When students return from school they are often unmotivated to sit down and spend another couple of hours on a homework assignment. This can cause friction at home and a bad reputation at school for being the one that doesn’t do their assignments.
One goal, in the education process, is always creating collaboration between school and home. How can teachers, parents and students work together for the best results? Assigning homework that is relevant to the current topic and applicable to the student’s life is one way to form that connection.
Here are a couple of suggestions on creating meaningful homework:
- Assign a task that applies the knowledge, not just requires them to memorize.
- Have students create an assignment based on their understanding of the curriculum.
- Encourage students to think beyond the information provided to them.
- Add interest to the assignments so that students want to do the homework, not just get it done.
- As part of the assignments, ask students to demonstrate how the topic applies to their life.
By encouraging family involvement and independent thinking, your students will develop lifelong skills for learning. They become responsible for communicating the information and the desired outcome to their families and taking responsibility and initiative for what is being asked of them.