with screens in schools. It distracts kids from focusing on their work. Many students are always on their phone during class, and it is disrespectful as well as sad for them. They will not be able to learn the material that is being taught. Personally, I think that screens should be reduced in class, but I do not think that is possible. Whenever a teacher takes away someone’s phone, they get very mad and say that it is their right to have their phone. In these cases it is very confusing on how to act for the teacher!

— Kadambari, gms

Some reported that their peers use technology to cheat.

It might be a problem depending on what people are doing. If it is used for school, like typing an essay, working on homework, or checking your grades it’s okay, but I know people who abuse this privilege. They go onto YouTube and watch things, listen to music when they aren’t supposed to, and play games. Many people cheat to the point where it takes forever to start a test because people don’t close out their tabs. It helps to be able to do these ‘Quick Writes’ as we call them in my ELA class because I can write faster (I know it’s called typing). It’s harder to access things because of the restriction because people mess around so they block so many useful websites and words from our computer. I like to type on the computer, but I feel people abuse this privilege too much.

— Nina, California

When the teachers assign tests on computers, sometimes teachers have to lock students’ screens to make sure they’re not cheating. Sometimes they do it on paper and they try to cheat while hiding their phones in their laps. And then if another student sees them doing that, they will tell and the student who would have the phone out could start a big argument.

— Taylor, Huntington Beach

Several lamented the sheer number of hours teenagers spend in front of screens.

I feel that we have become too comfortable with using screens for nearly every lesson in school, because it has gotten to the point where we are spending upwards of 4 hours on our laptops in school alone. I understand that it would be hard to switch back to using journals and worksheets, but it would be very beneficial for kids if we did.

— Chase, school

I think we should reduce the tech a little just because most students are going straight to screens when they get home, after a full day of screens … Although I know this would be very difficult to do because everything in the world now seems to go online.

— Jaydin, California

And they even worried about their handwriting in a world full of typing.

I think technology in a class is very helpful, but I think that we should incorporate more writing. Since the pandemic, most of the work has been online and it never gave students the opportunity to write as much. When we came back from lockdown, I almost forgot how to write with a pencil. My handwriting was very different. And now we don’t get much time to write with our hands so I think we should have fewer screens.

— Eric, Greenbelt

Some students said that less time spent on screens in school would give them a break from the always-on digital culture they live in.

Although typing is useful and using the internet is very useful, I think we should go back to how it was about 20-40 years ago when all people used the computer for was to type an essay. Drama didn’t get spread in a millisecond, we didn’t have to worry as much about stereotypes. Now all kids want to do is text each other and watch videos. I’m well aware that I have fallen into this trap and I want out, but our lives revolve around technology. You can’t get away from it. I know this is about schools not using technology, which the world without it would be impossible now, but life would be so much simpler again.

— Ivy, Huntington Beach, CA

I will say that my phone is usually always with me during school hours, but I don’t use it all the time. I may check the time or play a short game as a brain break. But I do see some people absolutely glued to their phones during class time, and it’s honestly embarrassing. You really can’t go without your phone for an hour?? It’s almost like an addiction at this point. I understand using your phone to quickly distract yourself; I do it too. And I also think it’s okay to have your phone/electronic during lunch time or free periods. But using it to the point that you can’t properly pay attention in class is just embarrassing. So, in summary, I do think that schools are having a problem with screens.

— Allison, Greenbelt Middle School

And they named classes in which they think screens do and do not have a place.

I feel like for classes for younger kids, technology is definitely not good. Kids should be playing, using their hands, and actually experiencing things instead of being on tablets in kindergarten. I think using computers in school is good though. It’s a lot more efficient, and we live in a society where fast and efficient things are the trend.

— sarah, maryland

I think screens have their place, and will always have their place, in schools and education. The capabilities of computers will always surpass anything else, and they should not be banned from school environments. Still, I have one exception: English class. Other than final drafts of essays, everything in English should be on paper. You can formulate ideas better and minimize outside influence on your thinking.

— Addie, The Potomac School

Learn more about Current Events Conversation here and find all of our posts in this column .

Expelling students for bad behaviour seems like the obvious solution, but is it really a good idea?

Professor and Director of the Centre for Inclusive Education, Queensland University of Technology

Disclosure statement

Linda J. Graham receives funding from the Australian Research Council. She chaired the 2020 inquiry into suspension, exclusion and expulsion processes in South Australian government schools, and was a member of the 2023 National School Reform Agreement Ministerial Reference Group.

Queensland University of Technology provides funding as a member of The Conversation AU.

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Two male students have been expelled from a Melbourne private school for their involvement in a list ranking female students.

