Statistic Research Blog: Homework Gap

Project Tomorrow's Speak Up
I came across one of Project Tomorrow's Speak Up reports entitled How America's Schools are Addressing the Homework Gap: Speak Up 2017 Findings May 2018. Upon reading the statistics on the report, I found myself connecting to it, especially after the week I had. (I'll tell you about it in a minute.) The report discusses and provides evidence about how there are some students who are not completing digital assignments since some families do not have access to the internet outside of school. This situation is called "digital divide." Another issue called the "homework gap" is that the quality of their internet access is not very good which makes it challenging to do work.

According to some statistics from the report, which can be seen below, almost 50% of principals say that a major challenge today is trying to guarantee student access to technology tools outside of school. Additionally, 13% of middle school through high school students say that they cannot complete homework because of not having access to the internet. Furthermore, about half of teachers want to be more reassured that students have access to technology resources in order to incorporate technology in their instruction.

Image Source

Even if 13% of students does not seem like a lot, I still find it significant. This report really struck me this week because since I was out-of-town for part of the week, I assigned digital assignments for my students to complete via Google Classroom while a sub was present in my room. In addition, with several snow days this week due to the cold weather, my principal told all homeroom teachers to assign work through Google Classroom during the snow days to see if we could use those as instructional days in order to not have to make-up any days in June. My students each have their own Chromebooks which is an advantage. However, when I was finally back at school with my students, I had to deal with issues that some students were not able to complete their work because of different internet issues students were experiencing at home, especially during the snow days. I received some parent e-mails confirming this. Part of me feels that some individuals are using this as an excuse to have an extension on some work, but, I do nevertheless believe some of these cases are legitimate. My question is, at what point do we stop excusing some of these instances? While some work could be done using traditional means, other assignments online can be more challenging to make traditional. I guess teachers will just have to deal with this on a case-by-case basis. Even with 5 students not having work complete, it can slow down moving forward with further instruction since teachers have to deal with catching some students up.

Image Source

Also, as the report points out in the caption above, technology leaders predict an increase in online instructional approaches in 2019. With this being the case, how can administrators and teachers make sure students are able to complete work outside of school? Below are some ways that schools are addressing this situation. One that really struck me below is where schools are discouraging homework that is digital or online. To me, 41% is a high number of schools doing this. I guess in a sense I see myself and some of my colleagues shying away from digital homework so as not to deal with this problem. I tried to take advantage of digital work this week since it was convenient for me considering my situation, but I found myself overwhelmed with trying to see what everyone was able to accomplish.

Image Source

Overall, maybe this is a problem that will resolve itself as instruction becomes more and more digital. While schools can do what they can to help students with this situation, maybe it's up to the families and students to figure out ways to get access to the internet in order to make sure they're completing work. If they want to succeed, they'll need to be creative with solving this problem like utilizing resources at a public library or coming in to school early or staying after. I just found this to be an interesting topic to discuss with others in education. What are your  thoughts?