Brandi Turnbow
11/25/06
SED625SC
Homework and Student’s Grades
Homework is a necessary part of academia for students and teachers and should be
considered in student grades. Homework is beneficial for academic and personal growth
for students and provides another assessment tool for teachers. Homework provides
practice or can expand content that is taught during school time, and allows it to be
reinforced or increased for deeper understanding. Homework helps students become
active learners, in charge of their own learning, goals, and outcomes. Finally homework
offers teaches another form of assessment by which they can gage student’s
understanding, and as important, student’s misunderstandings.
Homework provides practice, which improves academic achievement. “The influence of
homework on achievement can be mediated by the students’ personality characteristics,
and have found that homework effected students’ self-efficacy beliefs and their
perception of responsibility and these characteristics in turn are correlated with
achievement” (Barry J. Zimmerman and Anastasia Kitsantas 2005). Homework has
positive influence not only on students’ achievement but also on their development in
general. Homework develops habits of independent learning, willpower, motivation to
learn etc. (Cooper, Valentine, 2001).
Homework can help students become active learners and learn to self regulate.
Homework gives students the opportunity to take charge of their learning. It fosters the
importance of goals. Specifically how to set, pursue, and evaluate outcomes of goals.
Homework helps students become active learners. An active learner takes control of his
or her own learning. As stated in How People Learn, page 12, “ Many important
activities that support active learning have been studied under the heading of
“metacognition.” Metacognition refers to peoples’ abilities to predict their performances
on various tasks and to monitor their current levels of mastery and understanding.
Teaching practices congruent with a metacognitive approach to learning include those
that focus on sense making, self-assessment, and reflection on what worked and what
needs improving. These practices have been shown to increase the degree to which
students transfer their learning to new settings and events”. Homework also promotes
self-regulation. “Students who self-regulate are generally interested in the topic at hand,
prepared for class, and participate in class by asking questions and generating ideas and
insights in the class discussion” (Zimmerman & Paulsen, 1995). “They (students)
conduct some of the following activities: keeping a study calendar, having a specific
study location, setting up regular study periods, setting realistic goals, prioritizing tasks,
saying no to distractions, and self-rewarding success. When completing homework and
assignments, self-regulating students: clarify difficulties, self-question so that they can
deeply understand assignments, make predictions about what will happen next, find main
ideas, summarize readings, and relate work to prior knowledge and experiences”
(Zimmerman et al., 1996).
Homework is another opportunity for a teacher to assess student understanding, and
allows teachers to give individual feedback, which is not always possible in the
classroom. As stated in How People Learn, page 140, “Opportunities for feedback should
occur continuously, but not intrusively as part as instruction. Effective teachers
continually attempt to learn about their students’ understanding”. Homework provides
this opportunity, and ensures that students receive individual feedback so that they may
revise or reinforce their thinking.
Homework is an important part of the culture of academia. Homework provides students
the opportunity to learn, grow, reflect, assess and revise outside of the classroom
environment. One of the main goals of education is to prepare youth for a productive life
after a formal education. In order for students to achieve this goal they must be given the
opportunity to practice the intrinsic drive to accomplish understanding and do good work.
Homework provides this opportunity and gives students feedback. This feedback and in
turn revision or reinforcement of thinking and understanding will then lead students to
take control of their own learning and performance inside the classroom, the work place,
and most importantly life. For these reasons homework absolutely should be considered
in a student’s academic grade.