Is homework beneficial?

I think individual aptitude and the quality of the work assigned is vastly more important than just chugging along for X hours.

Some students need a lot more practice than others, and many hours of badly-designed drills will be less effective than one fifteen-minute assignment that really gets the point across. (And of course, what gets the point across to each student will vary.)

Right.

Specific homework may or may not be beneficial, depending on the nature of the assignment and the nature of the student.

I am of the opinion that there shouldn't be daily homework assignments for lower grade levels (elementary and middle), except for students who are struggling with specific skills.

Daily reading and weekly projects are good, though.

When it comes to high school, there is a real need to prepare for the testing for many kids. Practice is a necessity, but properly prepared and targeted practice. That may mean daily homework, it may not. Depends on the course, the student, and the teacher still.

IMHO, test scores and grades are not the main reasons for homework. Greater proficiency is. And not only in the subject itself (such as math) but at the type of homework (writing skills, for example) and the methods needed to do the homework (research). But I also agree with the above comments - the benefit of any homework depends greatly on how it's designed.

I used to cry over my math homework almost every night. In high school. It was most definitely not beneficial to me in any way, shape, or form.

Unless you're teaching an ACT prep course or something, the purpose of homework is not to do better on a test but to train a more competent individual.

I never needed to do any homework for Spanish. The teacher was good, I had an aptitude for languages and I soaked it up in seconds with little effort at all. Any homework I did was for fun.

But I struggled with elements of maths like algebra and calculus and the homework was a total waste of time, staring at pages that meant absolutely nothing. The maths teacher droned on at the speed of the fastest.

And naturally, others struggled with Spanish and yet took to maths like ducks to water.

Guess what, I was top of the class in Spanish and way down low at maths. One year the effect of my 96% in Spanish weighted the end of term overall class positions to make me top of the class!!! My father was amazed- bless him.

I think homework should be geared towards needs.

Studies like these don't take account of capability variations in both pupils and individual teachers.

In my opinion (I'm a former special education teacher and have two teenage daughters), homework should be an individualized thing for students who need additional practice on a certain concept or skill. It should not be required for ALL students. And, particularly in the elementary grades, from what I've seen, some homework is more work for the parents than the students; there are some assignments that actually state that parents are required to help their kids with the work. Some parents resent this, especially if they've spent a full day at work and then have to do their kids' homework. Some parents are unable or unwilling to even make the attempt. Which isn't fair to their kids when compared to the students whose parents do everything with them.

In one of my teaching positions, I was required to assign homework for parents to do with their kids. Three of my students were brothers whose father was completely illiterate, to the point that when we had to have him do the special ed paperwork for his sons, he had to sign it with an X. How the hell was he going to do the homework with his sons, or even help them with any assignments that required reading or writing?

My 16-year-old functions academically well above her grade placement, and always has. For her, homework is generally amusing as hell, because she sits down and completes assignments in ten minutes that the teachers say should take an hour. And gets A's on everything. Homework for her is nothing more than "the teachers say I have to, so I do it, but this is stupid."

Sometimes homework is justified with "Having to do this work helps prepare kids for the real world"--how? Some jobs might require employees to bring things home to do, but the only one I can think of where that actually happens a lot is teaching...and that's partly because teachers have to correct and create all the homework that's being assigned. I have a friend who's a paralegal, one who supervises department store renovations, and one who works for a company that builds and maintains corporate websites. None of them ever have to bring any work home. Nor does my husband the professional boat captain. And out of the jobs I've had in my life, the only time I've had to bring work home was when I taught.

There are a lot of reasons I can see that homework does *not* benefit students--or their parents. Or, in some cases, the teachers who only assign it because the school says they have to.

For students that are struggling with a class, homework can be hell. That's why teachers are there, and peer study partners, and tutoring. And yes, lots of jobs don't require "homework" - but schools are not training people to do their work at home. As I said earlier, it's not just the subject matter that homework helps - but learning how to write, learning how to research, learning how to manage time. I had homework from fourth grade on. When I was in high school, I had 2-3 hours of homework each night. I was also in band, choir, school theater, FHA, and worked part-time. I managed an A- average. Amazing how the habits learned held me in good stead throughout my working life and in being a single parent.

