Should homework be required?

[spaekle]

This is exactly why I prefer the idea of giving participation grades for homework. If you don't give a grade at all, most of the students probably won't do it. Making it count toward something will motivate them more, and it doesn't take nearly as much time to walk around the room, make sure everyone at least made a decent attempt at the homework, and give them points based on their effort. Then the teacher can go over the answers, and it's up to the students to figure out what they're getting wrong and why.

 

[Tarvos]

I think grading homework works fine opal, in fact I think homework should be graded. In fact for most people I think weekly homework assignments should be marked and graded because it shows active participation in the class. Written exams should form another part of the exam (you should be able to reproduce what you learned accurately at any given time) but the only way you can do it is by practice.

The other thing is that people should do actual project assignments (so essays and presentations and the like). The presentations and such are important for research and the reports are important in sciences as well - essays are better suited to social sciences or liberal arts kinds of things (an essay on sciences can be useful but at some point we're stopping general knowledge and actually researching, so it's not an essay as such anymore)

the optimal thing would be like 25% homework exercises 25% presentation 25% paper 25% actual exam

all of these invite to active participation which means going to class is actually relevant and shit and people will show up and not just sit there because they have to

also if there is not a final exam people don't show up to class at uni

 

[Jason-Kun]

I don't really approve of homework being given for practice and then graded for correctness. The teacher should obviously go over the correct answers in class and help students out if they have any problems, but to expect some students to be able to get 30 math problems correct just a few hours after taking 5 minutes worth of notes and being shown an incredibly basic example is a bit too much. :\ You can grade for correctness on the test; grade for participation on the homework, if you grade it at all.

There should also be a limit of how much homework can be given. There's just no sense in giving students as much homework as some teachers out there do. :\

This right here. Also homework should be optional to do.

 

[Crazy Linoone]

This is exactly why I prefer the idea of giving participation grades for homework. If you don't give a grade at all, most of the students probably won't do it. Making it count toward something will motivate them more, and it doesn't take nearly as much time to walk around the room, make sure everyone at least made a decent attempt at the homework, and give them points based on their effort. Then the teacher can go over the answers, and it's up to the students to figure out what they're getting wrong and why.

I agree completely here.

I know there's all the people complaining about how homework doesn't help learning, but some do. Some things, like math, one just needs a lot of practice to understand; even if you memorize all the formulas, it's still not going to help when you come across complicated problems that require logical thinking and several steps to solve instead of just formula plugging. Homework is good practice.

About SATs... I think the universities are now focusing on extracurricular activities more than SATs now, but they do make a difference when about five hundred other people have the same activities as you do. Hence, people are still going crazy over the SAT. The UCs are not going to consider SATIIs in 2012 though, and right now a lot of colleges are slowly shifting their focus to ACTs, which are better tests but are still standardized tests.

Another "hot" test in US is the PSAT, which is like a practice SAT: the score don't get sent to the colleges, but if you score in a top percentage (forgot which), you get an award or something, which looks good on your college apps. So yeah, the SAT things are still very important, even though they're stupid.

 

[#1 bro]

All I know is that every day, homework makes me want to take a bullet to my head, and yet 95% of it is almost entirely useless.

 

[Kurai]

All I know is that every day, homework makes me want to take a bullet to my head, and yet 95% of it is almost entirely useless.

Seconded. It takes me HOURS to do my math homework (to be fair, I'm terrible at math). I think that the work should be done at school where the teachers can help and there aren't as many distractions as there are at home.

 

[opaltiger]

Some things, like math, one just needs a lot of practice to understand; even if you memorize all the formulas, it's still not going to help when you come across complicated problems that require logical thinking and several steps to solve instead of just formula plugging. Homework is good practice.

Memorising formulae is hardly a good way to go about studying (or teaching) maths.

