well i know we would mostly agree with that.

but apparently other 'experts' do as well

Quote :

"The Myth About Homework Think hours of slogging are helping your child make the grade? Think again By CLAUDIA WALLIS Posted Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2006 Sachem was the last straw. Or was it Kiva? My 12-year-old daughter and I had been drilling social-studies key words for more than an hour. It was 11 p.m. Our entire evening had, as usual, consisted of homework and conversations (a.k.a. nagging) about homework. She was tired and fed up. I was tired and fed up. The words wouldn't stick. They meant nothing to her. They didn't mean much to me either. After all, when have I ever used sachem in a sentence--until just now? As the summer winds down, I'm dreading scenes like that one from seventh grade. Already the carefree August nights have given way to meaningful conversations (a.k.a. nagging) about the summer reading that didn't get done. So what could be more welcome than two new books assailing this bane of modern family life: The Homework Myth (Da Capo Press; 243 pages), by Alfie Kohn, the prolific, perpetual critic of today's test-driven schools, and The Case Against Homework (Crown; 290 pages), a cri de coeur by two moms, lawyer Sara Bennett and journalist Nancy Kalish. Both books cite studies, surveys, statistics, along with some hair-raising anecdotes, on how a rising tide of dull, useless assignments is oppressing families and making kids hate learning. A few highlights from the books and my own investigation: • According to a 2004 national survey of 2,900 American children conducted by the University of Michigan, the amount of time spent on homework is up 51% since 1981. • Most of that increase reflects bigger loads for little kids. An academic study found that whereas students ages 6 to 8 did an average of 52 min. of homework a week in 1981, they were toiling 128 min. weekly by 1997. And that's before No Child Left Behind kicked in. An admittedly less scientific poll of parents conducted this year for AOL and the Associated Press found that elementary school students were averaging 78 min. a night. • The onslaught comes despite the fact that an exhaustive review by the nation's top homework scholar, Duke University's Harris Cooper, concluded that homework does not measurably improve academic achievement for kids in grade school. That's right: all the sweat and tears do not make Johnny a better reader or mathematician. • Too much homework brings diminishing returns. Cooper's analysis of dozens of studies found that kids who do some homework in middle and high school score somewhat better on standardized tests, but doing more than 60 to 90 min. a night in middle school and more than 2 hr. in high school is associated with, gulp, lower scores. • Teachers in many of the nations that outperform the U.S. on student achievement tests--such as Japan, Denmark and the Czech Republic--tend to assign less homework than American teachers, but instructors in low-scoring countries like Greece, Thailand and Iran tend to pile it on. Success on standardized tests is, of course, only one measure of learning--and only one purported goal of homework. Educators, including Cooper, tend to defend homework by saying it builds study habits, self-discipline and time-management skills. But there's also evidence that homework sours kids' attitudes toward school. "It's one thing to say we are wasting kids' time and straining parent-kid relationships," Kohn told me, "but what's unforgivable is if homework is damaging our kids' interest in learning, undermining their curiosity." Kohn's solution is radical: he wants a no-homework policy to become the default, with exceptions for tasks like interviewing parents on family history, kitchen chemistry and family reading. Or, in a nation in which 71% of mothers of kids under 18 are in the workforce, how about extending the school day or year beyond its agrarian-era calendar? Let students do more work at school and save evenings for family and serendipity. Bennett and Kalish have a more modest proposal. Parents should demand a sensible homework policy, perhaps one based on Cooper's rule of thumb: 10 min. a night per grade level. They offer lessons from their own battle to rein in the workload at their kids' private middle school in Brooklyn, N.Y. Among their victories: a nightly time limit, a policy of no homework over vacations, no more than two major tests a week, fewer weekend assignments and no Monday tests. Why don't more parents in homework-heavy districts take such actions? Do too many of us think it's just our child who is struggling, so who are we to lead a revolt? Yup, when it comes to the battle of homework mountain, we've got too many Indians and not enough sachems."

a Duke Prof finds homework inefficient...

9/20/2006 10:40:06 AM

homework is bad.

....of course, I always did my homework during class....

