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Is Homework Necessary for Student Success?

Readers argue both sides, citing Finland, the value of repetition, education inequity and more.

To the Editor:

Re “ The Movement to End Homework Is Wrong ,” by Jay Caspian Kang (Sunday Opinion, July 31):

Finland proves that you don’t need homework for education success. Students there have hardly any homework, and it has one of the top education systems in the world. In America, there is ample time for students to do in class what is now assigned as homework.

Whether a student attends an expensive private school, an underserved public school or something in between, being burdened with hours of additional work to do after school unnecessarily robs them of time for play, introspection, creative thinking, relaxation and intellectual growth.

Mr. Kang regards the demonstration of diligence and personal responsibility as an important raison d’être of homework. He sees schools as places where students can distinguish themselves and pursue upward mobility. But ranking students on homework production favors students with quiet places to go home to, good Wi-Fi, and access to tutors and parents who can provide help. In other words, it favors students of higher socioeconomic status.

It follows that making homework an important part of a student’s evaluation perpetuates both educational inequalities and the myth of meritocracy. A first step toward improving our educational system is indeed the abolition of homework.

Dorshka Wylie Washington The writer is an assistant professor of mathematics at the University of the District of Columbia.

Homework’s value is unclear for younger students. But by high school and college, homework is absolutely essential for any student who wishes to excel. There simply isn’t time to digest Dostoyevsky if you only ever read him in class.

In both my own education and my 20-year career as an educator, I’ve observed that those students who spend the most time on homework tend to learn the most and earn the best grades. And this is no less true for athletes and musicians. Top performers have often spent far more time perfecting their crafts than their lesser competitors.

This isn’t to deny natural talent or to suggest that everybody starts from the same spot, but it is to say that what matters most is putting in the hours. As Jay Caspian Kang notes, “Kids need to learn how to practice things.”

Simone Biles became the greatest gymnast ever by training seven hours a day, six days a week . Lang Lang made it to Carnegie Hall at age 18 after practicing piano six hours a day starting when he was 5 years old. Steph Curry is the greatest shooter in N.B.A. history precisely because he puts up 300 to 500 shots every day . The recipe is surprisingly simple: Outwork others. It’s much harder than it sounds.

Justin Snider New York The writer is an assistant dean at Columbia University, where he also teaches undergraduate writing.

In my own practice as a high school mathematics teacher, I explored why students were not doing homework in certain classes and discovered that many of them were having difficulty doing the problems. When I “flipped” my classroom, I started assigning simple introductory videos for homework and doing the harder problems in class.

Students get credit for watching and doing the problems in the video. Then in class, they are better prepared to work on more difficult problems. This significantly increased the percentage of homework doers.

In other cases, I create an after-school “homework clinic” where I can guide students in how to approach the work, and how to judge if they have done enough. Sometimes groups of students come together to a homework clinic and enjoy helping one another.

I don’t think about homework as something that must be done “at home”; I think of it as an opportunity for a student to work independently, and to explore and practice new ideas.

This is one approach to improving equity without lowering cognitive demand.

Joyce Leslie Highland Park, N.J.

Telling students that “a lot of work you’re going to end up doing in your life is pointless” is an absurd justification for repetitive, mindless homework.

Allen Berger Savannah, Ga. The writer is emeritus professor of reading and writing at Miami University (Ohio).

I see why Jay Caspian Kang can’t imagine a school that could educate children well without relying on homework, ranking, sorting and other trappings of meritocracy. Most people in our society have never seen such a thing. But some schools do provide a rigorous education that strengthens personal responsibility and skill mastery without emphasizing who is better than whom — and even without homework.

To see this in action, I encourage Mr. Kang to visit any of the powerful public Montessori schools serving low-income communities across our nation. And yes, many Montessori schools take a minimal approach to homework. Instead, they make time for children to struggle with challenging concepts and independently practice new skills during the school day.

Annie Frazer Decatur, Ga. The writer is executive director of Montessori Partnerships for Georgia.

I agree with Jay Caspian Kang that one value of homework is for a student to independently practice a skill until mastery, and I recognize the issue of equity when homework is assessed for students from “disadvantaged” homes. However, there is another important benefit to homework that can bolster social mobility.