 

[Tarvos]

you need to memorise basic stuff but derive the rest yes

 

[Teh Ebil Snorlax]

It's the most important test because for some reason universities accept you based on your SAT scores. This is ridiculous, and is probably the reason the top universities also conduct interviews.

High school systems in other countries are orders of magnitude harder than in the US. UK A-levels are about the level of first-year university in the US. The IB is even harder. Any non-US university worth its accreditation will demand 95th %ile or above SAT scores. Cambridge laughs at the SAT and demands all 5s at AP level. And so on.

also I really, really hope you knew the SAT was only an American thing

In Ireland, the Junior Cert is of the same magnitude of difficulty as the A-levels. And it is considered the least difficult exam in the entire education system.

The Irish eduction system spits upon its students, then punches them in the groin, smacks them upside the head, gives them an education valid in almost any First World country, a good, strong kick in the arse and sends them on their way.

 

[opaltiger]

In Ireland, the Junior Cert is of the same magnitude of difficulty as the A-levels.

... no it isn't. Junior cert is taken after three years of secondary school; unless you're telling me you did calculus at the age of fifteen, there is no way it is on the same level as the A-levels. Based on my own experiences with the Irish educational system (which were limited to primary school; my sister, however, did two years of secondary school) there is no way even the Leaving Cert is harder than the A-levels, except possibly in that it consists of six rather than three subjects.

 

[Teh Ebil Snorlax]

... no it isn't. Junior cert is taken after three years of secondary school; unless you're telling me you did calculus at the age of fifteen, there is no way it is on the same level as the A-levels. Based on my own experiences with the Irish educational system (which were limited to primary school; my sister, however, did two years of secondary school) there is no way even the Leaving Cert is harder than the A-levels, except possibly in that it consists of six rather than three subjects.

Sorry, I confused GCSEs with A-levels.

I'd still say the Leaving Cert is harder than the A-levels though, six is the minimum amount of subjects you can do, most schools do seven minimum and I'm going to be doing at least nine (my school does seven minimum but for various academic and personal reasons, I'm going to be putting on at least two extra subjects, if not more).

And this isn't including the Leaving Cert Vocational Programme (aka LCVP aka Links) which is another subject on top of all the others.

Then you must bear in mind that at higher level, English, Irish, Maths (the three mandatory subjects), Technology, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Music and Tech Graph all have two papers, that Irish, French, German, Russian and Spanish have an aural exam separate from other papers of the exams, that all but Russian also have an oral exam, that Home Ec, Technology, Engineering, Music and Construction Studies have a practical exam, Art has three, all of the practical subjects require projects as well as a portfolio and each of the sciences (Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Applied Maths and Ag. Science) and Links also requires a portfolio. And both Irish and English requiring studying multiple poets and their poetry, a novel and two plays.

Each normal paper is about two and a half hours long, each aural paper about forty minutes, which means the average student (following the typical "English, Irish, Maths, <insert science here>, <insert language here>, <insert art here>, <insert practical/business subject here>" formula) sits about 27 hours in written papers alone, plus an hour in orals and three hours minimum in practicals, if not more.

Then after all that work, they only mark you on your best six.

Now, admittedly, my only knowledge of the A-levels comes from my British cousins, but when my cousin Jake (Irish) and my cousin Barney (British) were talking about the two of them, Barney seemed almost horrified at the amount of work Jake had to do with English, Irish, Maths, Physics (science), French (language), History (art) and Economics (business subject).

 

[opaltiger]

Like I said, it's mostly the fact that there are more subjects. I imagine the material isn't much harder. Same situation with the IB - six subjects, minimum two written papers in each, often three for higher level subjects, languages have oral exams (two of them!), plus there's extra work outside the six-subject structure including a 4000 word independently researched paper. But ultimately the actual work you do is at about the same level. Although my sister says Leaving Cert maths standard is much easier than IB maths standard.

And both Irish and English requiring studying multiple poets and their poetry, a novel and two plays.

Only? We do five poets and about fifteen novels/plays.

