Set homework on what you already taught

Homework that introduces new material quietly selects for home advantage: students with a helpful adult and a quiet desk cope, everyone else confirms they 'can't do it'. Keep the frontier in the classroom and make homework rehearsal of what has already been taught. Retrieval is the cheapest win here: recalling material beats re-reading it for retention (Roediger and Karpicke 2006), and a retrieval task needs no help at home, only memory and a few minutes.

In practice

• Make the default format ten quick questions reaching back one week, one month and one term, so the spacing does the work.
• Include the answer key for self-checking; the learning is in the attempt and the correction, not in you marking it.
• Never set tonight's new topic as homework. If a task needs a teacher nearby, it is classwork.
• Short and every time beats long and occasional: fifteen predictable minutes builds the habit that two-hour projects destroy.