Is homework a good idea or not? - CBBC Newsround.
It's all over the news: kids are spending a lot of time on homework. And, according to some, it's way too much. With the current emphasis on high-stakes testing, educators are trying to do more.
Homework is simply draining: it takes up astronomical amounts of time, willpower, discipline and energy in a lot of instances, because it can, and does, pile up extraordinarily quickly. Maybe these are considered good things to learn for later in life, willpower and all that, but I believe if a teacher is a good teacher, these traits can be taught, and learned, during the many hours of school.
The value of homework has been the subject of debate over the years. In regards to research, the jury is still out as to whether homework positively impacts a student's academic achievement.
Second, even at the high school level, the research supporting homework hasn't been particularly persuasive. There does seem to be a correlation between homework and standardized test scores, but (a) it isn't strong, meaning that homework doesn't explain much of the variance in scores, (b) one prominent researcher, Timothy Keith, who did find a solid correlation, returned to the topic a decade.
We now stand at an interesting crossroads in the evolution of the homework debate. Arguments against homework are becoming more popular and intense. Arguments are in the educational literature. One example is an editorial in Time magazine that presented these arguments against homework as truth without much discussion of alternative perspectives.
Homework. Present Situation Many children today have to spend hours every evening doing homework. One side: Some people seem to believe that this will help the children in their academic career. Other side: Others feel that homework is mostly useless. Thesis: This essay will examine the positive and negative aspects of homework and discuss its benefits for schoolchildren.
The role of homework is hardly mentioned in the majority of general ELT texts or training courses, suggesting that there is little question as to its value even if the resulting workload is time-consuming. However, there is clearly room for discussion of homework policies and practices particularly now that technology has made so many more resources available to learners outside the classroom.