9/20/2006 10:43:54 AM

duke direct stuff

Quote :

"Prof finds homework inefficient Chelsea Allison Harris Cooper, Duke professor of psychology and education, has set academia on its head by suggesting that homework may be an ineffectual tool to promote learning. Nationally recognized as the forerunner in homework research synthesis, Cooper published his most recent findings in the Spring 2006 issue of the Review of Educational Research. His work suggested that there is little, if any, positive correlation between time spent on homework and increased test scores, reigniting a national debate that has been a topic of great interest and strong opinions among educators, parents and students. "Piling on homework won't lead to success," Cooper said. He added that instead, homework can lead to academic burnout and negate its intended results when the volume exceeds reasonable time allotments, especially for students in lower grades. Having worked on homework research for more than 20 years, Cooper said his reasons for entering the field were two-fold. "I was working with a new technique for combining the statistical results of separate studies," he said. "My first child was two years old at the time, and I wanted to know as much as I could about homework before he started bringing it home." Some researchers, such as Alfie Kohn, author of "The Homework Myth," cite Cooper's work in claiming that homework should either be dramatically changed or eliminated. "I haven't read the book," Cooper said. "[But] homework is far from a waste of time." Rather than supporting extremes, Cooper said he advocates "everything in moderation." Although many students across grade levels consider homework to be the bane of their scholarly existences, Cooper said he feels some homework can aid older students but that too much homework can have a negative impact. The amount of homework assigned is likely greatest during high school-when many students spend hours working in efforts to gain admission to selective universities-but more parents are now starting to look to highly competitive middle and even elementary schools to give their children a leg up. At Clemmons Elementary School in Winston-Salem, N.C., one father pressured principal Ron Montaquila to give him his son's class rank, Newsweek reported Sept. 11. "It's ridiculous," Montaquila told The Chronicle. "I don't believe [elementary school] is on the standard transcript." This kind of parental attitude leads many top researchers to question homework's value, especially when it causes children undue stress, Cooper said. When homework leads to boredom, involves too much parental interference and denies access to playtime, its negative effects on very young students are most obvious. Cooper, however, cautioned against broadly applying his studies to all ages. "College is a whole different game," he said. "Once you get in college, because you were doing homework, you know how to be a good autonomous learner." Cooper said he advocates utilizing the formula of the National Parent Teacher Association and the National Education Association found in "Helping your Student Get the Most Out of Homework." It suggests that for homework to be beneficial, no more than 10 minutes multiplied by the grade level should be spent on it per night. Ken Hazen, a Duke graduate and Advanced Placement calculus teacher at Charlotte Catholic High School in Charlotte, N.C., said there are inherent flaws in the way homework is assigned. "Busywork is definitely a problem that needs to be fixed," he said, adding that teaching more challenging subject matter is also problematic. "I do not think I have enough class time to let students practice as much as they need to become proficient." Hazen added that just because students may spend a great deal of time doing work does not make that work necessarily worthwhile. "I think a basketball coach who is quite well-known on campus is a firm believer that the quality of the practice is much more important than the quantity," he said."

so some HW is good, but more than 2 hours is useless

9/20/2006 10:44:07 AM

lol i did that too, i just think teachers shouldn't assign so damn much of it, math is the only thing that really needs hw imho.... 10-15 problems 3 times a week seems sufficient at least it would for me

9/20/2006 10:45:16 AM

i think your title is misleading. homework isnt bad, its crappy and excessive hw that is bad. and i agree.

as an engineer, i cant imagine going into a test without having practiced and applied the mathematics and engineering concepts.



[Edited on September 20, 2006 at 10:52 AM. Reason : jeez]

9/20/2006 10:48:26 AM

agree

9/20/2006 10:51:23 AM

I would have gotten better grades in HS if it was not for homework.

9/20/2006 11:20:12 AM

^^^ Dr. Zikry's 316 homework made me want to kill myself, but dammit I sure learned solid mechanics.

And what's with parents helping their kids do homework. My mom never helped me. Of course it might have something to do with the fact that I passed her in math in like the 6th grade

9/20/2006 11:29:07 AM

Quote :

"as an engineer, i cant imagine going into a test without having practiced and applied the mathematics and engineering concepts."

couldn't you do that without it having to be assigned and graded?

if someone didn't practice and apply their learned concepts (on their own time,) and did poorly on the test, is that their fault for not being responsible or the teachers fault for not forcing/disciplining (for a grade,) the practice/homework?

I'd say it's their fault for not being responsible (by not taking initiative to study rather that drink/party).


Discipline seems to be the issue, and I don't think teachers should teach discipline much past elementary school....

….same goes for attendance policies.

9/20/2006 11:34:46 AM

NCSU HAS policies like this. Did you know it's against NCSU policy to give ANY WORK or ANY TEST during dead week. How many professors listen to this? Very few.

It's not just applying the policy it's punishing those who do not abide by it without punishing the students.

