Homework Student Success

One of the most controversial topics in education today is homework. This debate has been going on for decades, as teachers, administrators, and parents disagree on whether homework should be assigned, and if assigned, then what the right amount of homework should be. The time students spend on homework has increased over the years. “High school students get assigned up to 17.5 hours of homework per week, according to a survey of 1,000 teachers” (Bidwell). Recently, more fuel has been added in this debate because younger students in particular are receiving much more homework than before. Alfie Kohn, author of The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing, states that “The amount of homework that younger kids – ages 6 to 9 – have

The debate regarding exactly how much homework is too much homework has been an ongoing debate for years. As of right now, there seems to be no end in sight for this debate. Various adults believe that if children do not obtain homework, then they are not learning properly. However, numerous children are obtaining a substantial amount of homework per night, as well as per each class. Once a child exceeds a certain amount of homework, then it is no longer beneficial for the child’s education. An excessive amount of homework can essentially become harmful to the child’s education. As a result, teachers are struggling with finding the right amount of homework to assign to students. The National Education Association as well as the National Parent-Teacher Association endorse the “10-minute rule” for teachers to follow when assigning homework to students. If a child is assigned an excessive amount of homework, then the child might experience more harm than good when attempting to complete the assigned homework.

Homework is a large contributing factor to a student’s stress.Researchers surveyed students in 10 high-performing schools in California, and found that 56% of the students stated that homework was a primary stressor (Strauss). Reducing the amount of homework would be more beneficial to students than not. As students go throughout the school day the homework they get from each class piles up. Many students believe that homework is pointless since some teachers never look it over, and give a small amount of points for all of their work. Now this is not to say that homework should be worth more points. Rather, the amount of homework should be equal to the

When giving homework, teachers should follow the ten minute rule which means that students get 10 minutes of homework per grade. For example, if a student is in third grade then they should get 30 minutes of homework a night. Cooper recommends that teachers follow this rule and do not give more homework than that because it can lead to negative experiences, feelings, and cause students stress. Therefore, it is important to focus on the quality of homework that we are assigning and the subject matter. Parental involvement is encouraged during the younger years but should be gradually reduced as the students get older. Teachers should make sure that their parents have the skills needed in order to teach their students the skills that they may be struggling with at home. If not, students could become confused and parents may put too much pressure on the child. Cooper ends the article by saying that the, “the vast majority of educators have got it right” (Walker). This information will impact my

In The Battle 0ver Homework, Harris Cooper defines homework as, “tasks assigned to students by school teachers that are intended to be carried out during non-school hours” (27) Common homework assignments might include reading, writing, problems to solve, a school project, or other skills to be practiced. The purpose of homework is to assist in reinforcing what was taught in class. Sometimes the purpose is to gather extra information beyond what was taught that day. There are many teachers who don’t understand the meaning of homework and just give it as something to keep students busy. Homework should be given to students on a regular basis but only in reasonable amounts.

The 10-minute rule, endorsed by many different education associations, is a guideline for how much homework students should be given every night. Kelly Wallace, in her 2015 article “Kids Have Three Times too Much Homework, Study Finds; What's the Cost?” published in CNN, explains that the 10-minute rule says students in first grade should have 10 minutes of homework, and students in twelfth grade should have no more than two hours of homework. Homework for students before first grade is not recommended. This guideline is supported by the NEA and the National PTA. Wallace is saying that this guideline is supported by two major education associations, which gives the guideline credibility, and authority. Similarly, Christine Hauser writes the National PTA and the National Education Association endorses a 10-minute guideline: Time spent on after-school work should not exceed 10 minutes a grade level a night. “That is, a first grader should have no more than 10 minutes of homework, a sixth grader no more than 60 minutes and a 12th grader no more than two hours,” the National PTA says. The National Education Association said those recommendations followed general guidelines from the research of Harris M. Cooper, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University. What this means is that students should get this much homework to maximize their learning in the most efficient way. I agree that homework should be limited by this guideline, a point that needs emphasizing since so many people still believe that homework should take a long time, and that if you studying for long stressful hours leads to success. Likewise, Pawlowski writes that the National PTA promotes their '10-minute rule'. They advise students to spend 10 minutes times the grade that they are in. 10 minutes for a first grader, 60 minutes for a sixth grader, and two hours for a twelfth grade student is what this

