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Too Much Homework Can Be Counterproductive
Spy der Mann writes "An interesting study made by to two Penn State researchers shows that increases in homework may actually hinder educational achievement (Coral Cache) instead of improving it. The researchers analyzed a large amount of data collected by the Third International Study of Mathematics and Sciences (TIMSS) in 1994 from schools in 41 nations across the fourth, eighth and 12th grades. For some analyses, they used data from an identical study carried out in '99." From the article: "An unintended consequence may be that those children who need extra work and drill the most are the ones least likely to get it. Increasing homework loads is likely to aggravate tensions within the family, thereby generating more inequality and eroding the quality of overall education."
Someone, please, oh God, please, mod the parent up.
/. article), having the genes to be a slightly asocial genius instead of an air-head chatterbox, is proposed as a reason for abortion.
If anything, what we should also be doing is encouraging students to do the homework and then seeing the results of it. Do you know how many students complain that "the teacher/professor/instructor didn't actually teach the material" when what really happened was that the student didn't do his homework? How many independent study units get left to the last minute where they are done improperly, and then the kids get killed on tests?
What we also can't force students to do is attempt to learn something from their homework - there are way too many kids who just go through the motions without exercising any thought patterns so they can say they *did* the homework, but are no better having done it.
A culture where being called "Einstein" in high school is actually an _insult_. A culture where (as reflected in another recent
That is exactly the problem.