Homework gives students the opportunity to practice responsibility, which arguably is an important “soft skill” that will pay off later in the work force. In the classroom, students practice compliance: doing what the teacher says. Homework provides students with agency to practice time management (remembering to do a task and making time to do it) and materials management (taking home the right notebook and bringing it back on time).

To ensure an equal playing field, teachers can directly teach these skills by providing strategies to students who may not have adults at home to do so. Schools can further support students by providing unstructured time for students to do this homework independently with supervision (free period, study hall, after school, etc.). Learning responsibility should be the fourth R.

Barbara Richman Hawthorne, N.Y.

Does homework really work?

by: Leslie Crawford | Updated: December 12, 2023

Print article

You know the drill. It’s 10:15 p.m., and the cardboard-and-toothpick Golden Gate Bridge is collapsing. The pages of polynomials have been abandoned. The paper on the Battle of Waterloo seems to have frozen in time with Napoleon lingering eternally over his breakfast at Le Caillou. Then come the tears and tantrums — while we parents wonder, Does the gain merit all this pain? Is this just too much homework?

However the drama unfolds night after night, year after year, most parents hold on to the hope that homework (after soccer games, dinner, flute practice, and, oh yes, that childhood pastime of yore known as playing) advances their children academically.

But what does homework really do for kids? Is the forest’s worth of book reports and math and spelling sheets the average American student completes in their 12 years of primary schooling making a difference? Or is it just busywork?

Homework haterz

Whether or not homework helps, or even hurts, depends on who you ask. If you ask my 12-year-old son, Sam, he’ll say, “Homework doesn’t help anything. It makes kids stressed-out and tired and makes them hate school more.”

Nothing more than common kid bellyaching?

Maybe, but in the fractious field of homework studies, it’s worth noting that Sam’s sentiments nicely synopsize one side of the ivory tower debate. Books like The End of Homework , The Homework Myth , and The Case Against Homework the film Race to Nowhere , and the anguished parent essay “ My Daughter’s Homework is Killing Me ” make the case that homework, by taking away precious family time and putting kids under unneeded pressure, is an ineffective way to help children become better learners and thinkers.

One Canadian couple took their homework apostasy all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. After arguing that there was no evidence that it improved academic performance, they won a ruling that exempted their two children from all homework.

So what’s the real relationship between homework and academic achievement?

How much is too much?

To answer this question, researchers have been doing their homework on homework, conducting and examining hundreds of studies. Chris Drew Ph.D., founder and editor at The Helpful Professor recently compiled multiple statistics revealing the folly of today’s after-school busy work. Does any of the data he listed below ring true for you?

• 45 percent of parents think homework is too easy for their child, primarily because it is geared to the lowest standard under the Common Core State Standards .

• 74 percent of students say homework is a source of stress , defined as headaches, exhaustion, sleep deprivation, weight loss, and stomach problems.

• Students in high-performing high schools spend an average of 3.1 hours a night on homework , even though 1 to 2 hours is the optimal duration, according to a peer-reviewed study .

Not included in the list above is the fact many kids have to abandon activities they love — like sports and clubs — because homework deprives them of the needed time to enjoy themselves with other pursuits.

Conversely, The Helpful Professor does list a few pros of homework, noting it teaches discipline and time management, and helps parents know what’s being taught in the class.

The oft-bandied rule on homework quantity — 10 minutes a night per grade (starting from between 10 to 20 minutes in first grade) — is listed on the National Education Association’s website and the National Parent Teacher Association’s website , but few schools follow this rule.

Do you think your child is doing excessive homework? Harris Cooper Ph.D., author of a meta-study on homework , recommends talking with the teacher. “Often there is a miscommunication about the goals of homework assignments,” he says. “What appears to be problematic for kids, why they are doing an assignment, can be cleared up with a conversation.” Also, Cooper suggests taking a careful look at how your child is doing the assignments. It may seem like they’re taking two hours, but maybe your child is wandering off frequently to get a snack or getting distracted.

Less is often more

If your child is dutifully doing their work but still burning the midnight oil, it’s worth intervening to make sure your child gets enough sleep. A 2012 study of 535 high school students found that proper sleep may be far more essential to brain and body development.

