Academic institutions have used homework for centuries as a tool to reinforce learning. They believe that this form of behavioral learning helps to practice and intensify the memorization of concepts. Additionally, teachers also use it to measure a student’s progress and recognition of the theories discussed in the class. However, people believe that homework causes stress, prevents students from pursuing co-curricular activities, and brings in obesity. If you want to know more about the pros and cons of homework, then this blog can be of great help to you. Read the blog to learn the details.
What is Homework?
Homework is a series of tasks that teachers assign students to complete outside of their classroom. Typically homework assignments include reading, mathematical exercises, writing projects, revision before tests, or practice skills. However, the pros and cons of homework are debated. Usually, homework does not enhance children’s academic performance. But, the repetitive tasks involved in assignment help older students who fail to score high grades in their academics to improve their learning. However, homework has some negative effects. It increases stress in parents and children and reduces the time students could spend on other co-curricular activities.
Different Types of Homework
Having basic knowledge about the types of homework offered in schools and colleges helps you get a better understanding of the pros and cons of homework. In general, there are 7 types of homework. It includes:
Practice
It is the most common form of homework. It includes attempting to strengthen contents learned in school to commit information to long-term memory.
Example: Solving problems in a math workbook is a typical example of practice. Here, teachers will discuss the concepts and theories associated with the module in class. Moreover, they will also help you adopt the tricks to solve the different types of math problems associated with the concept. At the end, of the class, they will assign you to work on a maximum of 50 math problems to solve overnight.
Many people believe that doing so helps to reinforce the task.
Preparation
Preparatory homework assigned to students involves going through the lesson and absorbing all possible information before it is discussed in class. The primary objective of this type of homework is to allow students to gain some basic knowledge on the subject so that the complex information that will be explained in the next class never seems anonymous to the students and that they can grasp the information easily.
Example: Reading materials that teachers provide to students in between two classes is a perfect illustration of preparatory homework.
Extension
It includes offering students with tasks that are dependent on all things that have been studied in the class. However, it never goes above and beyond the task.
Example: Extension homework seems like asking a student to swim and then allowing them to swim in the sea. However, it does not mean so.
Integration
Integration of homework means bringing together knowledge from various areas or subjects to work on one project.
Example: integration of writing skills and knowledge in history to develop a book report or integration of math with business studies to develop a business plan are common examples of integration homework.
Research
Research homework requires a student to collect data in the afterschool hours which will be discussed later in the class.
Example: Searching for information on the internet, capturing images of the community, and interrogating family members are common examples of research homework.
Application
Application homework entails obtaining knowledge studied in class and using it in practical-world settings.
Example: Teachers ask students to use the vocabulary learned in school to buy food or drinks from restaurants or karts.
Flipped Homework
In this case, a student learns a subject at home and employs the learning through the tasks they perform in school. Example: Students are asked to watch a video on YouTube and write a critical review in the class.
Also read: How To Stay Focused On Homework Without Much Effort
Pros of Homework
Homework has many pros and cons. Some of the pros of homework are:
Implants Discipline and Habit
The two most significant soft skills that give returns to a person throughout his entire life and help him to become successful are discipline and good habits. Working daily on homework helps to reinforce habits and discipline quite easily. Students learn that after reaching home they must change their clothes, have some snacks, and then sit with their homework. Moreover, homework instills in them a lot of other habits. For example:
- The importance of maintaining concentration on their work until it is finished,
- The significance of completing the work at hand,
- The responsibility associated with completing homework,
- Keeping designated hours to do every task.
Allows Parents to be Aware of What’s Being Learned in Class
The education of a child does not revolve around a teacher and a kid. Parents play a significant role in instilling the knowledge discussed in class and in helping students to do well in their academic careers. Hence, it is essential to keep parents in the loop. Homework is one of the finest ways of incorporating parents to know what is being taught in the class. Some simple ways teachers do it is by giving homework on the subject discussed in the class.
For example, if a teacher educates students about dinosaurs, she assigns homework on dinosaurs as well. In this way, the teacher can show the parent the valuable learning students experience in school. Hence, it allows parents to be aware of their child’s progress in knowledge.
