An Essay: Benefits of Homework
Should Students Have Homework?
Homework. Students spend time completing it, teachers spend time grading it. It’s a word that sends a shudder down the spines of students, a word that many students dread hearing. However, I strongly believe that there should be homework in middle school, for several reasons.
First of all, studies have shown that homework improves student achievement in terms of improved grades, test results, and the likelihood of attending college. According to research by the Institute for the Study of Labor, if you take the case of high school boys, increased homework led to better GPAs and higher probability of college attendance for them. In fact, the ones who attended college did more than three hours of additional homework per week in high school. According to time.com, a meta-analysis by Duke university psychology professor Harris Cooper found evidence of a positive correlation between homework and student achievement, meaning students who did homework performed better in school. The correlation was especially stronger for students grades 7th through 12th. This proves that homework improves student achievement, especially for middle school students. And homework allows for more time to complete the learning process. School hours are not always enough time for students to really understand core concepts, or properly grasp the concepts. Homework can counter the effects of time shortages in class, which will benefit students in the long run, even if they can’t see it in the moment.
That leads us to practice. Homework reinforces your learning. It has been rightly said that practice makes perfect. According to edutopia.org, without any reinforcement or connections to prior knowledge, information is quickly forgotten—roughly 56% in one hour, 66% after a day, and 75% after six days. What does this mean? It means that students need to apply what they learn in order to truly learn it. “Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.” This meaningful quote was by Benjamin Franklin, and it can apply to homework. You can forget what a teacher tells you through a lecture, you might remember if you are taught, but if you are actually involved, actually doing it yourself, you really learn.
Homework will help students review and practice what they learned in class, explore subjects more fully, etc. It also reinforces learning, and when advanced concepts are taught, if a student has done or will do homework about it, they grasp the concept more quickly. Basically, homework helps make concepts more clear. According to ww2.ed.gov, a government website, in seventh grade and beyond, students who complete more homework score better on standardized tests and earn better grades, on average, than students who do less homework. You can think of homework as daily practice after school hours. Thus, homework reinforces your learning (and builds confidence and gives them a sense of achievement).
Not only this, but homework also helps students improve their penmanship, or typing speed if done correctly. It improves vocabulary, and they become better tutors when explaining what they did. Homework can keep students from wasting precious time from passive screen time like watching unproductive videos, video gaming, and scrolling through social media. It can also help improve students’ thinking and memory, productivity, and collaboration and teamwork skills. Formerly mentioned professor Harris Cooper’s report on effects of homework also shows that homework improves study habits, attitudes toward school, self-discipline, inquisitiveness and independent problem solving skills. As you can see, homework improves students in a myriad of aspects.
Additionally, homework can help students prepare themselves for the real world, by teaching them how to be responsible, manage their time, prioritize, and meet deadlines, and value these qualities / practices. Research by the City University of New York noted that “students who engage in self-regulatory processes while completing homework,” such as goal-setting, time management, and remaining focused, “are generally more motivated and are higher achievers than those who do not use these processes.” Homework also involves research which is a character that students should build. This is because in the future, all monotonous jobs will be replaced with automation, so workplace researching is an important part of daily work. So, homework helps students in the long run as well.
Okay, but does homework have anything to do with parents? Actually, yes. Homework can get parents involved in a child’s life. By bringing homework to do, students can engage their learning process with their parents, so everyone can be involved. And many parents want homework sent, so they know what’s going on in the classroom and what their child is learning. According to another government website, ncbi.nlm.nih.gov, in the US, more than 80% of parents believe that homework is important for learning. This also relates to homework creating a communication network between teachers and parents. Teachers rarely see the family lives of their students, while parents rarely see the classroom lives of their children. Homework bridges the gap, and opens lines of communication. It also helps parents find out for themselves what their child’s strengths are and what they need to work on.
As you can see, homework really is valuable to students, as it improves student achievement, reinforces their learning through practice, teaches self-regulatory practices and real-world skills, and it creates a communication network. So next time you hear the words, “Do your homework”, maybe you really should do it.
~ Candria
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