The two were part of a group of four high school students suspended from Yarra Valley Grammar last Friday, after sharing a spreadsheet of photos of female classmates, ranking them with terms including “wifeys”, “cuties” and “unrapable”.

As principal Mark Merry said in a letter to parents on Tuesday, he had “formed the view” the position of two of the students had “become untenable”. The two other students who played a “lesser role” will face “disciplinary action”. The school is offering wellbeing support to the girls who were targeted.

Earlier this week, the suspensions were met with approval from Education Minister Jason Clare who told the ABC , “I’m glad the school’s fronting up. I think that they’ve taken the sort of action that the community would expect”.

Expelling or suspending students for this kind of behaviour seems like the obvious course of action. But is it a good idea?

Why do schools suspend or expel students?

Suspending or expelling a student is meant to be a last resort for serious problem behaviour. It is either supposed to allow space for a reset or as a consequence for behaviour which threatens other students’ safety or learning.

In the case of Yarra Valley Grammar, the suspensions and expulsions send a message to the girls in the school, other students, parents and the broader public this behaviour is not tolerated.

With so much media and public attention on the spreadsheet, the suspensions and expulsions also help protect the reputation of the school.

Clearly there has been some horrendous behaviour and it does need to have a stern response. But without condoning the behaviour in any way, kicking these students out of school is not the best way to handle this situation, which is a symptom of a much bigger problem.

What does the research say about suspensions and expulsions?

Typically, when a student is expelled, the outcomes are not positive for that child.

This is because expulsion is a punitive action, not an educative one.

Research shows suspending and expelling students can also simply build resentment and anger. If students feel like they are rejected from society , there is a risk they become more extreme in their views or behaviours.

Research also shows it can impact a young person’s learning and lead to leaving school early. We also know there is an association between suspension and expulsion and increased delinquency , including contact with the police .

The most protective thing to do is to keep young people in schools where they can be exposed to the influence of positive peers, under adult supervision, with a chance to keep up with their learning.

What could happen instead?

This is not to say students should just be told to go back to class as if nothing has happened.

With the help of experts like psychologists, schools can engage in a restorative justice process . This is about helping young people understand the real impact of their actions.

There can often be an assumption young people act with full knowledge of the consequences of what they are doing. But parts of their brain involving control and self regulation are still developing into adulthood.

Experts can work with students so they can learn their actions were not harmless fun with their mates but something that hurts others.

An example of how this can be done is through giving those students “ inquiry projects ” where they investigate similar incidents and present their findings to their peers. The emphasis is on an educative response that builds empathy and understanding in that young person.

The school could also ask the female students included in the spreadsheet to express through their choice of medium how it made them feel.

One criticism of this process is it requires the victims to engage in emotional labour when they have already experienced harm. But when a restorative justice process is done well , it can give the victims a voice and public acknowledgement of the wrong they have experienced.

Those victims can also receive an apology if they want it. That apology is likely to be more meaningful if the perpetrator has learnt something of the effect of their behaviour.

Importantly, the aim of a restorative justice process is not to dispense “justice”. It is to restore peace, to heal harms done and to prevent future harms from occurring through better understanding.

Given the Yarra Valley Grammar “list” is the latest episode in a string of incidents involving misogynistic behaviour by male students , it is time we tried something different.

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Medical residents are starting to avoid states with abortion bans, data shows

Julie Rovner

Rachana Pradhan

The Match Day ceremony at the University of California, Irvine, on March 15. Match Day is the day when medical students seeking residency and fellowship training positions find out their options. Increasingly, medical students are choosing to go to states that don't restrict abortion. Jeff Gritchen/MediaNews Group via Getty Images hide caption

The Match Day ceremony at the University of California, Irvine, on March 15. Match Day is the day when medical students seeking residency and fellowship training positions find out their options. Increasingly, medical students are choosing to go to states that don't restrict abortion.

Isabella Rosario Blum was wrapping up medical school and considering residency programs to become a family practice physician when she got some frank advice: If she wanted to be trained to provide abortions, she shouldn't stay in Arizona.

Blum turned to programs mostly in states where abortion access — and, by extension, abortion training — is likely to remain protected, like California, Colorado and New Mexico. Arizona has enacted a law banning most abortions after 15 weeks.

"I would really like to have all the training possible," she said, "so of course that would have still been a limitation."

In June, she will start her residency at Swedish Cherry Hill hospital in Seattle.

According to new statistics from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), for the second year in a row, students graduating from U.S. medical schools this year were less likely to apply for residency positions in states with abortion bans and other significant abortion restrictions.

Since the Supreme Court in 2022 overturned the constitutional right to an abortion, state fights over abortion access have created plenty of uncertainty for pregnant patients and their doctors. But that uncertainty has also bled into the world of medical education, forcing some new doctors to factor state abortion laws into their decisions about where to begin their careers.