Teaches Time Management
People often weigh the pros and cons of homework. One of the most significant pros of homework is learning the essential skill of time management. Children often have to deal with various afterschool activities apart from working on the homework assigned by the school teachers. However, completing every task in the time they have at home is essential.
Hence, homework, in a subtle way, teaches students to assign specific hours for doing tasks and acquire the speed and focus to complete them within the stipulated time. The time management skill that they imbibe at a tender age helps them to manage their own time and become successful multitaskers in the future.
Permits Students to Learn at Their Own Pace
Not all students study at the same pace. Some absorb information quickly while others take time. In school, every lesson has a set of allocated time to start and end. The quick learners get the information and work on the in-class task quickly. However, it is those who function at a snail’s pace who struggle to understand the concept. Homework permits them to learn things or revise them at their own pace. In this way, they don’t miss out on any details and get to reinforce the concepts.
Also read: Significant Reasons Why Is Homework Bad
Reduces Screen Time
While mulling over the pros and cons of homework, a concern that popped into our mind was screen time. There is no need to explain the negative effects of blue rays of the screen have on our eyes. But, unfortunately, children of this 21st century are more prone to spend 5-7 hours with computer games, cartoons, and mobile applications. Moreover, not all students enjoy reading. Hence, imposing time limits on screen time for children becomes quite a difficult task. However, by working on tasks teachers assign in the form of homework, these children make more productive use of the day than lazing around by playing video games.
Reinforces Information Taught in Class
We all know the saying, ‘Practice makes a man perfect.’ Subjects that are taught in school cannot be remembered unless the learning is reinforced. The statement is especially true for difficult tasks that require students to go over a concept multiple times to become a master at it. Therefore, the old-fashioned repetition of tasks or working on homework is necessary to know how it is done.
For example, algebra is a part of math that requires a student to repeat the process of simplifying statements to instinctively know how to complete them if students get them in the form of assignments or assessments.
However, it is given that students will learn the foundational skills and ways of strengthening their knowledge in school.
Motivate Students To Get Ahead
Apart from the long-term benefits of homework discussed above, there are a few minor advantages that we found worth sharing. One that stands tall among them is that homework motivates children to do better in school. Some children challenge themselves and focus on improving their craft to get better at it while others want to excel over their batch mates. Students who draw motivation from homework belong to the latter category. They do homework to get an advantage over their friends and classmates. They believe that if they work hard to get the highest number of stars on their homework, they can top the class. Many academicians believe that this method of working on the task must be encouraged.
Read more: Best Tips on How to Do Homework Faster
Allows Parents and Children to Spend Time Together
In today’s busy world parents are too busy to have free time for strengthening their relationship with their children. However, it is essential for the cognitive growth of children and also for their psychological well-being. Moreover, it has been noticed that children who have a strong bond with their parents tend to be less prone to addiction to narcotics or develop an abusive nature. Homework gives parents a scope to bond with their children. While educating and quizzing children, parents, and children collaborate and work on a task. It develops a good relationship between the parent and the child. It helps to hit two birds with one stone –
- Gives children the security that they can share any issues with their parents and find a solution to it
- Satisfies the parents that they are supporting the child to become more educated.
Cons of Homework
Every coin has two sides, and so does homework. While analyzing the pros and cons of homework, we observed that homework has multiple cons. Here are a few prominent disadvantages of homework.
Steals Away the Play Time
One of the best ways to instill information in children is through play-based learning. Taking children out in the field and allowing them to play in nature while teaching them the elements of nature can never surpass other teaching methods. Here children learn a lot of things more quickly than they could do by reading through the pages of the book. For example,
- Learning the names of the plants around which children play
- Name of the birds that are sitting on the branches
- The color of the sky
- The type of clouds floating in the sky
However, this form of learning gets deterred or interfered with when teachers assign children mounds of repeating tasks to solve on standardized homework sheets. It makes them sit with their task almost throughout the entire time they live at home. The development that a teacher expects a child to gain at a specific stage of life gets obstructed by the tasks teachers assign themselves.
Nonetheless, if there is no homework, parents will ensure that their ward engages in some productive activity including learning by playing on the ground that would be more beneficial for the child.
