This is the second in a series about rethinking homework.  Click here to read the first part.

In every content area, teachers are asked to cover far more content and help students develop more skills than ever before.  Add to that mix the need to teach things like digital citizenship, non-subject specific skills like collaboration and critical thinking, and technological proficiency, and you have a Sisyphean task.

The traditional answer to this problem is just assigning extra practice and content as homework.  But that just takes a problem for teachers and passes it on to students and parents.  That isn’t a solution.

The solution is to do less.  It’s not a popular solution, but it IS a practical one.

For each unit, I choose the information that I think is most real-world, helpful and relevant to my students.  Then, I decide what skills would be most appropriate and design the unit around those skills and that content.  The last thing to decide is what the final for the unit will be.  In my class, the final product often includes puppets and a project.

The most important thing is that I make the scope of the unit something I can achieve using ONLY face-to-face class time.  What would traditionally be assigned as homework is just not included.  Period.

Let’s look at a practical example from my own classroom.  ​

Research is something I've never taught well.  At least until this year.

I realised that teaching history the way I want to teach it requires me to help students do research.  I've written before about my project-based approach to teaching history, so I know that's not new.  However, the fundamental structure and success of my project-based classroom rests almost entirely on my students' ability to find good sources, synthesise the information, and use it to create original writing.

Right now, we're doing a final unit on Ancient Greece.  There are two simultaneous threads that we're weaving together for the final project: the Minecraftopolis building and screen-capture, and the Odyssey retelling.

Struggle plays a huge role in my teaching practice because struggle is essential to learning.  

But sometimes, I think I let my students struggle a little too much.  There has to be a balance, and it's a balance I'm still working on after eleven years in the classroom.  It also seems to be the product of experience rather than skill or content knowledge.

As a young teacher, I didn't want to let my students struggle, ever.  I wanted them to be comfortable and interested and engaged because everything was Just So Engaging Because I Said It Was!  I didn't realise that the students needed to be working harder than I was; frankly, I'm not sure anyone could have worked harder than I did that first year.

I grew more experienced, and probably leaned too far in the other direction.  In the name of constructivism, I explained far too little and expected far too much.

There are some things that work best as direct instruction, and there are things that work best as student-centred constructivism.  Again, it's about finding balance between telling them ALL OF THE THINGS and letting them discover ALL OF THE THINGS.