HOW TO SET OUTSTANDING HW

• 3 issues with Current Homework Policy.  ​ In a culture so heavily invested in progress, the anomaly of unattended and unmoderated homework assignment seems scandalously peculiar. To say it is one of the strangest contradictions in education is an understatement, with the random assigning of homework making a total mockery of the level of detail and fine-tuning that goes into every other teaching and learning policy a school is defined by.  Read more...

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• Is Responsible Homework Setting A Myth? It doesn’t matter if you agree with homework setting or not. High schools continue to give out homework, and will continue to do so, because the arguments against it are inconclusive. ......... Read more

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• Any research into the effects of homework is essentially invalid. The most famous of studies into homework efficacy by Hattie suggests that homework has a reasonably small effect size. However, the research is limited in that the meta-analysis failed to uncover significant research that isolate the large number of variables that can influence the outcome in determining a positive relationship between homework and achievement. In Hattie's own words, when homework isn't deliberate practice, it is pointless. In relation to this site, there has not been any research that controlled the three essential principals of satisfactory tasks: quality, setting responsively, and amount of work proportional to spare time. Without such conditions being met, the effect size linking homework to achievement is invalid. Cooper sums the situation up well: 'we recommend that future research examine these factors using a more systematically controlled design so that its causal impact can be appraised.' The idea of overloading in a more recent study by Bas and Cigerci, is alluded to as a detriment to successful homework achievement, however, like Hattie, they have not been able to investigate this further because the only platform in the market that can prevent overloading students as well as allowing homework to be set responsively, both essential elements in making homework effective, is new in the market, and as yet, has not had any research conducted on its efficacy. It is surely though the new way forward for homework managers. The new platform is called The Homework Degrumbler.

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Common criticisms of homework

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• Students have a limited amount of time available to them once they leave school, and homework intrudes on family as well as extracurricular time.

• Students are at school for a significant percentage of the day and adding more work in the home environment acts like a second shift, to quote the leading anti-homework voice, Alfie Khon.

• Most homework is of poor quality and barely amounts to necessary/ useful learning. Unless teachers ensure that the tasks set are meaningful and relevant to current learning, they become largely redundant activities.

• Unless they use The Homework Degrumbler, teachers do not have the ability to monitor how much work the students have already received, thereby effectively setting new tasks blindly. This process inevitably results in overloading the students, and impacts on their well-being.

• Schools themselves may opt to not employ a homework policy because of the logistical issues that result in managing one: teachers certainly do not enjoy the usual conflicts that arise when homework is set, and certainly use significant amounts of energy in chasing up work, and organising consequences for incomplete work.