During the school holidays, I read the book The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing by Alfie Kohn and I would like to offer some reflections on the matters raised.
The position by the Kohn is that he feels that homework does not offer real benefits to learning in terms of student engagement and impact on academic achievement. It rejects traditional approaches to homework.
After reading the book, I still maintain my position of homework; that students do need homework in order to consolidate and apply the skills learnt at school that day.
I do disagree with his claims that homework does not improve academic achievement or increase marks. If you look at the content covered in each key learning area, there is a lot of concepts and information that must be grasped by students. Our brains cannot soak that information straight away. It takes time to build up skills and homework does give students a chance to help them understand concepts and information. This is then built up on in later lessons.
I look at my own experience as a student and without spending time doing homework and revision, I would have not attained the marks that I would ultimately get in my School Certificate and Higher School Certificate. I needed that time after school to revise key concepts and then able to devise methods of applying it. There was memorising, but also a chance to do past papers, additional research, read newspapers, books etc.
Kohn also questions tasks that require students to do "drills" or undertake homework that requires recall or rote learning. Sometimes there are circumstances where this is the only way to acquire an understanding of concepts because some skills have to be mastered through practice. It is like sport. If you want to be a superstar, you will need to practice. Learning a language requires rote learning given the complexity in mastering a language. If you don't memorise or practice it (reading, speaking, writing etc), then you cannot master a language. In maths, students complete exercises as a method of practicing mathematical formula's.
However, I was surprised that he actually agreed with some of the views on how homework can benefit student learning, like watching TV shows etc, or relating our learning to personal experiences.
I do agree with his concerns over anxiety and stress that homework can inflict particularly where students struggle to do the work or intrudes on routines at home. That is what I need to be careful about in setting homework. This means I need to set work that can be attempted by each student and only take up a suitable amount of time according to their stage of learning. Most importantly, it must be relevant according to what is being learnt in the classroom. This includes explaining to students the relevance of the task and how it helps them. Obviously if there is an assessment task due or heavy workloads in other subjects, there needs to be that flexibility as well. This may mean not setting homework. At least it takes stress of students and lets them focus on the other tasks.
