Research Spotlight on Homework Essay

Some investigators argon spur schools to take a fresh look at grooming and its strength for engaging scholars and improving educatee performance. The key, they say, is to take into account grade-specific and developmental factors when find the amount and kind of cookery. So, whats appropriate? What welfares potentiometer be expect? What makes for good readying policies? Research doesnt collapse all the answers, that a review of some existing data yields some implemental observations and guidance.How Much Homework Do Students Do?Survey data and anecdotal evidence show that some students spend hours nightly doing foundationwork. Homework gazump is the exception rather than the norm however, according to enquiry from the Brookings Institution and the Rand wad (see the Brown Center 2003 below). Their researchers analyzed data from a variety of beginnings and cerebrate that the majority of U.S. students spend less than an hour a day on homework, touch onless of grade level, and this has held true for most of the past 50 years. In the last 20 years, homework has increased only in the gl atomic tote up 18 grade levels, and this increase is associated with neutral (and some terms negative) effects on student achievement.How Much Is Appropriate?The National PTA recommendations fall in line with institution(a) guidelines suggested by researcher Harris Cooper 10-20 minutes per night in the head start grade, and an additional 10 minutes per grade level thereafter (e.g., 20 minutes for second grade, 120 minutes for twelfth). High school students may some whiles do more than, depending on what classes they take (see Review of educational Research, 2006).What argon the benefits?Homework unremarkably falls into one of three categories practice, preparation, or extension. The subroutine usually varies by grade. Individualized assignments that tap into students existing skills or followings can be motivating. At the elementary school level, homew ork can answer students develop study skills and habits and can keep families informed almost their churls look outing. At the secondary school level, student homework is associated with great donnish achievement. (Review of Educational Research, 2006)Whats good policy?Experts advise schools or districts to include teachers, parents, and students in all effort to set homework policies. Policies should palm the purposes of homework amount and frequency school and teacher responsibilities student responsibilities and, the mapping of parents or former(a)s who assist students with homework. destination Cooper, H. (2003). A synthesis of research. Review of Educational Reseach, volume 76, Retrieved January 09, 2013, from http//www.nea.org/tools/16938.htm Reasons wherefore students should not have homeworkHomework is hypothetic to ensure that all students retain the material covered in the classroom, further for m whatsoever another(prenominal) children it is an unessential ch ore and actually hinders their learning. Children learn best when they are chaseed in the subject. Positive mental attitude makes learning level(p) challenging things a lot easier. Negative mental attitude, however, makes retaining knowledge harder and creates nervous strain in a learner. It also takes much longer periods of time to complete. As a result children hardly have any time to develop their talents through extracurricular activities, or to spend adequate time with family and friends. Instead of existence burdened with much resented huge loads of homework, children should have the opportunity for more self-directed and interactive learning at school to generate their interest and build in them positive attitude towards learning.Teachers should be more creative and use multimedia like computers and video presentations to make covered subjects more engaging involving childrens input more. Students should be allowed to suggest activities and projects they would like t o do. In the present school system it is usually the teacher who decides what and how children should learn in class and at home. This promotes passivity and a sense that learning is a necessary evil rather than exiting opportunity to learn nigh the world we live in. This is very ineffective, making kids bored, stressed, and frustrated. Not to mention that it is often parents who do the reluctant kids homework therefore homework doesnt help them to learn at all. They get their grades, but end up having learning gaps that go out come out later on and hinder their success.Children who are assay themselves with loads of homework lack the time to develop other than academic passions and experience very unhealty stress that cen result level off in a depression. The numbers of children who take antidepressants is rapidly growing. Students who are defiant about their homework often have very strained relationship with their parents. It is a source of contention in too many families and contributes to deep emotional jobs in these children and also inevitably may cause depression and substance abuse.The mature of kids taking street drugs is getting lower and lower. Children as young as ten in some countries have a drinking problem and homework overload can be an indirect cause of that. That is why I think students should not have homework, but be sufficient to have enjoyable learning experience at school and granting immunity to be encouraged by the teacher to expand their knowledge on their own terms at home, and to be rewarded for the extra effort or else of being forced to do homework they dont like.ReferenceTehrani, E. (2009). Reasons why students should not have homework. Retrieved January 09, 2013, from