In the past few years, there has been a spark in conversations both nation- and campus-wide regarding homework, whether about the amount of homework that should be assigned or the value of homework itself. Generally speaking, students at Choate appear to have too much nightly homework, especially when compared to homework standards recommended by the National Education Association and the National Parent-Teacher Association.
Those two organizations follow guidelines established by Dr. Harris Cooper, a leading researcher on education and Duke University professor of psychology and neuroscience. Fifteen years ago, after extensively analyzing data on homework and its effects, Dr. Cooper created the “10-minute rule,” which argued that the time spent on homework should be equal to a student’s grade level multiplied by ten. Thus, a ninth grader should receive approximately 90 minutes of homework per night, while a high school senior should be given around two hours of homework per night.
Choate’s current academic handbook states that students in lower-level courses (levels 100-200) should expect to receive an average of 45 minutes of homework per night, while students taking upper-level courses (levels 300 and higher) should be assigned roughly 60 minutes of homework per night. A freshman taking five courses should then expect between three and four hours of homework each night — sometimes more, sometimes less, depending in part on which blocks meet the next day.
Yet many Choate students seem to have more than what both Dr. Cooper’s and Choate’s guidelines prescribe for homework each night. Last spring, to better estimate the amount of work students have on a nightly basis, Director of Studies Mr. Kevin Rogers sent out a homework survey to the student body. Data collected from the 640 students showed that students on average spend between four and five hours per night preparing for class.
Hannah Lemmons ’16 said, “In the past, I had probably four to six hours of homework every night on average. My sleep would fluctuate. I got six or seven hours of sleep freshman year, six hours sophomore year, and two to four hours last year, during junior year.”
Dr. Katie Jewett, Director of Curricular Initiatives, noted that time is perhaps not the best way to assign homework because each student works at his or her own pace. She said, “I want to make sure we aren’t thinking about homework so much in terms of time. What takes one student two hours can take someone else 45 minutes.”
Director of Studies Mr. Kevin Rogers agreed, saying, “I think there are some students at Choate who have too much homework, and I think that can come from a combination of factors. Some of it has to do with the courses they selected. Some of it has to do with their own personal learning profile. In other words, they aren’t a very fast reader, or they aren’t a very fast calculator. That can lead to what a teacher thinks is a perfectly doable, bite-size assignment translated into something more.”
Students echoed similar sentiments, acknowledging that their learning profiles influence their experiences with homework. Rebecca Bernstein ’16 said, “I work quickly. I also use my free blocks. I go to dinner and start my homework at six, so I usually get eight to nine hours of sleep.”
Finding the Balance Between Extracurriculars and Homework
While a student’s learning profile certainly affects the amount of time he or she spends completing homework, that time, regardless of how long or short, can be stretched thin by other commitments. Extracurricular activities in particular compete for students’ time.
James Rose ’18 said, “It’s not so much that homework itself is a stress for me so much as it is the fact that I need to get it done in a certain amount of time. For me, balancing classwork with athletics and extracurriculars is hard.”
Science teacher Ms. Julie Oxborough-Yankus believes, in general, that students should be more committed to homework and academics. “Your business as a student is to study and to learn, not to be a club president,” she said, adding, “We’ve almost gone along with the notion that homework is stressful and bad, but I think homework is wonderful. I am a huge advocate of homework.”
Researchers outside Choate have also noticed students’ overwhelming involvement in extracurricular activities. Dr. Denise Pope, a senior lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Education and Co-founder of Challenge Success, which researches the key to success in kids, said, “The problem is kids are over-scheduling themselves in their courses, and then of course they’re not going to be able to get the homework done, and teachers are overloading on homework and not building in enough time. The bottom line is, as a student, you do have control because you sign up for those classes, and you sign up for the extracurriculars.”
Still, some students argue that they should still have the time to pursue their passions outside of the classroom. Adham Meguid ’16 said, “I know that it’s partially my fault that I’m not getting enough sleep because of what I do outside of school, because I haven’t cut down on any of my extracurriculars. I’m also taking six classes. But, at the same time, the homework load also might be a little bit much. That’s what concerns me.”
