What future for digital homework: Literature review

Abstract

Digital homework today is an observable fact of school practice, which resulted from the distance learning experience during the COVID-19 pandemic and the development of online platforms that provide EdTech products of this kind. Yet, not enough reflection of this issue has happened so far. The article attempts to summarise recent research on homework to answer the question: what kind of digital homework has the potential to improve teaching and learning? First, the article compares research findings on the effect of homework and homework-related teaching practices to outline deficiencies in three aspects of homework: the quality of homework, the quality of feedback, and autonomy support. Then it demonstrates digital homework variability using the SAMR model. Finally, the author suggests solutions for three named aspects of homework on different levels of the SAMR model. For homework quality, higher levels of technology integration bring new task designs and more complex learning objectives. For feedback quality, it means being able to collect and employ learning data which was impossible earlier. For autonomy support, it makes homework relevant to students’ goals and interests. Recommendations provided might be helpful for the design and development of new educational technologies, as well as for better use of digital homework in teaching practice.