Commenters on the AJC Get Schooled blog debated a new report that finds, despite parent complaints to the contrary, American students spent only about an hour per night on homework. Here is a sampling of responses under each poster’s chosen screen name.
Liberal4Life: Schools do not teach students how to study. Too many students mistakenly believe doing homework is the same thing as studying. As a result, if there is no homework, there is nothing to study. We need to teach students how to study, which may include doing additional practice problems or reading an assigned article.
Rho: As I finish my sixth year of teaching, I have come to the conclusion homework is a thing of the past. If teachers use technology efficiently, students can get the knowledge and practice during class. Of course, there are a few exceptions; but in general, the only homework I give is reviewing for 15 minutes.
HeyTeacher: As a veteran teacher, I don't think the expectations for homework have changed substantially in 20 years, but there are more distractions. Students think they are "studying" long hours when in fact they are answering 15 text messages for every paragraph they read.
Grumpster: I rarely took a book home, yet made mostly A's with an occasional B. I took mostly advanced classes. Then I started Georgia Tech and didn't have a clue about how to study.
Richard: In 30 years, I've yet to meet someone who can explain the purpose of homework. The kids spent eight hours in school, and that wasn't enough teaching time? Take a class like calculus (yes, it's extreme, but hear me out). In high school, a kid spends five hours a week for 36 weeks for a grand total of 180 hours. In college, that same class is taught for three hours a week for 14 weeks for a total of 42 hours. In the case of college, I get the need for homework, since we're making up for 138 hours. Try it this way: Spend the first 40 minutes of class teaching, and let students do "homework" the last 20 minutes. Maybe they won't need to be bogged down with work 12 hours a day after all.
Bu: We have found in DeKalb that there was a lot of homework in third and fifth grades, when the CRCT mattered most, and not so much in fourth, when it didn't. College is different from high school. The students have to do some learning on their own. They can't get it all from the classroom. The lecture is often the framework, not the whole building. It's understood (or at least it used to be) that you spent two to three hours on homework for every hour of class time. Doing more worksheets in high school doesn't help with that transition.
Hssped: As the mother of four (ages 33 through 16) and the grandmother of seven (ages 10 years through 2 months) and having been a teacher for 20 years, my opinion is the homework load hasn't changed. Only the whining from parents has changed. It has increased.
What's best: Rule of thumb: Ten minutes per grade level. Anything more seems silly.
Edumacate: I think much of this depends upon the class. My eldest is taking four AP classes. He has homework, which consists of some problems, reading additional sources, etc. I don't think you can really generalize how much homework is too much or not enough, especially not in a study.
