Is homework really not beneficial to learning, fundamentally?

[WasatchMan]

I am having trouble accepting that homework provides no benefit, something I have heard Stef say that studies show multiple times now.

 

My experience with learning things is homework is an essential part of the process.  When I was in school, I would go to the lectures and get the principles of the subject down, however it always required me going home and going through it myself, usually from multiple angles, via homework to actually have a decent understanding of the materials.

 

Is there something I am missing about what Stef is saying?  It just seems like such an obviously false claim that I am willing to think I am misunderstanding something.  If it is not true, then saying it is is pretty damaging, because homework, like learning to read, takes delay of gratification and if you have the idea that there is no benefit then it will just be that much harder to be motivated.

 

I understand that the school system is fundamentally ineffective at this point in time, so my question is: Is homework really not beneficial to learning, fundamentally?

[J. D. Stembal]

Homework, by its very definition, implies that school is an inefficient tool for spreading knowledge. Everything that is useful can be learned outside of the public school system. You got it correctly in your post, and answered your own question.

 

Having homework is very demotivating because most people only do it because it factors into their grades, and not doing homework can force even an intelligent student to flunk out of school or be held back a grade. In three quarters of my classes, I could have gotten away with not doing any homework and still passed the final exam. This is how you know that education is a sham. If the homework and lessons are just a means to an end (passing a class and getting a piece of paper), it is functionally worthless in the real world.

 

The only practice or homework from public school I have found useful is writing. Having to write a paper and make an argument or compel the reader with the written word has been one of my most cherished abilities learned via school, and it serves me well to this day. Unfortunately, public schools don't stress public speaking in the same way. I took one speech class in high school and we were not required to recite anything in front of an auditorium-sized crowd, just the classroom.

 

One semester of speech practice doesn't prepare anyone for public speaking engagements. I've only performed in front of a crowd, in a speaking engagement or musically, three times in my life. If students were expected to practice speaking at school rallies or events as much as they were expected to write, we would have a lot more charismatic people coming out of public school, which is something the political powers that be probably want to stifle.

 

No public school does not mean that children will not learn to read. If there is a need for a child to learn, they will learn. My mother got this wrong when I told her that public school needed to be abolished. She claimed that only the wealthy would be educated, implying that illiteraciy would rise with economic disparity. So what? Maybe not everyone needs to be educated in order to succeed. She holds an BA in Elementary Education, but never actually taught children, so her perspective is unsurprising to say the least. Her knowledge is purely theoretical. When I had trouble with my Algebra homework. it was my dad that tutored me.

[WasatchMan]

Homework, by its very definition, implies that school is an inefficient tool for spreading knowledge.

 

I gotta disagree with that implication.  Like I said, I was able to obtain general guiding principles of ideas from lectures, but it takes some time going through the idea with my own mind to fundamentally understand it.  For me, to master a subject I need to go through the proof.  The answer is great, but learning requires understand the "why",  you have to understand the proof.  You have to see how the proof unravels from multiple perspectives in order to visualize its shape.  That takes "homework" and it cannot be transmuted through only a classroom environment.  It takes alone time.

 

Edit: Furthermore, especially in University, I could definitely tell the difference in how well I was able to learn a subject by how well the Prof. was able to shape the homework around the lecture material.  To me this shows that there is a spectrum to the efficacy of homework, proving that there is a potential area for benefit.

[J. D. Stembal]

Did the forum just eat another one of my posts?

 

Four great paragraphs and the forum nuked it.

 

My point is if you have to practice at home to become proficient in something, why go to school at all? If it's labelled as "homework", it implies that just going to class is not enough. In my experience, 3/4 of the items I needed to regurgitate for the final exam didn't require hours of homework to produce.

 

The exception for me is higher math such as Algebra and Calculus. I really had to study just to pass these classes, but I've never used anything more complicated than mental fractions in the real world. I can add, subtract, multiply and divide all in my head on the spot. Why does the average person require more than this level of education?

[Dylan Lawrence Moore]

You can learn anything anywhere on your own time. If you take some time to practice something at home, for the sake of getting better at it, not for the sake of following orders, then of course you can get better at it.

 

The deal with school is that what it teaches you isn't just worthless, it's designed to fill your head with crap to distract you from realizing that you're being classically conditioned to follow orders and not question authority, a la the Prussian model. The homework they give you is along these same lines, and basically extends the control of the school/teacher outside the confines of the classroom, creating insurance that the child has a much lower chance of getting any "wrong thoughts" from his or her parents, as he's too busy doing his homework.

[cab21]

maybe there has to be a context to what the homework is

if someone wants to become a journalist, i would  think a homework assignment where a person does journalism would fit the goal of learning the craft of journalism?

[shirgall]

The type of homework and the type of learner make all the difference here.