For elementary school-age children, Cooper’s research at Duke University shows there is no measurable academic advantage to homework. For middle-schoolers, Cooper found there is a direct correlation between homework and achievement if assignments last between one to two hours per night. After two hours, however, achievement doesn’t improve. For high schoolers, Cooper’s research suggests that two hours per night is optimal. If teens have more than two hours of homework a night, their academic success flatlines. But less is not better. The average high school student doing homework outperformed 69 percent of the students in a class with no homework.

Many schools are starting to act on this research. A Florida superintendent abolished homework in her 42,000 student district, replacing it with 20 minutes of nightly reading. She attributed her decision to “ solid research about what works best in improving academic achievement in students .”

More family time

A 2020 survey by Crayola Experience reports 82 percent of children complain they don’t have enough quality time with their parents. Homework deserves much of the blame. “Kids should have a chance to just be kids and do things they enjoy, particularly after spending six hours a day in school,” says Alfie Kohn, author of The Homework Myth . “It’s absurd to insist that children must be engaged in constructive activities right up until their heads hit the pillow.”

By far, the best replacement for homework — for both parents and children — is bonding, relaxing time together.

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Homework: what's helpful and what isn't

As legend has it, an Italian teacher named Roberto Nevilis invented a form of punishment for students who misbehaved in his class in 1905: He called it “homework.”

This origin of homework is apocryphal, but homework itself has become ubiquitous in American schools and the debate about whether it is a help or a hindrance rages on. As a newer teacher, you may be familiar with where research has landed on the link between homework and student achievement (it’s unclear), who benefits from homework (older students more than younger ones) and how much homework is optimal (10 minutes per grade is a standard rule of thumb).

If you haven’t already developed a personal homework philosophy, it can be helpful to devote some time to considering the practical value of the homework you plan to assign and the logistics around its submission and grading. As you do so, keep in mind these “three Ds” of what homework should allow students to do:

Demonstrate knowledge . It’s easy to assign homework that can feel more like busy work. “Giving students homework that involves drill and practice is often said to ‘reinforce’ the skills they’ve been taught in class ... [but] practicing doesn’t create understanding,” writes author and progressive educator Alfie Kohn in his book “The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing.” Students who struggle with a particular math concept in class, for instance, are unlikely to develop an understanding of it by completing a page of equations for homework. Conversely, students who have mastered the concept at school probably get little benefit from that page of equations either. Homework should allow students to demonstrate what they understand (or don’t) about a topic in a meaningful way. Instead of solving variations on the same problem, for instance, ask students to analyze an equation that was solved incorrectly and explain where the mathematician went wrong.

Develop and apply their skills. Homework doesn’t have to be a one-off worksheet or an opportunity to “cram kids’ heads with facts for tomorrow’s tests that they’re going to forget by next week,” as Kohn puts it. If you extend the timeframe students have to complete assignments, you’ll give them the chance to reinforce their learning over time — and you’ll likely be able to give them more meaningful feedback. “We assign homework to set strong expectations of continuing research outside our regular social studies period,” says Ted Ganung, a teacher at Renaissance School of the Arts in East Harlem. Folding in homework on longer-term projects also helps students hone time management skills.

Differentiate their own learning from their peers. Your students aren’t identical in terms of their abilities, their interests and their understanding — so their homework shouldn’t necessarily be identical, either. “I feel homework is a chance for students to take full ownership of their learning,” says Andriana Xenophontos, an English teacher at Martin Van Buren HS in Queens Village. She gives her students a “choice board” from which they select one in-depth assignment per week, like a character analysis or a topic to research and reflect on.

In the upper grades, a choice between assignments gives students both the freedom to pursue a particular interest or medium and the agency to bolster their self-awareness of their strengths and challenges. In younger grades, differentiated assignments can help students reinforce particular skills or deepen their understanding.

Articles on Homework

Displaying 1 - 20 of 34 articles.

ChatGPT isn’t the death of homework – just an opportunity for schools to do things differently

Andy Phippen , Bournemouth University

How can I make studying a daily habit?

Deborah Reed , University of Tennessee

Debate: ChatGPT offers unseen opportunities to sharpen students’ critical skills

Erika Darics , University of Groningen and Lotte van Poppel , University of Groningen

Education in Kenya’s informal settlements can work better if parents get involved – here’s how

Benta A. Abuya , African Population and Health Research Center

‘There’s only so far I can take them’ – why teachers give up on struggling students who don’t do their homework

Jessica Calarco , Indiana University and Ilana Horn , Vanderbilt University

Talking with your teen about high school helps them open up about big (and little) things in their lives

Lindsey Jaber , University of Windsor

Primary school children get little academic benefit from homework

Paul Hopkins , University of Hull

How much time should you spend studying? Our ‘Goldilocks Day’ tool helps find the best balance of good grades and  well-being

Dot Dumuid , University of South Australia and Tim Olds , University of South Australia

What’s the point of homework?