I don't remember ever doing homework, except one time when I did some extra reading to study for a history test. We had time during the school day to work on our assignments -- so it may have been considered homework, but I got it done at school.

I graduated 4th in my class.

I dropped out of college in my first quarter because I was told by my professors that unless I could figure out how to write a decent paper, I would never graduate. Ten years later, I went back to college at a community college and took some entry level writing courses. I graduated with a BA when I was 31. A few years later, I took the GRE and was in the 98th percentile -- and was accepted into a master's program in a competitive university.

I watch my grandchildren doing their homework with their parents, and it mostly consists of the parents Googling the answers.

I was elected to the school board in my town -- and what I came to realize is that many, many students do not have parents available to help them. They are working two jobs, or not educated/literate themselves, or are smoking meth or whatever.

Giving teachers the responsibility to assign homework and grade it only seems to cut into the time they could be working with individual students to help them actually learn something.

robeiae said:

Right.

Specific homework may or may not be beneficial, depending on the nature of the assignment and the nature of the student.

I am of the opinion that there shouldn't be daily homework assignments for lower grade levels (elementary and middle), except for students who are struggling with specific skills.

Daily reading and weekly projects are good, though.

When it comes to high school, there is a real need to prepare for the testing for many kids. Practice is a necessity, but properly prepared and targeted practice. That may mean daily homework, it may not. Depends on the course, the student, and the teacher still.

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My daughter is in first grade. She gets a packet of homework on Monday, and has until the following Monday to complete it. I kind of like the freedom to do it that way, but it's a lot if work, IMO. One of the assignments is a nightly reading log, which we've loved. She's supposed to read for thirty minutes each night, do word work every night, and them one worksheet every night, including weekends. I did the math and it's about 1-1.5 hours each night, depending on student speed.

She came home with the packet yesterday and finished every worksheet, except The nightly logs of course. She's excited about homework, but only time will tell if the excitement will remain, or be replaced with burnout down the road.

Homework is a vital part of education. It's not useful only if you have bad teachers or assignments that have no relation to classes or if it's assigned as a substitute for teaching.

But if you're a history teacher, when you assign a chapter to be read in the history book so that the teacher and class can discuss it the next day what could possibly be wrong with that?

If an English teacher goes over in class the basics of how to do a synopsis (or as we called it in my day a précis) how in the world is that going to do you any good unless you go home and attempt to write one?

If you're a music student how in the world are you going to gain proficiency on an instrument without working on it outside of class. If you're in school we call that homework; if you're not it's called practice – something that every musician on the world needs to do to obtain proficiency.

I don't doubt that homework has little to do with obtaining good test scores. But it has everything to do with gaining a good education.

Loading up kids in middle school with homework is ridiculous. But by the time you reach high school you'd better be willing to put in the time doing homework or you'll never make it at the college level.

Of course, if you believe that kids should only spend time on subjects that interest them and they're good at that's one theory of education. Just a really bad one, imo.

As a teacher (and someone who specifically studied topics like this in grad school), I'd say that yes, homework is important for two main reasons. One, it gives the student a quick refresher on what is being studied and helps with memory, and two, that it is a way for the student to independently work on an assignment and see how well they truly understand (and help the teacher to see!).

That being said, I really think it depends on the amount and quality. I think having too much is detrimental, and that having busy work is pretty pointless.

I do agree that homework shouldn't be for a test, but for overall comprehension. I think much of our educational system is not actually set up for the latter, homework included, which is a problem.

kaitie said:

That being said, I really think it depends on the amount and quality. I think having too much is detrimental, and that having busy work is pretty pointless.

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I disagree, partially. There's some rote memorization homework that I think is an essential element of learning basic lessons that might qualify as "busy work." I've heard that term used for memorizing multiplication tables, for one. But I think memorizing up to twelve is useful.