Homework has been an area of discussion for teachers, students, and even psychologists. It’s been a practice which has been used throughout the United States to help students learn material, reinforce their day’s lesson, or just as busy work to improve a student’s work ethic. Several people view homework as useless, or just plainly unhelpful; this view has been demonstrated ever since the early twentieth century, where many authors and politicians were vehemently against homework, going as far as to write whole books and draft legislation (legislation which had passed the Californian government and had been law) against homework. This opposition has ever since faded, but is now seeing a new movement around America, and there are reasons as to why that is. In an article from CNN, they quote a study from another article published by The American Journal of Family Therapy which states that: “students in the early elementary school years are getting significantly more homework than is recommended by education leaders, in some cases nearly three times as much homework as is recommended”, and, as such, students are raised within a state of stress from the first grade. Several other studies also find that homework is very hurtful; the Journal of Experimental Education published an article which had made a study that found that the average amount of time students spend on homework each night had been 3.1 hours from a sample of high-performing schools in California, when the recommended time on homework is, at most, one hour each night. Homework has been mandated work for students all around the country, and several others, and the workload seems to only be increasing, and so, how might this workload affect a student’s ability to live a healthy life, a teacher’s work plan, and a psychologist’s view of an enormous workload on a student?

The quality of students’ homework is much more important than the quantity of students homework and data collected during recent studies has proven that homework is not making the grade. “. . . American students are entangled in the middle of international academic rankings: 17th in reading, 23rd in science, and 31st in math according to the most recent results from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA)” (Murphy-Paul). Students should not be given an excessive amount of homework because the pressure of having to complete excessive amounts of homework every night is quite daunting for most students. Knowing how much homework is the right amount correlates with age and grade. An 8th grade student should not be given a myriad of homework that would keep her awake past midnight completing assignments. In any case, there should be a limit on the amount of homework all teachers give to students because an excessive amount of homework would eventually cause students to become uninterested in school and learning, which could result in poor test scores and low ranks in international academic rankings. In order for students to carry out daily activities throughout the day restfully, teachers must be able to provide homework that does not exceed the appropriate amount of time needed to complete it, which is based on grade level. If teachers are too clueless of a students health due to excessive amounts of homework, many students will develop cases of sleep

In the article, “Do Kids Have Too Much Homework?” it says, “One homework fact that educators do agree on is the young child today is doing more homework than ever before” (Marian Wilde page 1). This quote proves that teachers send out too much homework because in the text, it says that kids are doing more homework than they ever were before. ” Cooper points to the ‘ten minute rule’ formulated by the National PTA and the National Education Association, which suggests the kids should be doing about 10 minutes of homework per night per grade level” (Marion Wilde page 1). This quote proves that teachers send out too much homework because the text in “Do Kids Have Too Much Homework?” says that the “ten minute rule” states that 7th grade students should be doing 1 hour and 10 minutes of homework each

Even a professor by the name of Harris Cooper at the Duke University found connections between students and spending time on homework. Firstly, he found that elementary school students improve study habits with only a small amount of homework. Secondly, middle school students are willing to do homework within ninety minutes each night, and thirdly, high school students are willing to do homework within ninety minutes and two and a half hours. Anything after those times, they start to think of it as busy work and lose the interest in learning (DeNisco).

Homework can become more closely monitored to assure that the work being assigned to students is useful and engaging. Parents and students are unhappy with homework assigned as busy work which offers little depth and instead just consumes the student’s time (Melvin). If the High School could keep a closer eye on what teachers are assigning students, this would help to alleviate students who are stuck performing monotonous tasks night after night that do not contribute to their overall educational experience. To elaborate on this, different forms of homework impact certain students differently and good teachers will be able to deliver educational value through different types of work. (Terada). Teachers who always assign only a single type of homework will inevitably be unable to engage their entire class. In order to fully get everyone to become involved and engaged in the work allotted, the school system should make sure that the homework teachers assign to students is constantly

The first reason teachers should give students less homework is that it takes away their childhood. When a student goes to school for seven hours a day, and then goes home to three hours of homework, they do not get to be a kid. It is suggested that student adopt an eight-eight-eight schedule. This schedule being eight

Homework not only takes up time but it pressures and stresses kids out. “Fifty-six per cent of the students in the study cited homework as a primary stressor in their lives, despite the fact that most U.S. students' homework load has remained relatively stable since 1984, according to the Brookings Institute's 2014 Brown Center Report on American Education”(Daily Mail Reporter). “Fifty-six per cent of the students in the study cited homework as a primary stressor in their

Students in high school get anywhere from 1 hour a night to 4+ hours a night of homework adding even an extra 30 minutes for that one class can stop students from wanting to learn. After a long day at school and a meeting for a club you go home and immediately get started on all of that day’s work, and after a while you get the feeling of being “burnt out.” This can stop a child or teenager from wanting to learn in the end, may even make the student hate the subject itself, and if students are given too much homework it can make them have anxiety and horrible stress.

Many students in school struggle to complete piles of homework assigned to them each night. Some wonder if homework is really critical to learning, and many wish homework wouldn’t exist at all. These people argue that homework is overwhelming and it takes away most of their free time at home and is just “busy work”. While some people may feel this way, I personally believe that homework is a key point of learning because it teaches time management and helps solidify what was learned during the day.