Do students need homework?

Homework is a common part of the student life of most students in the world, but in some countries it is believed that its excessive number reflects the students’ desire to learn.

“The more effort you put now, the easier it will be for you in the future” – many of us have heard these words during our childhood, and although they do not belong to some famous thinker, their truth is obvious to all adults, but unbearable for teenagers.

How often do some students want to study for most of the day? They go to university, some attend extracurricular circles, and after studying – again textbooks. The question arises – is it advisable at all to give students homework? Don’t they think “If anyone could do my homework for me” from time to time. After all, education throughout the world is moving more and more towards concentrating on students and liberalism. But is the lack of a homework at all effective?

Last year, some universities have already experienced the practice of teaching without home schooling. In the framework of the educational reform in 2017, 4 universities became participants in the pilot project of the Ministry of Education. First-year students of these universities have been studying for almost a year without homework. They will already have a homework assignment from the second class, but the students will spend no more than 45 minutes on it. Accordingly, in the third grade – 1 hour 10 minutes, and in the fourth – a maximum of one and a half hours. As far as it will benefit the first-graders, only time will show, but in general, it should be noted that this practice is already being applied in universities of other countries of the world.

Despite the fact that homework is a global phenomenon and it is an ordinary part of the student life of the majority of students in the world, in Sweden they are sure that its excessive amount deprives students of the desire to learn. In this country, 13 schools have been opened, in which there are no homework assignments. Students learn in their own pleasure, and the “classes” look like playing rooms. And although these schools are quite popular, the state education system is not going to adopt such a format of the educational process.

In Italian universities, the practice of homework is also not provided. However, a large number of teachers and parents are convinced of the need for home education. In their opinion, in this way students become responsible and better learn the material.

At the same time, representatives of the National Association of Parents and Teachers and the National Education Association say that in the first year students should be given homework, but in small quantities. In particular, it should be one that students can do in 10 minutes. With each academic year this rate is recommended to increase for another 10 minutes.

According to a study by Professor Duke University Harris Cooper, homework is beneficial only to high school students. There is some positive correlation with the achievements of middle-class students, but not for young students.

As we can see, everything looks good on the examples: the training is based on personal motivation, lack of pressure from the side, education of the students’ responsibility… However, in practice, parents and teachers still frighten such experiments. After all, they are afraid to make the mistake of either not loading the child too early, or vice versa – not showing negligence in the assimilation of his knowledge. Therefore, instead of completely abandoning your homework or continuing to follow the usual methods of teaching, you can diversify your homework with creative projects or use other new approaches to learning.

For example, in the United States, a method called the “inverted class” is now common. Teachers ask students to look at the video lecture with new material so that the students can learn the theoretical material on their own. At the same time, they should write down all their questions in the notebook, then later in the class to put these questions to the teacher. Time in the classroom is devoted to the answers to questions and general discussion of the material at a deeper level. Teachers themselves can thus discover where students have problems with understanding the material.