That, or Schoolhouse Rock.

rugcat said:

If you're a music student how in the world are you going to gain proficiency on an instrument without working on it outside of class. If you're in school we call that homework; if you're not it's called practice – something that every musician on the world needs to do to obtain proficiency.

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Pretty sure we called that practice when we were in school too.

justJM said:

I saw a demo of a really unique way of teaching that was interesting to me. Homework was watching a recorded lecture/demonstration by the teacher and taking notes of any questions or important points. Then the classroom time was devoted to working problems or questions that reinforced the lesson with the teacher assisting, commenting, correcting, and affirming during the application exercises during classtime.

That seemed very smart to me. I'd love to see it in practice.

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I think it's a very effective method. My department is using it in some of our service courses aimed at students in other disciplines.

I also think it's very helpful for students to have time to help each other on homework assignments in class. It reinforces the material and provides good experience for those who know it well and help teach the other students, and the students who are behind still get help one-on-one when the teacher is helping another student.

I think practice in anything that you need to do on your own is important. I also think that homework should help kids learn to do work on their own when they'd rather be goofing off, so practice in class is not going to help with that skill.

We had way too much homework as kids, and it was ridiculous, but it did teach me how to do something boring and unpleasant on my own for large chunks of time. That certainly helped for the workplace, too! There were lots of other benefits, of course, but the ability to put my own nose to the grindstone was honestly probably the biggest.

I think homework can been used as a really good indicator of the schooling itself. Some of my kids best teachers required homework, some of their other best teachers didn't.

A bigger issue, I think, is that if you're entrusting your kid to a teacher whose system requires homework, make sure the child has the place and time to do it properly. At the very least, they'll be learning that life includes things that have to be done well whether or not they're fun or rewarding or even make sense. At most, if the teacher is good, they're providing an opportunity for the kind of personal enrichment that means fewer parents would be complaining that their kids "don't get anything out of school."

I'm in favour of homework to the extent that it isn't entirely and obviously wasteful. But if it was wasteful, irredeemably and always wasteful, I'd probably be wanting my child to change class.

shadowwalker said:

For students that are struggling with a class, homework can be hell. That's why teachers are there, and peer study partners, and tutoring. And yes, lots of jobs don't require "homework" - but schools are not training people to do their work at home. As I said earlier, it's not just the subject matter that homework helps - but learning how to write, learning how to research, learning how to manage time. I had homework from fourth grade on. When I was in high school, I had 2-3 hours of homework each night. I was also in band, choir, school theater, FHA, and worked part-time. I managed an A- average. Amazing how the habits learned held me in good stead throughout my working life and in being a single parent.

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Agree. However, these days the amount of homework assigned is outrageous. I can totally see how the poster above you said their daughter's time was just homework and one extracurricular activity. I think homework is beneficial. Practice helps you to retain the information. But schools go overboard now. Or at least the textbooks have WAY TOO MANY problems. I remember when I was in high school the math textbook had over 100 problems for each chapter. This was the harder stuff, like graphs and trigonometry. My teacher was nice and just told us to do odd/evens, but literally hours were spent on homework, between that and other subjects. I'd get home at 3, do homework until 10. And I'd say academically I was above average. Poor kids these days. Too much emphasis is put on learning academically, but kids need to also learn about life. A lot of kids now are really smart, but they lack common sense, because they're not given the opportunity to experience life.

I don't agree about having homework for just those who need it. How are the teachers going to judge who needs it, especially at the beginning when they don't know the student yet? If anything, standardized tests would be used. I wouldn't be surprised if people started accusing about favoritism too. It's easier to just assign across the board. If you're good at the subject, you'll get it done faster. If you're poor at the subject, there's your indication that you need the homework. And also, even if you're good at the subject, the homework will give you the practice for you to retain the information. Like languages. If you don't use it, eventually you get rusty.

And homework is the time for you to practice what you've learned. The time in class should be spent on learning new material.

I'm very against homework for younger students because their ability to complete it is so dependent on their parents' situation. If they don't have parents who are able to help them, or time or space in which to do the homework, then they are penalized.
If this continues for years, eventually they will end up falling further and further behind the students who have parents actively helping them. This creates a gap between impoverished students and their peers that doesn't need to be there.

