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I have similar concerns with people who claim existing education would massively benefit if homework didn’t exist as a teaching tool or means of gauging progres

I have similar concerns with people who claim existing education would massively benefit if homework didn’t exist as a teaching tool or means of gauging progress and development.

Broken_Hippo 7y ago
There is research into this - and it seems to work well for elementary school kids, with a minimum of homework for older students. (universities are different). Scandinavian countries do this and always score well. AT least here in Norway, they also do not hold elementary kids back, but work with them appropriately. There is more than one way of gauging development and progress.
mumblemumble 7y ago
There's a kernel of truth behind that one, FWIW. A growing body of evidence indicates that there can be too much of a good thing: Past a certain point, more homework actually hinders learning rather than helping it. By way of analogy, it's not at all unlike how most weightlifting advice says to give your muscles a day of rest in between workout sessions. e.g., I recently watched a talk where a researcher cited a study that found that putting kids in remedial literacy programs, with all their drilling and whatnot, seems to do more harm than good. The (deliberately over-simplified) impression I got was that, if you leave the kids alone instead of bothering them, you'll generally see a markedly bigger improvement through simple regression to the mean. That this gets over-simiplified into a simple "homework bad" in the popular sphere is unfortunate. Sadly, nobody has yet figured out a way to inoculate science so that it can survive on Facebook.
- algaeontoast 7y ago
  I totally agree. I still think homework has utility at least in helping students develop patterns of study and figuring out problems without help from a teacher available at arms length. Too much is definitely a detriment to anyone’s education, but I think this usually happens when classroom instruction is imbalanced with material covered as “homework”. By far I learned the most in a physics class in high school with homework but you could correct a number of problems in class if you completed it at home (not easy). I liked this balance, but there were still students who seemed to lack the discipline to actually just do the homework and not wait for class to see how many solutions they could copy.

I have similar concerns with people who claim existing education would massively benefit if homework didn’t exist as a teaching tool or means of gauging progress and development.

Broken_Hippo 7y ago

There is research into this - and it seems to work well for elementary school kids, with a minimum of homework for older students. (universities are different). Scandinavian countries do this and always score well. AT least here in Norway, they also do not hold elementary kids back, but work with them appropriately. There is more than one way of gauging development and progress.

mumblemumble 7y ago

There's a kernel of truth behind that one, FWIW. A growing body of evidence indicates that there can be too much of a good thing: Past a certain point, more homework actually hinders learning rather than helping it. By way of analogy, it's not at all unlike how most weightlifting advice says to give your muscles a day of rest in between workout sessions. e.g., I recently watched a talk where a researcher cited a study that found that putting kids in remedial literacy programs, with all their drilling and whatnot, seems to do more harm than good. The (deliberately over-simplified) impression I got was that, if you leave the kids alone instead of bothering them, you'll generally see a markedly bigger improvement through simple regression to the mean. That this gets over-simiplified into a simple "homework bad" in the popular sphere is unfortunate. Sadly, nobody has yet figured out a way to inoculate science so that it can survive on Facebook.

algaeontoast 7y ago
I totally agree. I still think homework has utility at least in helping students develop patterns of study and figuring out problems without help from a teacher available at arms length. Too much is definitely a detriment to anyone’s education, but I think this usually happens when classroom instruction is imbalanced with material covered as “homework”. By far I learned the most in a physics class in high school with homework but you could correct a number of problems in class if you completed it at home (not easy). I liked this balance, but there were still students who seemed to lack the discipline to actually just do the homework and not wait for class to see how many solutions they could copy.