http//www.helium.com/items/1309973-why-students-shoul-not-have-homework The Truth About HomeworkIn high school, some studies do find a correlation amidst homework and test scores (or grades), but its usually clean small, and it has a tendency to disappe ar when more sophisticated statistical controls are applied. Moreover, theres no evidence that higher achievement is referable to the homework even when an association does appear. It isnt hard to think of other explanations for why successful students capacity be in classrooms where more homework is assignedor why they might spend more time on it than their peers do.The results of national and international exams raise further doubts. One of many examples is an analysis of 1994 and 1999 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, or TIMSS, data from 50 countries. Researchers David P. Baker and Gerald K. LeTendre were scarcely able to conceal their surprise when they publish their results last year Not only did we fail to find any positive relationships, they wrote, but the overall correlations between national average student achievement and national averages in amount of homework assigned are all negative. get by the assumption that homework should be beneficial just because it gives students more time to master a topic or skill. (Plenty of pundits rely on this exposit when they call for extending the school day or year. Indeed, homework can be seen as a way of prolonging the school day on the cheap.) Unfortunately, this think turns out to be woefully simplistic. Back when experimental psychologists mainly analyze words and nonsense syllables, it was thought that learning inevitably depended upon time, the filming researcher Richard C.Anderson and his colleagues explain. But subsequent research suggests that this belief is false. The statement People adopt time to learn things is true, of course, but it doesnt tell us much of practical value. On the other hand, the assertion More time usually unfolds to better learning is considerably more interesting. Its also demonstrably untrue, however, because there are enough cases where more time doesnt lead to better learning.In fact, more hours are least likely to catch better offsprings when u nderstanding or creativity is involved. Anderson and his associates found that when children are taught to read by focusing on the meaning of the text (rather than primarily on phonetic skills), their learning does not depend on amount of instructional time. In math, too, as another group of researchers discovered, time on tax is directly correlated to achievement only if both the activity and the outcome measure are focused on rote recall as opposed to problem-solving.Carole Ames of Michigan State University points out that it isnt quantitative changes in behaviorsuch as requiring students to spend more hours in calculate of books or worksheetsthat help children learn better. Rather, its qualitative changes in the slipway students view themselves in relation to the task, engage in the process of learning, and and then respond to the learning activities and situation. In turn, these attitudes and responses emerge from the way teachers think about learning and, as a result, how t hey organize their classrooms. Assigning homework is tall(a) to have a positive effect on any of these variables. We might say that education is less about how much the teacher covers than about what students can be helped to discoverand more time wont help to bring about that shift.Regardless of ones criteria, there is no reason to think that most students would be at any sort of dis expediency if homework were sharply reduced or even eliminated. But even if practice is sometimes useful, were not authorise to conclude that homework of this type works for most students. It isnt of any use for those who dont understand what theyre doing. Such homework makes them feel stupid gets them accustomed to doing things the wrong way (because whats rightfully reinforced are mistaken assumptions) and teaches them to conceal what they dont know. At the same time, other students in the same class already have the skill down cold, so further practice for them is a fumble of time.Youve got some kids, then, who dont need the practice, and others who cant use it. Furthermore, even if practice were helpful for most students, that wouldnt mean they undeniable to do it at home. In my research, I found a number of superb teachers (at different grade levels and with diverse instructional styles) who rarely, if ever, found it necessary to assign homework. Some not only didnt feel a need to make students read, write, or do math at home they preferred to have students do these things during class, where it was workable to observe, guide, and discuss. Finally, any theoretical benefit of practice homework must be weighed against the effect it has on students interest in learning.If slogging through worksheets dampens ones desire to read or think, surely that wouldnt be worth an incremental improvement in skills. And when an activity feels like drudgery, the quality of learning tends to suffer, too. That so many children regard homework as something to finish as quickly as possibleo r even as a significant source of stresshelps explain why it appears not to offer any academic advantage even for those who obediently sit down and complete the tasks theyve been assigned. All that research showing little value to homework may not be so surprising after all.ReferenceKohn, A. (2006). The truth about homework. Retrieved January 09, 2013, fromhttp//www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2006/09/06/02kohn.h26.html?tkn=RVRFTkNGGXy32nbQpdGsSFt01V8aHU5cZ3wG