It makes better sense to discuss this question with parents. The discussion that follows could be shared with parents, without any need to edit.
This question is interesting for a very different reason. It needs no discussion as there is no need to monitor the quality of homework of your child. The ‘quality of homework’ given in most schools leaves a lot to be desired and it may be doing more harm than good to your child; it may be one principle reason why your child may be getting bored of studies. Thus, any attempt to measure the quality of ‘poor homework’ would be wasteful.
Seek to change the content of homework to make it meaningful and here are a few suggestions for the same:
- Schools expect homework to be all correctly done (e.g. no mathematical question can be wrongly answered). However, a genuine attempt at homework by children will lead to a few (may be all) wrong answers and it must be whole-heartedly accepted by schools. In fact, the wrong answers are the real treasures – they bring out the gaps in a child’s learning. Child will show improvement in performance only when these gaps are addressed. Schools must encourage students to be truthful in homework and submit their best.
- When homework is significantly repetitive, it ceases to be effective and thereon it is boring and a waste of time. We recommend that the weekdays’ homework exercises be ‘new’ – advanced exercises or reading-ahead-of-class – and the weekend/fortnightly homework exercises be repetitive (similar to the ones taught in the past week or fortnight, it is also a good memory development practice). Ensure that the homework is challenging and ‘memory-wise’.
- Homework in the form of ‘complex’ projects and grading them for quality of design, craftsmanship, size, material, ‘complexity’ is a wasted effort on the part of students as well as schools. Complex projects must be carried out in schools in teams and under the guidance of teachers.
The verdict on assessing quality of homework is out and loud – it is poor quality and needs complete overhaul!