9/20/2006 11:35:45 AM

Links plz. Would like to read original studies/data collected to see where they are drawing their conclusions from. Also, is it just me, or are the only two factors mentioned here "time" and "test scores". There a ton of different metrics (inputs) that can be used to measure various factors (outputs) such as grades, SAT, education, etc. They seem to be absent in the articles presented.

The idea of extended school hours I am against. Afterschool clubs/sports are there for a reason, non-classroom education. The option of working a part-time job afterschool is there for a reason, non-classroom education. Last thing I want to do is get out of shcool at 4/5pm, do my afterschool stuff, get home and finish eating around 7pm, do 2-3 hours of homework, go to sleep and start again. Leaves no free time for students to explore/learn on their own. My $0.02.

9/20/2006 11:40:24 AM

http://tinyurl.co.uk/w104

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1376208,00.html

9/20/2006 11:44:18 AM

Quote :

"kids who do some homework in middle and high school score somewhat better on standardized tests, but doing more than 60 to 90 min. a night in middle school and more than 2 hr. in high school is associated with, gulp, lower scores."

Did they consider that the kids with lower scores probably take longer to do the same amount of homework as the kids with higher scores?

I agree that excessive homework is not worth the returns. There is a quality of life issue that is far more important.

9/20/2006 11:46:49 AM

Quote :

"couldn't you do that without it having to be assigned and graded? "

Most certainly. The only benefits I see to assigning would be that it is easier to find somebody to work on the homework with and the teacher is more likely to put up solutions for the problems you worked.

9/20/2006 11:51:28 AM

^so couldn't the teacher simply offer non-graded, non-required coordinated study aids/reviews?

9/20/2006 11:56:48 AM

Quote :

"couldn't you do that without it having to be assigned and graded?"

Not in some of these higher-level engineering classes.

Hunting through to find which problems you want to do/think you should do is less efficient than carrying out problems recommended by your professor (problems which usually incorporate multiple ideas learned so far and that require more work and applied thought, which helps a lot when learning the more difficult stuff, even if you get the problem wrong). Having it graded is helpful because, at least in my more fundamental classes, your mistakes tend to get circled (I.E. where you fucked up on your math or if you're applying the wrong method to a problem). This saves me the time of grading my own assignments and figuring out what I did wrong, honestly.

However, in K-12 public education, having more bullshit homework to do than you have had to do for a combined semester in college is complete crap. Giving out a reading assignment is one thing, but giving out a reading assignment with mindless garbage like pulling out 30 selected definitions followed by a one page summary of what you read will just burn your ass out.

I never did as well in a class that gave out excessive amounts of homework (like my english class sophomore year that had the psychotic pregnant feminist teacher), compared to one that gave out a more reasonable amount of homework (even an hour of homework for AB & BC calc was fine in high school, including having two other hours of work to do for all my other classes).

Rant rant rant... Nobody cares... But yeah, it's really on a case-by-case basis as to whether or not you can say whether you should have some homework or no homework or lots of homework. Depends on the class...

9/20/2006 12:03:11 PM

^so couldn't the professor simply recommend non-graded, non-required coordinated study aids/reviews with expanded answer keys?

9/20/2006 12:07:04 PM

Quote :

"Too much homework brings diminishing returns. Cooper's analysis of dozens of studies found that kids who do some homework in middle and high school score somewhat better on standardized tests, but doing more than 60 to 90 min. a night in middle school and more than 2 hr. in high school is associated with, gulp, lower scores."

The problem with some of these comparisons is that people take different amounts of time to do the same assignments. It seems likely to me that the people scoring well on standardized tests are probably just faster when it comes to doing problems -- I'd attribute a lot of my good scores to my ability to read very quickly, thus always having time to double or triple check my work. But someone who scores poorly on standardized tests could possibly be scoring lower because they can't work problems quickly, so maybe they don't finish on time... and if you work slowly, you might spend double the time a quick student does on the same assigment. And it seems like they're asking people how much time they spend, instead of assigning a time value to each assignment.

9/20/2006 12:19:07 PM

I'd attribute my ability to pull fantastic results out of my ass on standardized tests despite never doing homework or studying in general to being smarter than everyone else.

[Edited on September 20, 2006 at 2:20 PM. Reason : tests]

9/20/2006 2:19:55 PM

I agree that lots of elementary school homework is dumb. It's more useful in college IMO though.

Quote :

"Cooper, however, cautioned against broadly applying his studies to all ages. "College is a whole different game," he said."

