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QUESTIONING HOMEWORK The growing movement against homework in the U.S. challenges the notion that the amount of homework a student is asked to do at home is an indication of rigor, and homework opponents argue that the increasing amount of “busy work” is unnecessarily taking up students’ out-of-school-time. They argue that downtime, free play, and family time are just as important to a child’s social and emotional development as what happens in school. Some research has shown that too much homework has “little to no impact” on student test scores. Other research on how brains work challenges the common method of asking students to practice one discreet skill at home. Overall, there’s a push to reevaluate the kinds of work students are being asked to do at home and to ask whether it adds value to their learning. If the work is repetitive or tangential, it may add no real value, and teachers across the country are starting to institute no-homework policies. Even principals are starting to revolt and schools are instituting “no homework” nights or substituting “goals” for homework.

the solution to the education reform that teachers are looking for, could quite possibly be ... Project-Based Learning.

 If students are engaged in PBL, they can begin creating an ePortfolio in order to demonstrate their learning and understanding of standards, rather than testing for them.

When teachers integrate Project-Based Teaching, they are providing the opportunity for differentiated learning, rather than differentiated instruction.  "Differentiated learning shifts the responsibility for the learning to the learner (where it belongs)"