Homework: Is It Busy Work Or Really Worth The Time?

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Recommended: Is homework good or bad for student achievement

Everyone at one point in time has complained they have had too much homework. Especially in High School. I was always told homework will help me because it is a way to practice and fully master the material I needed to learn. In high school students spend a few hours a night doing what they see as busy work, meaning they do not think homework is helpful, while some students do not mind the work load. The students may feel doing the problems,writing the short responses, and filling out packets helps them practice and remember the material. The reason why I believe the packet homework should be replaced is because students do not always retain the important information needed to pass tests or to get good grades. A question that has come up is whether assigning packets of homework, that defines specific terms, will help students master material better than assigning less or none at all. Rather than not assigning homework at all, students should be given homework that the teacher can give feedback too, perhaps a few essay questions which require more critical thinking rather than a packet of definitions. The main issues regarding homework come down to whether the type of homework, mainly packets, is the problem and whether or not homework is actually helping students improve their grades and test scores.
Many students have been given homework packets, which only help them understand specific terms. This type of homework leaves a student feeling unmotivated to complete the assignment or they do not particularly care what they write for the definition so they do not actually learn the material. While this type of assignment may or may not be completed by students in the way it was intended, it is still widely used in classrooms. Fro...

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...Press, 2004. 168. Print.
"critical thinking." Dictionary.com's 21st Century Lexicon. Dictionary.com, LLC. 04 Feb. 2014.
Crawford , Leslie . "Does homework really work?." Great Schools. GreatSchools, n.d. Web. 7 Feb 2014.
Kohn, Alfie. The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing. 1st. Da Capo, 2006. 256. Print.
Kralovec, Etta, and John Buell. The End of Homework: How Homework Disrupts Families, Overburdens Children, and Limits Learning. Beacon Press, 2000. 136. Print.
"Questions That Promote Deeper Thinking." Los Angeles Valley College. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Feb 2014.
Murphy Paul, Annie. "When Homework is a Waste of Time Most after-school assignments are based on out-of-date and often ineffective methods." Time Ideas. 13 009 2013: n. page. Web. 2 Feb. 2014.
Paulu, Nancy. Helping Your Child With Homework. DIANE Publishing, 1995. Print.

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