That depends on what grade your child is in. In elementary school, homework is mostly about establishing responsibility, said Katie McGrath, LAUSD’s director of elementary instruction. That includes teaching children to follow directions, learning how to be accountable for keeping homework safe, completing it, and turning it in.
Homework should reinforce lessons students have already learned in class. Perhaps, says Harris Cooper, a Duke psychology professor who studies homework, it includes a bonus question that takes the concept one step further -- preparing students for the next day’s lesson.
In middle school and high school, homework takes on the role of being important to academic achievement, Cooper said. Homework improves academic outcomes, up to a point. Research suggests that middle school students who complete 60 to 90 minutes of homework per night perform as well on standardized tests as the students who spend more time, Cooper said. In high school, that cutoff is at two hours of homework per night.
What’s the “10-minute rule”?
For years, teachers have been using the so-called “10-minute rule” to figure out homework targets. It’s the idea that with each grade of elementary school, a child’s average homework per night should increase about 10 minutes, said Cooper, who has researched this trend.
What do I do if there’s too much homework?
Parents can talk to or email teachers if there is consistently too much homework, or if it’s too difficult. If enough parents
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.
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
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
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).
In 1984, a survey was conducted that reported twenty-five percent of seventeen year olds did less than an hour of homework each night. A decade later, a report from the National Center for Education Statistics, reviewing trends in data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, found thirty-nine percent of seventeen year olds said they at least one hour of homework each day. Moving into the twenty-first century, the amount of homework has increased significantly. In 2011, a survey of 1,000 kindergarten through twelfth grade teachers found high school teachers on average assign about three and a half hours of homework each week. For high school students who typically have five classes with different teachers, that could mean as much as seventeen and a half hours each week.
Homework is helpful to students that actually want to do well in school. It gives students an opportunity for them to get a review on what they did during class and it also helps them get to know the curriculum more in-depth. Students should do their homework because it will show them if they understand it and could
The purpose for assigning homework in my classroom is to reinforce material learned in class, for further practice, and to develop self-management skills. Homework also serves a purpose in connecting the classroom to the student’s parents. Homework will allow students to share with their parents what they are learning in class and allow the parents to be involved.
The value of homework varies, most high school students don’t mind doing it, but most students find it stressful themselves. Homework has been a subject of debate over the years varying among students and educators within different grade levels. Even though most students find homework stressful, it’s easy for others who focused on the lesson and understand most of it. Most kids who do homework claim that it usually takes about an hour or 2 just to finish depending on classes and how much work is given. Other students including myself have been under pressure due to amount of work assigned by their teachers, grades, and how long it will take to complete.
Elementary students should be focusing on learning and growing rather than worrying about if they will be passing onto the next grade level. The fact is, they are being sent home with so much homework they feel as if they are drowning in it. This gives students no time to be kids. Of course, they need to be educated but not overwhelmed with graded homework. Clearly the system feels that
Some people don't know exactly what homework is. Homework is defined as an out of class activity assigned to students as an extension or elaboration of classroom work(KidSource). There are three types of homework teachers generally give out. The first is Practice assignments, they are assignments that reinforce newly acquired skills or knowledge(KidSource). An example of these assignments is writing definitions down for new words
Homework is a good way to show what you learned in school and see what you learned. Homework is beneficial to students because it helps them with their their time management skills later on in life. Management skills will help them to see what they learned in school and see if they can do it at home. Another way homework is beneficial because it teachers students doing their own work independently. Homework is beneficial to students because it is a key to success and a key to adulthood in the future
Definition of homework: Tasks assigned to students by school teachers that are intended to be carried out during non-school hours. Why do we have homework? What are the benefits of homework? Is there such thing as too much homework? Homework helps you to gain, and retain more knowledge than would be possible with only classroom work, this is a huge reason students get homework. Homework does actually have benefits, it teaches a host of important life skills, from responsibility and time management in prioritizing and organizing. But, how much is too much homework? That depends on multiple complex or elaborate factors, including the singular intelligence or capability of the child, type of classes, and available time. If you do have a lot
According to Allie Bidwell, an education reporter for U.S. World and News Report, the average high school students spends about eighteen hours a week on homework. That works out to be about four hours every night. In my experience, I average around two hours of homework every night, still a long time spent on homework. At Joliet West, students are released from school at 3:15; if they go home and start their homework right away, all their homework could be completed by eight o’clock. However, a majority of students do not have the luxury of having all night to work on homework. With about half of students participating in a sport, many have practice after school until six o’clock. This pushes back their night, so instead of getting done with homework at eight, they will not finish until ten o’clock. A large portion of high school students experience this