Shots - Health News

How florida and arizona supreme court rulings change the abortion access map.

Fourteen states, primarily in the Midwest and South, have banned nearly all abortions. The new analysis by the AAMC — exclusively reviewed by KFF Health News before its public release — found that the number of applicants to residency programs in states with near-total abortion bans declined by 4.2% between 2024 and 2023, compared with a 0.6% drop in states where abortion remains legal.

Notably, the AAMC's findings illuminate the broader problems that abortion bans can create for a state's medical community, particularly in an era of provider shortages: The organization tracked a larger decrease in interest in residencies in states with abortion restrictions not only among those in specialties most likely to treat pregnant patients, like OB-GYNs and emergency room doctors, but also among aspiring doctors in other specialties.

"It should be concerning for states with severe restrictions on reproductive rights that so many new physicians — across specialties — are choosing to apply to other states for training instead," wrote Atul Grover, executive director of the AAMC's Research and Action Institute.

The AAMC analysis found that the number of applicants to OB-GYN residency programs in abortion-ban states dropped by 6.7%, compared with a 0.4% increase in states where abortion remains legal. For internal medicine, the drop observed in abortion-ban states was over five times as much as in states where abortion is legal.

'Geographic misalignment'

In its analysis, the AAMC said that an ongoing decline in interest in abortion-ban states among new doctors ultimately "may negatively affect access to care in those states."

Dr. Jack Resneck Jr., immediate past president of the American Medical Association, said the data demonstrates yet another consequence of the post- Roe v. Wade era.

The AAMC analysis notes that even in states with abortion bans, residency programs are filling their positions — mostly because there are more graduating medical students in the U.S. and abroad than there are residency slots.

Still, Resneck said, "we're extraordinarily worried." For example, physicians without adequate abortion training may not be able to manage miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies or potential complications, such as infection or hemorrhaging, that could stem from pregnancy loss.

Those who work with students and residents say their observations support the AAMC's findings. "People don't want to go to a place where evidence-based practice and human rights in general are curtailed," said Beverly Gray, an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Duke University School of Medicine.

Abortion in North Carolina is banned in nearly all cases after 12 weeks. Women who experience unexpected complications or discover their baby has potentially fatal birth anomalies later in pregnancy may not be able to receive care there.

Gray said she worries that even though Duke is a highly sought training destination for medical residents, the abortion ban "impacts whether we have the best and brightest coming to North Carolina."

Rohini Kousalya Siva will start her obstetrics and gynecology residency at MedStar Washington Hospital Center in Washington, D.C., this year. She said she did not consider programs in states that have banned or severely restricted abortion, applying instead to programs in Maryland, New Hampshire, New York and Washington, D.C.

"We're physicians," said Kousalya Siva, who attended medical school in Virginia and was previously president of the American Medical Student Association. "We're supposed to be giving the best evidence-based care to our patients, and we can't do that if we haven't been given abortion training."

Another consideration: Most graduating medical students are in their 20s, "the age when people are starting to think about putting down roots and starting families," said Gray, who added that she is noticing many more students ask about politics during their residency interviews.

And because most young doctors make their careers in the state where they do their residencies, "people don't feel safe potentially having their own pregnancies [while] living in those states" with severe restrictions, said Debra Stulberg, chair of the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Chicago.

Stulberg and others worry that this self-selection away from states with abortion restrictions will exacerbate the shortages of physicians in rural and underserved areas.

"The geographic misalignment between where the needs are and where people are choosing to go is really problematic," she said. "We don't need people further concentrating in urban areas where there's already good access."

From Tennessee to California

After attending medical school in Tennessee, which has adopted one of the most sweeping abortion bans in the U.S., Hannah Light-Olson will start her OB-GYN residency at the University of California San Francisco this summer.

It was not an easy decision, she said. "I feel some guilt and sadness leaving a situation where I feel like I could be of some help," she said. "I feel deeply indebted to the program that trained me and to the patients of Tennessee."

Light-Olson said some of her fellow students applied to programs in abortion-ban states "because they think we need pro-choice providers in restrictive states now more than ever." In fact, she said, she also applied to programs in abortion-ban states when she was confident the program had a way to provide abortion training.

"I felt like there was no perfect 100% guarantee. We've seen how fast things can change," she said. "I don't feel particularly confident that California and New York aren't going to be under threat too."

As a condition of a scholarship she received for medical school, Blum said, she will have to return to Arizona to practice, and it is unclear what abortion access will look like then. But she is worried about long-term impacts.

"Residents, if they can't get the training in the state, then they're probably less likely to settle down and work in the state as well," she said.

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling and journalism.