Interferes With Extracurricular Activities
Many children want to participate in co-curricular activities after school. It may involve sports, music, or other community events. A study suggests that these activities have many benefits. For example,
- Stimulate creative thought among children
- Helps enhance their social and organizational skills
- Develop their interests and talents
- Reduces stress
- Freshens up the mind
However, most parents find that their children take up the entire afternoon to complete their homework. Hence, parents cannot sign their children up for co-curricular activities. As a result, homework becomes a roadblock to the well-rounded and holistic development of a child.
Read more: What are the Best Places for Students to Do Homework?
Discourages Students From Going Out and Doing Exercise
14.7 million children and adolescents in America suffer from obesity. Homework is a primary contributor to this obesity. It is because homework involves indoor activities, especially spending hours sitting on a chair repeating tasks that involve spelling, math, or scientific experiments that children must do on paper or computer. It barely requires any movement.
However, the CDC recommends children between 6 and 17 be in moderate or intense physical activities for at least an hour each day. However, being stuck on a chair never permits children to get the much-required exercise for their overall development.
Leads to Unsupervised and Unsupportive Learning
School learning is all about learning under supervision. But, it is quite the reverse in the case of homework. Today, in most households, both parents are engaged in some profession or the other. Hence, most often it is observed that children go to their grandparent’s houses or daycare centers after school and parents pick them up at the end of their day. Therefore, rarely do children get their parent’s supervision to do the homework and they work without any support. Unfortunately, not all students grasp the concepts discussed in the class. Moreover, many children, especially in the junior classes forget to note what is written on the blackboard or are yet to develop their note-taking skills. Hence, even if parents intervene in homework, they have little or no reference to the task given as homework; it harms a student’s development and academic progress.
May Encourage Cheating
The other distressing con of homework that came up while exploring the pros and cons of homework is that homework encourages cheating. When parents or elders are not around to supervise children doing their homework they tend to copy the answers from text and reference books or find the answer on the internet or through smart devices. Moreover, they copy their friend’s homework and submit it smartly and without any guilt as if they have written the text on their own. Additionally, when caught red-handed, these students never agree that they have created a plagiarized copy. Hence, the whole purpose of Importance of Online Assignment Help fails miserably.. Also, it gives rise to an unethical habit among children.
Contributes to Poor Work-Life Balance
It is essential to sow the seeds among children that their family life is equally important as their work life. However, homework does just the opposite. It implants a corporate attitude among children. It lets them know that their work is more important than everything else. Hence, it teaches them to accept that working on tasks even off the clock is a normal event. It encourages overworking, stressing their body and mind, not having a personal life and free time, and ignoring home and responsibilities associated with living with family. Moreover, it makes them prone to be exploited by their employer in the future. However, this culture harms the society and human populace.
Homework is Often Poor-Quality Work
Teachers often assign tasks that have murky goals. Most teachers are aware of two important aspects of learning:
- Planning lessons from the beginning to the end is essential to complete them accurately and learning the contents to their inner depths.
- Formative assessments help to know a student’s knowledge more deeply than that of end of the session assessments
However, none of these can be applied when they are assigned homework. Moreover, homework does not have the structure of an excellent lesson. It is because homework is based on the model of behavioral learning – repeating information that is already learned. However, its usefulness is not observed for many tasks since the structure does not work with the way many subjects are taught today.
Leads to Stress And Anxiety
A study conducted in 2013 found that 56% of students who work on homework regularly suffer from higher stress levels than those who solve homework occasionally. Stress is inevitable in life. However, when it gets into the system from a tender age, it hinders cognitive development and the development of the mind and body. Moreover, the architecture of brain development weakens due to stress, they can suffer from lifelong impairments in learning, and behavioral development, develop anxiety and depression, and lower their performance in school. Most importantly, homework makes children sad. It takes away childhood from children.
Also read: Is Homework Illegal Anywhere in the World?
Conclusion
The above discussion clarifies the prominent pros and cons of homework. Generally, the effects of homework depend on the quantity, complicacy, and type of homework teachers assign to students. When well-planned homework is given in moderation, it helps student, their parents, and the academic system to work toward children’s development and make them better human beings in the future. They become educated and become socially responsible towards their friends, family, society, and work.
However, this aim can only be achieved if the academic system and heads of educational institutions agree to it. Until then the dominating power of homework continues to thrive.