Katina Zammit , Western Sydney University

4 tips for college students to avoid procrastinating with their online work

Kui Xie , The Ohio State University and Shonn Cheng , Sam Houston State University

Online learning will be hard for kids whose schools close – and the digital divide will make it even harder for some of them

Jessica Calarco , Indiana University

How to help your kids with homework (without doing it for them)

Melissa Barnes , Monash University and Katrina Tour , Monash University

6 ways to establish a productive homework routine

Janine L. Nieroda-Madden , Syracuse University

Should parents help their kids with homework?

Daniel Hamlin , University of Oklahoma

Is homework worthwhile?

Robert H. Tai , University of Virginia

Teachers’ expectations help students to work harder, but can also reduce enjoyment and confidence – new research

Lars-Erik Malmberg , University of Oxford and Andrew J. Martin , UNSW Sydney

More primary schools could scrap homework – a former classroom teacher’s view

Lorele Mackie , University of Stirling

Modern life offers children almost everything they need, except daylight

Vybarr Cregan-Reid , University of Kent

Why students need more ‘math talk’

Matthew Campbell , West Virginia University and Johnna Bolyard , West Virginia University

Neuroscience is unlocking mysteries of the teenage brain

Lucy Foulkes, University of York

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What Will The Future of Homework Look Like?

Author: Ben Greenwood

Posted: 21 Jun 2021

Estimated time to read: 7 mins

The aim of homework has always been to increase students’ academic ability. But with a raft of research now showing that there’s much more to this than classroom teaching and tests, could the future of homework ring in a new era for extracurricular learning? 

Homework in the 21st century is a far cry from the black and white photocopies of textbook pages that I experienced when I was at school. Both technology and attitudes have moved on since then. 

The modern student has never known a time without the internet or smartphones. This is often posed as a negative (the stereotype of the screen-obsessed teenager springs to mind here). But with around 82% of job roles now requiring some form of technological ability , being a digital native has become a huge advantage in the modern job market. 

The challenge for schools then is to harness these skills and apply them to learning and homework. To teach students that their ability to learn how to use a new OS in a couple of minutes or find a way around the school’s firewall can be applied to other academic subjects too. 

It’s about drawing the real world and the academic world together with the power of tech and mentorship. And it doesn’t have to be as complex as it sounds!

What needs to change with present-day homework 

It has its critics, but homework can be a really useful tool for students, not just academically, but for wider life skills too. But when assignments have been thrown together simply to satisfy the school’s homework policy, it’s likely that the student isn’t going to get a lot out of it.

Good homework assignments need to have a purpose and to add value to the student’s learning journey. Instead of dismissing homework as a relic of the past, we need to look at it as an ever-changing, evolving practice. 

Beneath the workings of an electric car, you’ll still find the same brakes, wheels and chassis designs that have been around for decades. Why? Because they work. All they needed to bring them into the 21st century was a little innovation around them - homework is the same.

By using the technology and new pedagogical ideas of the present day, we can give our students a new and refreshing take on homework. 

How tech is used for homework

One common criticism of technology in homework is that it can be a distraction or a hurdle to the lesson the teacher is trying to teach. This is sometimes true. Students like to get their hands on tech, it’s what they’re comfortable with. So when given the opportunity to use it, without a meaningful and challenging goal, they will likely use it for something else. 

A more considered approach to using tech is needed. Whilst we know how powerful online learning platforms are, students still need to learn within their physical environment too. With young people today spending more time online than ever before, real-world learning is crucial to their development. 

Some schools have begun setting homework, delivered online or via an online learning app, that suggests activities like chess with an adult or reading for an hour at home. Whilst this might seem basic or trivial, these activities help students to get back in touch with their physical environment. 

Balancing home and school life

The pandemic fast-forwarded attitudes to distance learning and blended learning. This meant what was previously a pipedream for schools, successful home learning, quickly became a reality. 