 

This barely scratches the surface: http://www.nctm.org/news/content.aspx?id=13816

 

When I was an educator (of a sorts) what I discovered is that if students experienced the same lesson in three ways they retained it better. They read it (or at least saw it on a slide), they heard it (as in a lecture), and they experience it by trying it out. Certain skills need rote practice, like memorization, arithmetic, and trigger-press. Certain skills need a different kind of practice, like case studies, word problems, and real-world scenarios.

 

Another thing I learned was that students needed knowledge, skills, and attitude in combination to be successful with what they learned. (This KSA principle shows up in other places.)

 

The holy grail is that you've learned enough to deal with something new with a solid toolset and the confidence to apply it. I'm not sure homework gets there, unless it's extremely tailored for each student.

 

My students hated me for several reasons. First was I had a MWF class at 8am (because I had to do my real job after class). Second was that I would assign work every week and I'd do it on the projector in the first 5-10 minutes in class on Monday (and not accept late submissions). My secret was I gave full credit if it was clear they tried it because my hope was that if they had tried it and then they saw me do it they learned more than they would from a boring assignment alone.

 

My objective for the class was for them to have confidence and ability to do their assignments in future classes: a good foundation. For that I needed to give out homework and back it up by making the homework meaningful.

[McBeer]

I gotta disagree with that implication.  Like I said, I was able to obtain general guiding principles of ideas from lectures, but it takes some time going through the idea with my own mind to fundamentally understand it.  For me, to master a subject I need to go through the proof.  The answer is great, but learning requires understand the "why",  you have to understand the proof.  You have to see how the proof unravels from multiple perspectives in order to visualize its shape.  That takes "homework" and it cannot be transmuted through only a classroom environment.  It takes alone time.

 

Edit: Furthermore, especially in University, I could definitely tell the difference in how well I was able to learn a subject by how well the Prof. was able to shape the homework around the lecture material.  To me this shows that there is a spectrum to the efficacy of homework, proving that there is a potential area for benefit.

 

In the classes which I learned the most, homework was optional. You know what you don't know, and if you don't know it you should practice to get better. If I completely understand the "why" and the proof, then homework becomes pointless busy work.

 

Imagine having a school requirement in college where you had to write the alphabet 1000 times every day just to prove you know the alphabet.  For me, this is how I viewed homework. Stop wasting my TIME!!!!!

 

I have also heard that practice makes perfect. Ok. Write down the alphabet 1000 times and see how much better the last one is compared to the first. I bet the last one is much worse, because by the time you finish the last one you hate the alphabet and the teacher so much you just don't care anymore. You will be scribbling it down so fast it won't even be legible. This is homework.

 

I don't know if this is how it was for everybody else, but this is how it was for me.

 

This is why this system of schooling will never ever work.  Just because the system may work for someone, doesn't mean it isn't excruciating torture for someone else.  

 

Please do not try to justify homework to me. It is torture.

[Mister Mister]

I am having trouble accepting that homework provides no benefit, something I have heard Stef say that studies show multiple times now.

 

My experience with learning things is homework is an essential part of the process.  When I was in school, I would go to the lectures and get the principles of the subject down, however it always required me going home and going through it myself, usually from multiple angles, via homework to actually have a decent understanding of the materials.

 

Is there something I am missing about what Stef is saying?  It just seems like such an obviously false claim that I am willing to think I am misunderstanding something.  If it is not true, then saying it is is pretty damaging, because homework, like learning to read, takes delay of gratification and if you have the idea that there is no benefit then it will just be that much harder to be motivated.

 

I understand that the school system is fundamentally ineffective at this point in time, so my question is: Is homework really not beneficial to learning, fundamentally?

    Can you cite exactly what Stef said and what studies are in question?

 

 I don't think it is clear enough to say "homework is not beneficial to learning".  Of course self study at home could be very beneficial in many ways.  When I think of homework, I think of compelling kids to regurgitate what they were told in school onto some worksheet

[MMX2010]

 

Please do not try to justify homework to me. It is torture.

 

Thank you for explaining everything very well. 

 

WastachMan, imagine the difference between a voluntaryist school and a coercive one.  Under voluntaryism, you would only study what you wanted AND you'd have a strong say in what was taught.  (So just because you want to learn physics doesn't mean, in a voluntaryist system, that you want to learn physics from that particular teacher.  Nor does it mean that you want to learn that particular part of physics.)

 

I imagine under voluntaryism homework would be very correlated with learning, but that's due to the voluntaryistic nature of the interaction. 

[J. D. Stembal]

McBeer has it exactly right about the torture aspect.

