Should or
Shouldn’t Your Child Be Assigned Homework?
Over the last few years parents and teachers alike have debated whether
or not homework is a helpful tool to learning. Parents who oppose homework site such things as a busy life limiting
their child's time to do homework, that it serves little purpose in the
learning process, and that most homework assignments are just busy-work and of
no real benefit. And Teachers who
oppose homework site reasons such as too little or too much parental
involvement, little time for grading homework assignments, and students unable
to get help if they don't understand an assignment. But the others believed that it gives the student practice in new concepts, and it helps to remind
them of old skills they have already learned.
Let's begin by looking at what giving homework can and should mean to
in-school lesson time. Giving in-class assignments does allow for the teacher
to be present if a child needs help understanding a concept. The teacher is
right there and on hand to give instant help. This can and often is a benefit
to students and does help in the learning process, and therefore in-class
assignments should be used when introducing a new concept. Giving homework, and allowing for
more actual instruction during the school day, would result in more learning
during the school term we now have. This would allow for students to learn all
the information that needs to be covered without extending the school year.
The best method of seeing that a
student understands the material is to introduce a new concept, give one or two
in-class assignments so the teacher can be on hand to help the students, then
to assign homework to reinforce the concepts and free up more teaching time. Such a combination of in-class and
out of class learning would be beneficial, as the students would be able to
have the opportunity of clearly understanding what is expected of them, before
tackling a new concept on their own--while at the same time freeing up teaching
time, and giving the student some responsibility for their own learning.
In many classrooms, once a concept
is learned, the class then moves on to a new concept, leaving behind all the
previous concepts learned. Needing to cover as much material as possible, there
is little time for constant review of material that was all ready
covered. Homework however, can and should provide a review of both old
and new concepts, taking questions and covering problems from the first day of
class through to the present. Using homework in this fashion will help a child
understand how the concepts they are learning are related, as well as serving
to keep their memory fresh on all the material they have learned in each
course. This will make it easy when test time comes to review the
material and to do well, as all the concepts will be refreshed and reinforced.
Finally, we know that homework is important to
increase the students knowledge and the teacher understands to gives homework
about what the students have learned and beneficial is in understanding how
constant review helps students learn and increases their chances of doing well
on tests. However, homework should never be given as a class
punishment, or simply because a teacher feels they should assign outside work.
Homework should always be relevant to the learning situation and helpful to the
student in understanding the subject matter. Beside that, homework should be a
subject that have been learned by students.
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