 

[H-land]

Quick question. We still discussing homework here? Because I'm seeing more of a standardized test discussion, which, while loosely related, is not quite as relevant to the topic as one might wish that it were.
As for a simple statement of opinion, I'll say that some sorts of homework should not be required, but that others probably are better off done outside of the classroom.

 

[Teh Ebil Snorlax]

Like I said, it's mostly the fact that there are more subjects. I imagine the material isn't much harder. Same situation with the IB - six subjects, minimum two written papers in each, often three for higher level subjects, languages have oral exams (two of them!), plus there's extra work outside the six-subject structure including a 4000 word independently researched paper. But ultimately the actual work you do is at about the same level.

When you add up all the practicals, papers, extra exams and such, it all comes to the same really.

Although my sister says Leaving Cert maths standard is much easier than IB maths standard.

Depends on whether you're doing Foundation level, Ordinary level or Higher level. If you get a B1 (85-89%) in Higher level Maths at Junior Cert, you are advised to drop down to Ordinary level at Leaving Cert because you will almost certainly get a D. The difference of difficulty is almost disturbing between Higher and Ordinary.

Only? We do five poets and about fifteen novels/plays.

We do most of the bibliography of ten poets, the novel and the two plays and we have to have university-level analysis of all of them. Then you get sprung with two unseen plays, an unseen fiction excerpt and a few unseen poems on the day. Bear in mind in the case of Irish that this is a language that most of the population of Ireland speak with the proficiency and eloquence of a decerebrated chimpanzee. And you can't get an exemption unless you've been living outside Ireland for five of the previous seven years of your life or you have a learning disabilty (which in the case of dyslexia and others that could be termed minor learning disabilities as opposed to say, autism, is kind of a cop-out because even a decerebrated chimpanzee could do the Foundation-level Irish paper).

Quick question. We still discussing homework here? Because I'm seeing more of a standardized test discussion, which, while loosely related, is not quite as relevant to the topic as one might wish that it were.
As for a simple statement of opinion, I'll say that some sorts of homework should not be required, but that others probably are better off done outside of the classroom.

It came about because somebody started bragging about the SAT, I believe. Since I scored in the 95th percentile on the PSAT when I was twelve, I don't think the SAT can reasonably be claimed to be that hard.

 

[Doctor Jimmy]

Homework should be mandatory, because I learn a lot by doing 2+2 on a piece of paper hundreds of times.

How do you think Socrates and Aristotle learned to do their math? They didn't have worksheets and multiple-step problems back then, but they learned a fuckton more than what I learn from reading a stupid book on how numbers magically change into other numbers.

 

[Tarvos]

What's your point?

 

[Doctor Jimmy]

What's your point?

I'm saying that homework shouldn't replace quality teaching in the classroom. And, I feel that making homework "mandatory" will do just that: making an excuse for teachers not to teach, so they can put it off as homework.

 

[Dannichu]

Only? We do five poets and about fifteen novels/plays.

I think it pretty much goes:

In A-level English Lit , you study two books a year.
In university English lit, you study two books a week.

It's hardly a decent preparation.

 

[Tarvos]

I'm saying that homework shouldn't replace quality teaching in the classroom. And, I feel that making homework "mandatory" will do just that: making an excuse for teachers not to teach, so they can put it off as homework.

But homework is and will always be an addition to teaching.

 

[goldenquagsire]

I think it pretty much goes:

In A-level English Lit , you study two books a year.
In university English lit, you study two books a week.

It's hardly a decent preparation.

no way in hell would I be able to properly study two books a week for A-levels when we have three other subjects (a language + two other essay subjects absolutely kills your spare time). :(

also @this thread: pretty much everything in the world needs practice, whether it's musical instruments, drawing or calculus. there just isn't the time to practice things in class (particularly at the lower levels of school where you might only get a few lessons per week of any one subject), so homework is a good way of doing this practice.