9/20/2006 2:53:45 PM

Quote :

"if someone didn't practice and apply their learned concepts (on their own time,) and did poorly on the test, is that their fault for not being responsible or the teachers fault for not forcing/disciplining (for a grade,) the practice/homework? I'd say it's their fault for not being responsible (by not taking initiative to study rather that drink/party)."

Quote :

"^so couldn't the professor simply recommend non-graded, non-required coordinated study aids/reviews with expanded answer keys? "

it sounds like you're assuming that all howework is equal, and that homeworks sole purpose is to ready people for a test. not all homework is problems with answers. sometimes its how you get to a solution thats just as important as the solution itself. in many disciplines, processes are just as important as answers, and homework can be a method to explore processes, test theories, and visit more complex issues then what can simply be graded on a test. thats the kind of homework that i don't mind.

in fact, i would go so far as to say that homework, when administered in the correct manner, can actually be more beneficial then tests themselves, because they allow for more "real world" scenarios. for a lot of people, tests are nothing more than a exercise in memorization.

however, as i said before, i do feel that crappy and excessive hw is bad.

[Edited on September 20, 2006 at 3:14 PM. Reason : df]

9/20/2006 3:13:21 PM

busy work is bad.

homework, in general, is not.

9/20/2006 3:27:00 PM

The 4-5 hours of homework I had per night in high school was definately a waste.

9/20/2006 3:35:21 PM

^AHA, four to five hours a night?

I did my homework during class. That left maybe thirty minutes a week outside of class.

(But I only took three AP classes. I don't know what kinda crazy classes you were taking.)

[Edited on September 20, 2006 at 4:34 PM. Reason : sss]

9/20/2006 4:33:19 PM

Quote :

"they were toiling 128 min. weekly "

If we assume they don't do any homework on the weekend, 128/5 = 25.6 minutes a night

That's less than half an hour each night. I wonder how much tv they're watching per night.

9/20/2006 7:38:10 PM

I did all my homework at school. Shit was mad easy.

9/20/2006 7:40:29 PM

^^^5 AP classes was a bad idea.

9/20/2006 7:52:37 PM

i took 5 my junior year and got a's in all of them

got ranked in the top five after that

9/20/2006 8:46:58 PM

^Congratulations?

9/20/2006 8:49:15 PM

lol, i was wondering if anyone would reply to my obvious bragging

9/20/2006 8:50:48 PM

^^that's awesome. it was almost impossible to be in the top of our class because we had like 1000 seniors and the top ones had 6.0's or some shit like that.

9/20/2006 8:52:55 PM

jesus thats a big senior class

ours had over 200 which hadn't been done in a LONG time

9/20/2006 9:04:32 PM

^Your class had a little over 200 and your school offered five AP classes? How'd you do on the AP tests?

[Edited on September 20, 2006 at 9:14 PM. Reason : This is crazy!]

9/20/2006 9:14:04 PM

I can't believe the amount of time that my nephews and nieces put into homework at an early age. They probably do more than I did during my undergrad.

9/20/2006 9:18:44 PM

Quote :

"couldn't you do that without it having to be assigned and graded?"

I like it when homework is graded, because the hw average is often 10% or even 20% of your final grade. When your grade only comes from tests, it can be really stressful. It's nice to have that extra 10% boost from being responsible with homework.

but it wouldn't suprise me if hempster wants to do away with grades altogether

9/20/2006 9:20:42 PM

^What's wrong with no grades?

9/20/2006 9:27:28 PM

I totally agree ... one of my coworkers in Delaware got a call from a teacher during her (my coworker's) lunch break saying that her daughter has to stay in at recess and write a paper about why she didn't do her homework. I mean, what the fuck? The kid was 11 I think, and "homework" consisted of gluing candy hearts to a piece of paper. What the hell is a kid in 5th/6th grade going to learn from candy hearts and a gluestick that is of any value whatsoever?

Quote :

"Did they consider that the kids with lower scores probably take longer to do the same amount of homework as the kids with higher scores?"

I think it's more likely that the "diligent" students who probably would do well anyway (meaning even if it was only 60 min not 120+/night) and the ones who need the HW to understand the concept are probably going to say Fuck That and go do whatever they want to do.

and the 128 min thing ... you try to make a 7 year old sit still for 25 minutes and focus on homework. I don't know any kids that could do that who weren't fat.

[Edited on September 20, 2006 at 9:54 PM. Reason : .]

9/20/2006 9:47:28 PM