 

Rote memorization and public school's lowest common denominator teaching style kills a child's capacity to teach themselves what they want to learn. What if the child has no desire to learn the material but is forced to do so under duress? When learning something new later in life, the child, now an adult, will feel that apprehensive fear of imminent failure and shame.

 

Have you ever had the reoccurring nightmare where you show up to class and find out that there's a test you forgot about? That's kind of how it feels.

[NotDarkYet]

How is 8 hours a day x 5 days a week not enough time to deliver information?

[WasatchMan]

In the classes which I learned the most, homework was optional. You know what you don't know, and if you don't know it you should practice to get better. If I completely understand the "why" and the proof, then homework becomes pointless busy work.

 

Imagine having a school requirement in college where you had to write the alphabet 1000 times every day just to prove you know the alphabet.  For me, this is how I viewed homework. Stop wasting my TIME!!!!!

 

I have also heard that practice makes perfect. Ok. Write down the alphabet 1000 times and see how much better the last one is compared to the first. I bet the last one is much worse, because by the time you finish the last one you hate the alphabet and the teacher so much you just don't care anymore. You will be scribbling it down so fast it won't even be legible. This is homework.

 

I don't know if this is how it was for everybody else, but this is how it was for me.

 

This is why this system of schooling will never ever work.  Just because the system may work for someone, doesn't mean it isn't excruciating torture for someone else.  

 

Please do not try to justify homework to me. It is torture.

 

My question is whether homework is fundamentally not beneficial, not whether homework could potentially be a waste of time. I completely accept that a lot of homework in the modern system is likely a waste of time.  The system in which homework is implemented could be optional or could be part of your measure of "success" in the class, but it is still homework.

 

WastachMan, imagine the difference between a voluntaryist school and a coercive one.  Under voluntaryism, you would only study what you wanted AND you'd have a strong say in what was taught.  (So just because you want to learn physics doesn't mean, in a voluntaryist system, that you want to learn physics from that particular teacher.  Nor does it mean that you want to learn that particular part of physics.)

 

I imagine under voluntaryism homework would be very correlated with learning, but that's due to the voluntaryistic nature of the interaction. 

 

This sounds like "unschooling" to me.  Learning takes hard work, especially the subjects like physics.  It takes alone time away from funner/less friction activities, IMO. It takes delaying of gratification. These are things kids are not very good at because they lack the experience yet to grasp the long range importance, or the joy that is derived from grasping a subject after lots of hard work. They also don't know enough about physics, or education and life in general, to even make the claim that they have the capacity to choose what parts of it  they should learn.  They need to learn the fundamentals before they can even possibly have the choice of what they want to master. I have heard enough "unschoolers" calling into FDR that just released their kid to choose whatever they wanted to learn (which ended up being Xbox or something similar) to know that teaching isn't a matter of letting kids learn at their discretion.  I would say that the proper, or even ethical, way to get a kid to do homework would be to negotiate with them, but not trying to influence a child with your wisdom on the importance of learning, especially the hard subjects they may not see the value of learning enough to not play another round of Call of Duty, is not doing that child any favors.

 

 

    Can you cite exactly what Stef said and what studies are in question?

 

 I don't think it is clear enough to say "homework is not beneficial to learning".  Of course self study at home could be very beneficial in many ways.  When I think of homework, I think of compelling kids to regurgitate what they were told in school onto some worksheet

 

Here is one place I found it but he said it multiple times (http://youtu.be/Y2GyogfTqkQ?t=1h9m44s) :

 

 

With homework, which has never been shown to add one atom to anybodies intelligence or learning capacity...

 

--------

Again, I am talking about whether homework is beneficial as such.  Not whether homework is beneficial in a bad system.  I feel like most of these arguments are against the current schooling paradigm, which I agree is terrible.  It also seems like "homework" is a loaded word with a lot of emotional baggage, so in the interest of keeping this thread focused on what I intended, I would be willing to toss out the word "homework" and ask the question: Do you believe self study on your own is beneficial to learning?

[cab21]

Do you believe self study on your own is beneficial to learning?

 

sure

 

my picture of homework is that it's guided study though rather that totally self directed study?

it's not the student trying to pick the best method to learn, but taking guidance from a expert into a learning process.

[WasatchMan]

sure

 

my picture of homework is that it's guided study though rather that totally self directed study?

it's not the student trying to pick the best method to learn, but taking guidance from a expert into a learning process.

 

Self directed wasn't what I intended as the context.  "Self" was intended to mean "on your own time".  I think there will always be a value, especially in voluntary societies, to obtain services from an expert to guide you through the subject.

[Lians]

Here's a report of the study Stef referenced in a few podcasts: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2012/11/26/homework-an-unnecessary-evil-surprising-findings-from-new-research

[WasatchMan]

Here's a report of the study Stef referenced in a few podcasts: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2012/11/26/homework-an-unnecessary-evil-surprising-findings-from-new-research

 

Here are my thoughts on this report:

1. Compares self reported homework time vs. standardized testing and compares self reported homework time vs.  GPA.  These are measures of homework and the ability to take tests. 

