The Engineer’s story: Check your resources.

The most obvious metacognitive resources for homework are generally in the class of learning and memory. A supporting category is motivation, goal setting, and engineering the job.

A common homework task is to take in content knowledge about some small instructional unit and prepare some product that demonstrates effective “understanding” of the content. Understanding is instructionally defined here; in practice, it means that the child becomes able to respond to questions presented by some part of the instructional system.

Here are some Thinkerer pages that may be useful in this context.
Memory Sparks: http://thinkerer.org/Cuepons/CueMemory.htm
Memory tools: http://thinkerer.org/Tools/ToolsMemory.htm
Memory Clipit: http://thinkerer.org/Tools/ToolsMemPage.htm
Memory methods (the 4 doors): http://thinkerer.org/Tools/Tools4DoorMemory.htm
Imagery: http://thinkerer.org/Tools/ToolsImagery.htm

The memory sparks (Cuepons) carry suggestions in card format. We might make up a new set specifically designed for parents to use with children. We might also bring in some characters from the Head Staff.
Head Staff: http://thinkerer.org/HeadOffice/HOffIntro.htm
Characters relevant to homework are:

Hunters: How will you know when you’ve won this game today? How will you know when you have won this game tomorrow?

Engineers: What memory doors will work best for finding the answers you are going to need? What memory tricks might be useful?

Storyboarders: What kind of story can you tell about this topic? What pictures can you see in your head?

Networkers: Connect what you are learning to other things you know: Things you learned earlier in class. Things you learned last year. Things you know from outside of class.

Empaths: How will other people feel about this topic? How do you feel about it? How would you tell other people about this topic?

Learning power-packs: Cooperative learning, cooperation scripts, structured maps, Galton’s walk (fits well with processes and structured maps), mnemonic naming. There are relevant materials on the TCU site. See booklets (pdf) on memory and thought teams: http://www.psy.tcu.edu/acr/skills.htm