A link is going around the ‘net this morning about homework. It’s an article in Education Week called The Truth About Homework and it asserts that
Homework continues to be assigned – in ever greater quantities – despite the absence of evidence that it’s necessary or even helpful in most cases.
The article goes on to cite the basis for the conclusion that homework is less than helpful, including data from the 1994 and 1999 Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) report. I just happen to be reviewing the TIMSS 2003 data for work, and that report had an interesting observation:
across countries, fourth-grade students in the medium category had the highest average mathematics achievement. This pattern suggests that, compared with their higher-achieving counterparts, the lower-performing students may be assigned more homework as a remedial strategy in an effort to keep up academically.
My read on that is that more homework did not translate into better achievement. I think that’s interesting, but the reason I find the original article interesting is that it does something I don’t see a lot of on the Internet. It makes an argument about education and uses scientific data as its basis.
Everyone seems to have an opinion about education, yet few people are actually reading existing research or recommending more research. Education is considered to be an enormous problem in this country.
The answer to “how can we help students” ought to be answered by reading existing research data, like the data referred to in the Education Week article, and coming to policy conclusions based on that data. But the largest gains could be made by continuing to fund education research and apply the results. In other words, apply science to the problem of education. Honestly, I don’t hear many people saying this and it surprises me.
But maybe it makes some sense. The people most worried are the folks with children in school right this very moment. As a result, people by and large are more interested in hearing about what can be done today to help students already in our school systems. Research proposes finding solutions after years of study. Your 5th grader will have graduated high school by the time 10 years of study have passed.
But if we are to solve the difficult problems of education, doesn’t it make sense that the only solution is to apply science, and do so for the long term? Education is important to the future of this country. Let’s commit to researching how to better teach our students and accept that research takes time. In the short term, let’s focus on what research tells us.
The Education Week article goes on to say
It wouldn’t make sense to say “Keep practicing until you understand” because practicing doesn’t create understanding – just as giving kids a deadline doesn’t teach time-management skills. What might make sense is to say “Keep practicing until what you’re doing becomes automatic.” But what kinds of proficiencies lend themselves to this sort of improvement? The answer is behavioral responses. Expertise in tennis requires lots of practice; it’s hard to improve your swing without spending a lot of time on the court. But to cite an example like that to justify homework is an example of what philosophers call begging the question. It assumes precisely what has to be proved, which is that intellectual pursuits are like tennis.
There it is. We treat learning like we’re training Pavolov’s dog. We expect children to pick up deep understanding by repeating shallow exercises. Learning mathematics is not like training your muscles to hit a tennis ball automatically. The harder we teach them like that, requiring repetition and teaching to the test, perhaps the more we’re only going to get graduates who are fit for tasks like tennis. They will not be prepared for the challenges facing a modern workforce and citizenry.
Posted by James at October 22, 2007 9:33 AMMy read on that is that more homework did not translate into better achievement.My read on it has a slightly different nuance (though a very close one). It's that assigning more homework to kids who don't "get" the lesson... doesn't help them get the lesson.
It might be that giving more homework to some subset of the group would translate into better achievement for those kids. The research is needed to determine how to triage the kids, and then how best to teach the kids in the resultant groups. It's clear to me from experience that different people learn differently. And yet "homework" tends to be a matter of giving the same thing to everyone, and expecting them all to learn the same way.
My experience (of how I did in school) also shows me that there's no value in forcing homework onto the students who already understand the material at a high level — you're just boring them, to no useful end.
I was lucky to have some teachers who recognized that, and who gave me, instead of the standard homework, advanced assignments that pushed my understanding and forced me to look beyond it. I know that many kids aren't that lucky, and that it's increasingly harder for teachers in public schools to take that approach.
Posted by: Barry Leiba at October 22, 2007 1:22 PMHubby the 6th Grade Math Teacher unabashedly gives his kids homework. He teaches them a skill and wants them to practice the skill. But he's dealing with concrete skills and a class that needs a lot of remedial work - they are poor in basic math (addition and subtraction, not just multiplication and division) and cannot estimate to save their lives. One of Hubby's biggest struggles is seeing a kid's answer to a problem that is wildly out of the ballpark and the kid has no idea that 852 is way too big an answer to a problem that boils down to 9 X 12.
Posted by: mjfrombuffalo at October 22, 2007 1:33 PMK came home the other night with a two-sided sheet of addition and subtraction of mixed positive and negative numbers the other night. This annoys the b'jeezers out of me. Please tell me who that helps. It's a simple concept which you either get or you don't. At most they should get one or two of each flavor, to show they understand the concepts (or don't). What information is being imparted to the teacher if they consistently mess them up? What benefit to the child if they consistently get them right? None and none.
I agree with Barry -- the children need to have the homework tailored to their needs. There also needs to be a smaller student-to-teacher ratio, and while I'm wishing on a star, every child should go to school with food in their belly and a place to sleep when they go home. :-(
At K's middle school, the children are segregated into "levels." To me this seems logical and appropriate, although a friend of mine whose children are not in the highest level keeps telling me it violates NCLB. I don't see why they couldn't take a quick concept test at the end of class and then get the homework distributed accordingly, or even start a "homework" assignment, with the kids who "get it" excused from doing the rest, and the kids who don't receiving a different sort of assignment based on the misconception. Or maybe what they really need is tutoring and the homework should go away altogether.
It frustrates me how difficult it is for a child to be well-rounded when so much of their time is sucked up by school and then homework.
Posted by: Maggie at October 22, 2007 2:12 PMmj:
He teaches them a skill and wants them to practice the skill. [...] One of Hubby's biggest struggles is seeing a kid's answer to a problem that is wildly out of the ballpark and the kid has no idea that 852 is way too big an answer to a problem that boils down to 9 X 12.Right, so does Hubby really find that they can take home 17 problems that boil down to 9 X 12, and bring them back the next day with answers that are lots better than 852?
That is, does it really help for kids who (1) can't multiply 9 by 12 and (2) have no idea that the answer should be "around 100" instead of "around 1000"... does it really help for them to take work home by themselves, and "practice" getting it wrong?
Where's the teaching in that?
To me, that's exactly the homework that doesn't make sense.
What homework makes sense?
Read [the assignment] and be prepared to discuss it in class (or write a report on it, to be turned in tomorrow).
Study today's lesson, do a few problems, and come in tomorrow with questions. The teacher will use the problems you've solved to see whether you understand it, and will help you if you don't.
Homework assignments should be used to prepare for class work, or to practice skills learned in class once the teacher is sure that they've been learned. Using homework to "teach" a skill by practice is very questionable.
[And mj, I'm not directly criticizing Hubby; I don't know him, and he might, in fact, be doing exactly what I'm talking about here. I just didn't get that from what you wrote.]
Posted by: Barry Leiba at October 23, 2007 10:22 AMin my personal non-scientific experience, I have never been given a reading assignment that was a waste of my time.
But I have been given busy work.
But, then, I am a self-motivated learner. The difficult cases are not.
Posted by: James at October 23, 2007 10:51 AMLast year, my boy was in fourth grade and his homework was ALL about writing that damned MCAS long composition (five paragraphs, six to seven sentences each), as the school failed to make AYP previously and they needed those little kids to write their way off probation.
My first grader has math homework every night so I'm assuming the elementary school has had some pressure to up their math scores.
I am so NOT a fan of this MCAS crap.
Posted by: jenny at October 24, 2007 12:07 PM