2. The self reported homework time seems pretty unreliable since between the two data sets there is almost a 40% discrepancy in the average time students self reported that they spend on homework.

3. Even if the self reported homework time was reliable, this methodology would still be problematic due to the fact that people are different in their need to do additional study to grasp a subject, and that grades and tests are typically designed so that a B to C average is the outcome.  I had friends that all they needed to do was show up to class and they could get a good grade.  I had to study on my own in order to get the same understanding.  However, at the end of the semester, we both had the same grade.  If we were to use the same methodology as in the study, we would be left with the conclusion that I wasted my time studying, because my friend was able to get the same grade without studying.  In order to get real numbers, the study would need to control for this.

4.  This methodology is looking at the results of homework in a state run primary education system.  In other words, GIGO.

[cab21]

Self directed wasn't what I intended as the context.  "Self" was intended to mean "on your own time".  I think there will always be a value, especially in voluntary societies, to obtain services from an expert to guide you through the subject.

 

outside of class time, i think would play a important part of class if neccicary.

 

i mean, if someone is taking a literary class on a 1000 page novel, is it good use of class time to read the novel in class?

[AustinJames]

Stefan's references on this topic have bothered me as well.  Of course, extended practice with any academic concept will result in higher mastery.  The problem is the type of homework that is assigned: it is often useless busy work.  I understand his point that eight hours out of a child's day should be enough for any sort of proper education, but that says nothing for the possible benefits of homework.  The problem is that it's impossible to effectively measure.  You can't separate parental influence.  That is, it's impossible to distinguish between students that do well because they have a good home environment, and students that succeed due to homework, independent of other factors.

[Jack]

Alfie Kohn has written a book called "The Homework Myth." This book is based on the study that Lians referenced here and Stef referenced in the show. 

 

Since my own views on the value of homework are conflicting, I went hunting for data. I then decided that I didn't want to piece together tables, so I decided to go with the most comprehensive source I found. 

 

What I stumbled upon was a page by the center for public education. The page goes over a history of studies and summarizes their conclusions. On the value of homework, they wrote:

 

Does homework affect student learning?

Myth 1:

 Homework increases academic achievement. 

What researchers say:

 Cooper (1989a) argues that reviews on the link between homework and achievement often directly contradict one another and are so different in design that the findings of one study cannot be evaluated fairly against the findings of others.

Myth 2:

 Without excessive homework, students’ test scores will not be internationally competitive.

What researchers say:

 Information from international assessments shows little relationship between the amount of homework students do and test scores. Students in Japan and Finland, for example, are assigned less homework but still outperform U.S. students on tests (Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development 2004). Other studies find a positive relationship in math, but not in reading (Fuchs et al. 2004).

Myth 3:

 Those who question homework want to weaken curriculum and pander to students' laziness.

What researchers say:

 Kralovec and Buell (2001) note that homework critics rarely question the work assigned but rather the fact that the work is so often performed at home without adult supervision to aid the learning process.

- See more at: http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/Main-Menu/Instruction/What-research-says-about-the-value-of-homework-At-a-glance/What-research-says-about-the-value-of-homework-Research-review.html#sthash.DgIeC0lR.dpuf

 

There's more fascinating reading there, so I suggest you check it out. There's no conclusive proof one way or another, but it seems that homework has assumed value that can't be proved. Just like religion and the state, homework also has significant downsides such as limiting time for the parent child bond and penalizing children learning at a different rate.

 

I know that several people have mentioned that they wouldn't have learned a subject without homework. I want to say, what you would have failed without was practice, not homework. If the teacher hadn't assigned homework, and you failed the first test, you'd either turn it around, or fail out of the class. In which case, homework wouldn't have saved you. 

 

I hope you all had as much fun reading this post as I did reading the rest. Thanks guys and keep on pondering!

[PatrickC]

This reminds me of some people I've known that claimed they enjoyed school. Who am I to argue with that it seems. Personally I hated homework, it was mostly boring, but also very time consuming. Two hours an evening as I recall. It also precipitated some awful outbursts from my father as he tried to force feed me mathematics.

 

All said and done I can't dismiss those individuals that enjoyed and benefited from it. I just have to wonder though, given the coercive nature of schooling (including homework). It reminds me of taxation that often brings benefits for the few at the expense of the many. From a philosophical perspective homework really should be a voluntary pursuit, something that a child wants to do. Albeit with the guidance of an adult of course.

[GasCap]

To me homework is means more practice and repetition. Homework is not necessary but practice and repetition is