Homework which encourages students to read, particularly with a family member, is good for everyone, but only if it is monitored and bolstered if the family isn't willing or able to do it.

(In one class I had a five year old whose seven year old brother listened to her read when their parents were busy and would sign off his opinion about how wonderful she was... so cute and good for both of them.)

The other exception I would make is for research, like those times when you might want students to do something at home they couldn't at school (the example I'm thinking of is interviewing a grandparent) but again, I think it is the teacher's responsibility to ensure that all students have an equal opportunity to complete any homework of this nature and be prepared to provide resources for those who don't.

Older students are less dependent on their parents to provide suitable help and/or conditions for schoolwork, but even then care should be taken to ensure that students aren't expected to, for example, research extensively on a computer when they don't have regular access to one.

lastlittlebird said:

I'm very against homework for younger students because their ability to complete it is so dependent on their parents' situation. If they don't have parents who are able to help them, or time or space in which to do the homework, then they are penalized.
If this continues for years, eventually they will end up falling further and further behind the students who have parents actively helping them. This creates a gap between impoverished students and their peers that doesn't need to be there.

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I know what you mean here, but I think it's not the best way to deal with the problems of equality. It's a very valid point, but I think it's better to provide more opportunity and support for the kids who need it, rather than corralling the opportunity for everyone.

The idea that if you can't do homework and whatever and be in college is pretty ridiculous. By the time I was a junior and senior in high school, 5/6 of my classes were AP classes which were supposedly college level. I spent much, much more time on school stuff in high school than in college. The fact of the matter is that high school requires your presence about 7 hours a day while a normal college in-class time is 13-18 hours a week. If these classes were actually structured like college classes, you'd have actual learning in class ~3 hours a week for each class and the other days you would be able to work on all the assigned work.

Yeah, I was one of those students who between class and homework didn't have time for a job, but when I got to college having a 15hr/wk part time job was easy. There's really something wrong with the way homework is usually assigned in high school, at least when I was there, and from the students I tutor it sounds like it's only gotten worse.

I think it depends on the subject.

My husband swears by it in physics. He says there's no way to get the students to practice the problem-solving techniques without giving them actual homework assignments he collects and grades (which eats up an enormous amount of his free time on weekends and so on), especially when he's got a first semester class.

In biology, my results are more mixed. I have them do two or three short papers over the course of the semester, but it's more to broaden their outlook and show them how biology is integral to many of the issues of the day (since the class is called Contemporary Biology, this is a focus), rather than getting them to practice the stuff that's on the test. I used to try and get them to turn in vocabulary lists and to answer questions that were similar to exam questions as assignments, with the rationale that it would get them to study more, but I saw absolutely no benefit when it came to test performance. In fact, I think they were more likely to just rush through the homework, turn it in, and assume they'd studied the material enough (when I was hoping it would show them where said material was in their reading and notes and encourage them to return to it when reviewing for exams).

We teach college, of course. I don't know what it's like for K-12 these days, but I hear kids get a lot more homework than we did. When I was in grade school we had almost no homework aside from things like book reports and research papers (and those projects where you'd build a mission out of Styrofoam or a volcano out of paper maiche). We did most of our math and reading practice in school, if I remember correctly. In high school we had homework sets we had to do for some classes (math in particular), and weekly papers for English, and more sporadic papers for other classes, but I don't remember it taking a ridiculous amount of time outside of school.

It seems like elaborate take-home homework assignments might be an issue for younger kids, because the ones with parents who can help them will have a huge advantage over kids whose families don't have any academic types. And also, I've heard that sleep deprivation can become an issue when kids have too much homework (little kids, in particular need something like 10-11 hours a night of sleep, and they rarely get that anymore) and all those extracurricular and structured social activities that seem to be the norm these days. High school kids tend to be underslept too, though that's often due to too many extracurricular activities and after school jobs (when I was a kid, you had to be 16 to get a "real" job, and even so, the hours you could work on school days was strictly limited. That seems to be out the window now).