Reply to Studies show Homework is Counterproductive... so why do we allow it??

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Reply to "Studies show Homework is Counterproductive... so why do we allow it??"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

All you supposed teachers saying otherwise, I hope you are not teaching *my* children that anecdotes =data. As teachers, I would hope you could put your supposed research and educational skills I am trusting you to instill in my children and  take the two seconds to plug some keywords into google scholar to see what the *actual published scholarly research* says on the matter to inform your opinions. [/quote

Supposed teacher here.  Honestly, I am pretty skeptical of educational "research".  The standards for scholarly research are questionable to me.  Not a lot of control groups, not a lot of randomization, a whole lot of confounding variables.  It is hard to perform double blind studies with placebo groups when you are dealing with kids in school.

The years I give more writing assignments, and grade them and provide feedback, my students are better at writing by the end of the year.   The more writing tasks I give them, the more time they spend writing, the better they are at writing.   To maximize time on task, I assign simple writing projects for them to do as homework.  I make sure that these writing tasks are within their capability (and since I teach beginner ESL classes, sometimes that means they are just copying sentences for handwriting practice at the start of the year -- but that's OK).

I don't have faith in these studies that say this level of homework is ineffective, because it contradicts my years of experience.   It also contradicts everything I know about learning the piano.  The more time my kids spend practicing their piano playing at home, the better they get at playing piano.    It also contradicts everything I know about playing soccer.   The more time kids spend playing soccer, the better they get at playing soccer.

It contradicts everything I know about math remediation, too.  I have a child who is having trouble with math, so I'm taking her three times a week yo practice math skills.   She sits and does remedial worksheets in math three times a week -- the more times she works on math problems, the better she is getting in math!

So I really question the "research" behind this theory that homework is counterproductive.  I could believe that SOME types of homework are counterproductive.   Stuff you don't understand; stuff that is pages and pages of boring drill you have already mastered; stuff that is not at all at your level.   Sure, that can be useless.

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