Tom McKiver/The Mirror
When one asks a college student how his studies are going, one will more often than not receive a reply about how stressed the individual is due to the amount of work he may be receiving. Nowadays, one sees even young children receiving a larger amount of homework that not even the Class of 2015 had when they were in elementary school.
At this point, students in preschool are being taught how to read and even four-year-olds are receiving some homework. One may ask what the reason is for putting a burden on younger children before they are even six years old. However, the answer lies in a study of international academic rankings by the Program of International Student Assessment in December 2010. The United States ranked 17th in reading, 23rd in science, and 31st in math.
However, this is not the first survey that shows where American students over the last thirty years have not been at higher rankings in reading, math and science. This was the reason for increasing the amount of homework. Officials wanted to see if students’ grades would improve if they received more practice.
There was a significant improvement in student performance for math but not as much for reading and science. Surprisingly, this decision still had mixed results. The studying and homework that was now required of middle school and high school students were either considered an unreasonable burden or a very crucial activity. This soon led to either a high stress level among students who thought of homework as a very crucial activity or wastage of time for other students.
Nonetheless, the New York Times believes that this is not the right question that parents and other school officials should be asking. It is not worth it to debate whether students are receiving too little or too much homework because every student learns at a different pace. Still though, this does not mean that no solution should be considered. Instead, parents and school officials should be coming up with a balance about how homework assignments can advance learning.
Fortunately, the community does not have to think too much to come up with a solution. Neuroscientists, cognitive scientists, and educational psychologists have developed a new discipline called “Mind, Brain, and Education,” which is specifically tailored to students’ educational needs.
This program attempts to understand and improve how children absorb, retain, and apply knowledge. Classrooms that have made “Mind, Brain, and Education” a part of their educational curriculum have seen a big change in success among its students.
A study by psychologists in Washington University in St. Louis at Columbia Middle School showed that science and social studies scores rose on average between 13 and 25 percent among the seventh and eighth graders. However, this program has not been effectively studied on student homework assignments.
Another technique, called “Speed Repetition” seems to have had a larger effect on students at home. This program asks teachers to not give homework assignments in single blocks.
For example, when a teacher gives her students a worksheet to practice their addition, this worksheet should not have problems that require them to only add by ones or twos. The worksheet should be mixed with different types of problems because it will require the students to think more.
This process of thinking will in turn help the students retain more information and give them the ability to solve many different types of problems. According to the psychologists at Washington University, this method is so effective because it exposes information to the brain repeatedly, which strengthens the representation of the information.
Another method that researchers believe will improve student performance is “retrieval practice.” This is a practice test that reinforces what students have learned. Studies have shown that the more times that information is used, the better chance the student has of retaining the information for a longer period of time.
The more practice one receives with a new concept the longer it will stick in the individual’s memory.
The question that was asked at the beginning of this article was if students are receiving too much homework and whether too much homework is a good thing.
There is no “yes or no answer” to this question. Studies have shown that a combination of techniques between the classroom and the home environment will be what leads to success among students.
A combination among “Mind, Brain, and Education, “Speed Repetition,” and “Retrieval Practice” at school and at home will lead our current students to be well informed leaders of a brighter America.
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