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Homework Is Bad for Students: Why It Causes More Harm Than Good and How to Change the System



Student test score gains are also strongly influenced by school attendance and a variety of out-of-school learning experiences at home, with peers, at museums and libraries, in summer programs, on-line, and in the community. Well-educated and supportive parents can help their children with homework and secure a wide variety of other advantages for them. Other children have parents who, for a variety of reasons, are unable to support their learning academically. Student test score gains are also influenced by family resources, student health, family mobility, and the influence of neighborhood peers and of classmates who may be relatively more advantaged or disadvantaged.


Tying teacher evaluation and sanctions to test score results can discourage teachers from wanting to work in schools with the neediest students, while the large, unpredictable variation in the results and their perceived unfairness can undermine teacher morale. Surveys have found that teacher attrition and demoralization have been associated with test-based accountability efforts, particularly in high-need schools.




why students shouldn 39;t have homework articles




Furthermore, students who have fewer out-of-school supports for their learning have been found to experience significant summer learning loss between the time they leave school in June and the time they return in the fall. We discuss this problem in detail below. For now, suffice it to say that teachers who teach large numbers of low-income students will be noticeably disadvantaged in spring-to-spring test gain analyses, because their students will start the fall further behind than more affluent students who were scoring at the same level in the previous spring.


Statistical models cannot fully adjust for the fact that some teachers will have a disproportionate number of students who may be exceptionally difficult to teach (students with poorer attendance, who have become homeless, who have severe problems at home, who come into or leave the classroom during the year due to family moves, etc.) or whose scores on traditional tests are frequently not valid (e.g., those who have special education needs or who are English language learners). In any school, a grade cohort is too small to expect each of these many characteristics to be represented in the same proportion in each classroom.


The problems of measurement error and other sources of year-to-year variability are especially serious because many policy makers are particularly concerned with removing ineffective teachers in schools serving the lowest-performing, disadvantaged students. Yet students in these schools tend to be more mobile than students in more affluent communities. In highly mobile communities, if two years of data are unavailable for many students, or if teachers are not to be held accountable for students who have been present for less than the full year, the sample is even smaller than the already small samples for a single typical teacher, and the problem of misestimation is exacerbated.


Similarly, NCLB requires low-scoring schools to offer extra tutoring to students, provided by the school district or contracted from an outside tutoring service. High quality tutoring can have a substantial effect on student achievement gains.33 If test scores subsequently improve, should a specific teacher or the tutoring service be given the credit?


Teachers should not be held responsible for learning gains or losses during the summer, as they would be if they were evaluated by spring-to-spring test scores. These summer gains and losses are quite substantial. Indeed, researchers have found that three-fourths of schools identified as being in the bottom 20% of all schools, based on the scores of students during the school year, would not be so identified if differences in learning outside of school were taken into account.34 Similar conclusions apply to the bottom 5% of all schools.35


A number of U.S. experiments are underway to determine if offers to teachers of higher pay, conditional on their students having higher test scores in math and reading, actually lead to higher student test scores in these subjects. We await the results of these experiments with interest. Even if they show that monetary incentives for teachers lead to higher scores in reading and math, we will still not know whether the higher scores were achieved by superior instruction or by more drill and test preparation, and whether the students of these teachers would perform equally well on tests for which they did not have specific preparation. Until such questions have been explored, we should be cautious about claims that experiments prove the value of pay-for-performance plans.


While those who evaluate teachers could take student test scores over time into account, they should be fully aware of their limitations, and such scores should be only one element among many considered in teacher profiles. Some states are now considering plans that would give as much as 50% of the weight in teacher evaluation and compensation decisions to scores on existing poor-quality tests of basic skills in math and reading. Based on the evidence we have reviewed above, we consider this unwise. If the quality, coverage, and design of standardized tests were to improve, some concerns would be addressed, but the serious problems of attribution and nonrandom assignment of students, as well as the practical problems described above, would still argue for serious limits on the use of test scores for teacher evaluation.


Studies have also shown that too much homework can be very unhealthy, making students feel stressed and burnt out. In fact, more than 56% of students say that homework is a major reason they stress about school.


Collaboration is an important skill for students to have in the world of employment, opinions, and creating solutions. To understand any selected course material, have students argue a point against another within a mediated session.


Have the groups act out and interpret the meanings of these behaviors. This activity helps participants recognize nonverbal communication cues from others. Within their groups, have students display one of the nonverbal behaviors, while everyone else in the group shares or writes down what nonverbal message they are receiving.


I am a teacher in a High School Medical academy. We are working on Communications skills and I cant wait to use some of these games with my students. They are so technology oriented that They will need to learn these skills for the medical field. I wanted to share too that a game I used for team work and communication was the one where yo have items on a table covered and you have them peek for a few seconds then cover back up and they have to make a list. They will need to work together and communicate in order to make the list correct.Tank you for your suggestions.


From dioramas to book reports, from algebraic word problems to research projects, whether students should be given homework, as well as the type and amount of homework, has been debated for over a century. [1]


Data from a nationwide sample of elementary school students show that parental involvement in homework can improve class performance, especially among economically disadvantaged African-American and Hispanic students. [20]


30% (about 15 to 16 million) public school students either did not have an adequate internet connection or an appropriate device, or both, for distance learning. Completing homework for these students is more complicated (having to find a safe place with an internet connection, or borrowing a laptop, for example) or impossible. [51]


A Hispanic Heritage Foundation study found that 96.5% of students across the country needed to use the internet for homework, and nearly half reported they were sometimes unable to complete their homework due to lack of access to the internet or a computer, which often resulted in lower grades. [37] [38]


Fourth grade students who did no homework got roughly the same score on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) math exam as those who did 30 minutes of homework a night. Students who did 45 minutes or more of homework a night actually did worse. [41]


In elementary school, there is no nightly homework; students are encouraged to read a book or engage in academically aligned activities of choice instead. Grades are paired, and students are frequently broken into smaller, mixed-grade groups depending on their strengths and weaknesses. Teachers assess student skills and competencies, rather than assign traditional letter grades or scores.


The battle about homework becomes a battle over control. Your child starts fighting to have more control over the choices in their life, while you feel that your job as a parent is to be in control of things. So you both fight harder, and it turns into a war in your home.


Secondly, I am a FIRM believer in the techniques of behavior modification through positive reinforcement (Karen Pryor). It's up to an invested adult to determine what motivates the student and use those motivators to shape and reinforce desirable behavior such as daily homework completion. A classroom teacher has too many students and too little time to apply this theory.


behavior. We have a couple articles I think you may find helpful: When You Should Let Your Child Fail: The Benefits of Natural Consequences & 5 Natural Consequences You Should Let Your Child Face. Good luck to you and


Encourage students to master the capitals for all 50 states, learn three facts about 15 different animals, or memorize their multiplication tables. They can work on mastering their topic whenever they have extra time.


In the settings, set "Students submit in groups" to Yes. If you just do this, then once one student has submitted, the assignment will be flagged as submitted even if the others haven't contributed. If you want to ensure everyone has an input, set "Require students click submit button" to Yes and then change "Require all group members to submit" to Yes. The assignment will only be classed as submitted when each member has contributed, and once one student has submitted, the remaining members's names will be displayed for the group to see who still needs to add their input. 2ff7e9595c


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