• rural health
• medical residency
• abortion bans
• medical provider shortage

Experience Google AI in even more ways on Android

May 14, 2024

[[read-time]] min read

By building AI right into the Android operating system, we're reimagining how you can interact with your phone.

• Bullet points
• Circle to Search gets smarter, helping students solve physics and math problems directly from their phones and tablets.
• Gemini on Android improves context understanding, allowing users to drag and drop generated images and ask questions about videos and PDFs.
• Gemini Nano with Multimodality coming to Pixel, bringing multimodal capabilities for richer image descriptions and scam alerts during phone calls.
• Android 15 and ecosystem updates coming tomorrow.
• Basic explainer

Google is making Android phones smarter with AI.

Circle to Search can now help students with homework.

Gemini, a new AI assistant, can understand what's on your screen and help you do things.

Android phones will soon be able to alert you to suspected scams during phone calls.

Explore other styles:

We’re at a once-in-a-generation moment where the latest advancements in AI are reinventing what phones can do. With Google AI at the core of Android’s operating system, the billions of people who use Android can now interact with their devices in entirely new ways.

Today, we’re sharing updates that let you experience Google AI on Android.

Circle to Search can now help students with homework

With Circle to Search built directly into the user experience, you can search anything you see on your phone using a simple gesture — without having to stop what you’re doing or switch to a different app. Since launching at Samsung Unpacked , we’ve added new capabilities to Circle to Search, like full-screen translation , and we’ve expanded availability to more Pixel and Samsung devices.

Starting today, Circle to Search can now help students with homework, giving them a deeper understanding, not just an answer — directly from their phones and tablets. When students circle a prompt they’re stuck on, they’ll get step-by-step instructions to solve a range of physics and math 1 word problems without leaving their digital info sheet or syllabus. Later this year, Circle to Search will be able to help solve even more complex problems involving symbolic formulas, diagrams, graphs and more. This is all possible due to our LearnLM effort to enhance our models and products for learning.

Circle to Search is already available on more than 100 million devices today. With plans to bring the experience to more devices, we’re on track to double that by the end of the year.

Gemini will get even better at understanding context to assist you in getting things done

Gemini on Android is a new kind of assistant that uses generative AI to help you be more creative and productive. This experience, which is integrated into Android, is getting even better at understanding the context of what’s on your screen and what app you’re using.

Soon, you’ll be able to bring up Gemini's overlay on top of the app you're in to easily use Gemini in more ways. For example, you can drag and drop generated images into Gmail, Google Messages and other places, or tap “Ask this video” to find specific information in a YouTube video. If you have Gemini Advanced, you’ll also have the option to “Ask this PDF” to quickly get answers without having to scroll through multiple pages. This update will roll out to hundreds of millions of devices over the next few months.

And we’ll continue to improve Gemini to give you more dynamic suggestions related to what’s on your screen.

Full multimodal capabilities coming to Gemini Nano

Android is the first mobile operating system that includes a built-in, on-device foundation model. With Gemini Nano, we’re able to bring experiences to you quickly and keep your information completely private to you. Starting with Pixel later this year, we’ll be introducing our latest model, Gemini Nano with Multimodality. This means your phone will not just be able to process text input but also understand more information in context like sights, sounds and spoken language.

Clearer descriptions with TalkBack

Later this year, Gemini Nano’s multimodal capabilities are coming to TalkBack, helping people who experience blindness or low vision get richer and clearer descriptions of what’s happening in an image. On average, TalkBack users come across 90 unlabeled images per day. This update will help fill in missing information — whether it’s more details about what’s in a photo that family or friends sent or the style and cut of clothes when shopping online. Since Gemini Nano is on-device, these descriptions happen quickly and even work when there's no network connection.

Receive alerts for suspected scams during phone calls

According to a recent report , in a 12-month period, people lost more than $1 trillion to fraud. We’re testing a new feature that uses Gemini Nano to provide real-time alerts during a call if it detects conversation patterns commonly associated with scams. For example, you would receive an alert if a “bank representative” asks you to urgently transfer funds, make a payment with a gift card or requests personal information like card PINs or passwords, which are uncommon bank requests . This protection all happens on-device, so your conversation stays private to you. We’ll share more about this opt-in feature later this year.

More to come on Android

We’re just getting started with how on-device AI can change what your phone can do, and we’ll continue building Google AI into every part of the smartphone experience with Pixel, Samsung and more. If you’re a developer, check out the Android Developers blog to learn how you can build with our latest AI models and tools, like Gemini Nano and Gemini in Android Studio.

Stay tuned tomorrow for more of our latest Android 15 and ecosystem updates.

Here’s a look at everything we announced at Google I/O 2024.

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Available for some math word problems when opted into Search Labs.

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