That’s not to say that we should all switch to distance learning and close the schools, we’d have some pretty unhappy parents to deal with if we did. And despite the success of distance learning, the benefits of classroom learning still outweigh learning from home. Teacher-led learning is not something we should be trying to replace. What it did show is that our approach to home learning in regards to homework was out of date. 

In March 2020, whole timetables were pushed online. Students learnt from pre-recorded videos and interactive webinars. It proved that students can learn at home effectively. This strengthens the argument for flipped learning as a realistic approach. 

By giving students the tools they need to learn successfully at home, we can better prepare them for classroom learning and even change the way we weight lessons in favour of home or school. But don’t be tempted to make an onus out of home learning - studies have found that too much homework (more than 2 hours per day) can be counterproductive to a student’s development.

Giving teachers the freedom to create 

Two things limit a teacher’s ability to create engaging and exciting homework tasks:

• Inflexible homework policies 
• Lack of time

We know that our teachers are passionate about teaching and that they spill that passion into their work. If they aren’t creating engaging homework tasks, it’s not because they don’t want to. 

The confines of the school’s homework policy, or a lack of time to create meaningful tasks, means that teachers often have to use quick and easy tasks copied from teacher message boards, or crusty old worksheets from another age.

By saving teachers time and by giving them the flexibility to create the kind of homework they see fit, you allow internal development to flourish in your school. Then, through homework workshops and sharing best practice sessions, you can ensure that the very best ideas are replicated throughout school.

This makes for more engaged students, happier teachers and a more successful and transparent school. 

What we can do to make homework better serve students

- more flexibility for teachers.

Teachers need the freedom to create engaging tasks, to be part of the changing tides in the education system. Post pandemic education is going to be quite different to what we knew before, and the people who are there to guide our students through it need to be able to adapt and evolve with the times.

Allowing teachers to be more flexible might include: 

• More working from home
• Setting adequate allotted time for lesson creation during the working day 
• Allowing more freedom with homework tasks - mixing academic and life skills
• Promoting sharing tasks and best practices between colleagues

Make school tech ‘invisible’ 

Tech makes learning more accessible and has improved school organisation, parental engagement and students’ accountability. Homework tracking software keeps tabs on who has completed their homework and even gives schools access to detailed analytics so they can fine-tune their approach.

But with so much tech at our fingertips, it's easy to get carried away. Just because you can set an online ebook version of An Inspector Calls, doesn’t necessarily mean you should. Blue light can be damaging to our eyes, but on a deeper level than that, students are missing out on the physical activity of reading. 

School tech has dramatically improved the way we work in schools - there’s no denying it. But we shouldn’t let it seep into every aspect of teaching. As Chris Lehman, pioneer of the school 2.0 movement, puts it, “Technology [in schools] must be like oxygen; ubiquitous, necessary and invisible.” 

Don’t shut out the world

Earlier we touched on the all-encompassing aspect of technology and how it can sometimes shut out the real world. Avoid this by merging homework tasks with home life as much as possible. 

Instead of looking at homework as an extension of schoolwork to be done at home - instead view it as an extension of home life that is more focussed on learning. Family time and home life is a hugely important part of a child’s development and it should be approached with empathy and sensitivity. 

When creating a homework task, think of a child spending time with their siblings or parents and consider whether this task is important enough to take them out of that bonding time for half an hour to an hour. Alternatively, you can provide tasks that actively enrich this time at home. 

Homework activities that involve the whole family or an adult can actually have a transformative impact on students’ learning. Studies have found that students whose parents are actively involved in homework tend to be more confident in school, have higher self-esteem in general and receive higher grades than those with less involved parents or guardians. 

Try creating assignments that require interaction with others and take place in the real world. Perhaps an interview with a relative, a flashcard game or a DIY project that parents can get involved with.

Conclusion 

The future is still a little foggy for homework, as it is for education in general. But if there’s one takeaway from this blog it’s that learning at home will always be an important part of a child’s development. Similarly to not setting homework at all, setting unengaging, difficult or thoughtless homework will drive students away from learning in general - something we can’t afford to do after so many months of missed lessons and disrupted study. 

The key for schools will be using technology to streamline the administrative duties that come with homework, but to continue innovating when it comes to the actual content of their homework tasks. Whatever happens, the next couple of years have the potential to transform the education sector - what we do now could decide how the future of teaching and learning looks.

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