A question on Choate’s recent homework survey attempted to better understand why students sometimes cannot finish their homework. Students were asked, “When I don’t get my homework done, it is because…,” More than eighty percent of the 550 participants who answered the question cited “I’m tired” as the primary reason. More than half responded with both, “I am assigned more homework than my schedule allows.” and “I have managed my time well but there was not enough time.”
Whatever the reason, Bernstein believes that students must take it upon themselves to strike a better, healthier balance between homework and other aspects of Choate life. She said, “A lot of my friends ask me, ‘How do you go to bed so early?’ When it comes to it, it’s just the mental state that you’re in. If you take a step back and really figure out how to balance your social life, extracurriculars and homework, you’re going to be so much happier overall.”
Exploring the Value of Homework
Homework, regardless of the time it takes to complete, does often play a critical role in reinforcing class material or introducing new topics for exploration. Sometimes, though, homework can seem monotonous and unhelpful. Seemingly pointless, repetitive homework assignments are perhaps one reason that homework often earns a bad reputation among students.
Max Patel ’19 said, “I feel like there are other ways to get the stuff in your head than some of the homework that’s assigned. As a whole, having homework is good because it keeps the class material in your head for the next lesson, but sometimes you have a sheer amount of homework instead of good-quality homework. You don’t have to do an hour and a half of just writing down something if you get the concept. There’s some conceptual work and some busywork, which isn’t all the necessary.”
Dr. Jewett, who teaches French, argued that busywork—such as the tedious vocabulary memorizations or grammar drills—is helpful to build a more comprehensive understanding of a subject. She said, “I think students are quick to complain about the drudgery that’s necessary for the more fun and meaningful learning. Language is a great example. If you want to have a really meaningful conversation about a topic that you’re passionate about, you’re going to have to learn some vocabulary and do some memorization and do those drills and conjugations so that you’re expressing yourself correctly. And I think the same is true for math. You’ve got to get that simple step before you go into things that are more complex and have more meaning to you. It’s a delicate balance. The thing about that drudgery part—you just want to make sure you’re doing that as intentionally as possible.”
In order to avoid unproductive homework assignments, Director of Faculty Development Mr. Tom White suggests that faculty question the value of each homework assignment. He said, “Effective homework assignments are ones that advance students toward the short- or long-term goals of the course. And I think, as faculty, we should always be able to answer the question, ‘Why? How does this fit into the goals of the course?’ An effective homework assignment advances a student towards those goals.”
If faculty cannot identify the purpose of a homework assignment, Mr. Rogers hopes that they will either change the assignment to make it more deliberate and relevant for the students, or cut the assignment entirely. Mr. Rogers said, “There’s almost a compulsion among faculty to give assignments, and sometimes you don’t need to. We have a strange equation where we equate rigor with how much work we assign.”
The creation of an effective homework assignment, however, is a two-way street. Once faculty have re-evaluated their assignments, it’s up to the students to engage with the class material and recognize the purpose of their homework.
And indeed, research has confirmed that interest and engagement in class material is positively correlated with academic achievement. Dr. Pope elaborated, “Engagement is very much tied to academic achievement. By engagement, we mean affective, behavioral, and cognitive, not just turning in homework, but actually being excited and engaged. You finding meaning to what you’re learning and enjoying it — that’s tied to higher academic achievement. It’s also tied to better health. But correlation does not assume causation. We’re not sure if engaged kids are healthier or healthier kids are engaged, but either way, we like both of those.”
With all the research supporting the importance of engagement and interest in learning, Mr. Rogers hopes that students will remain enthusiastic and curious about learning at Choate and beyond. He said, “My worst fear is that we’re creating a group of students who, when they leave here and leave their college, want to learn absolutely nothing else because it’s been such a slog. I hope that maybe every once in a while, someone comes across something that they genuinely find interesting and have some curiosity about it.”
Looking to the Future of Homework on Campus
Discussions about homework at Choate have in part been inspired by the recent evaluation of the daily class schedule. Although no final decision has been made, Choate is considering longer class periods, in hopes of easing the pace of life and improving students’ overall health.
Last spring, Choate hired Ms. Roxanne Higgins, Independent School Management President and Senior Consultant, to determine the daily schedule that best aid learning and teaching. Ms. Higgins visited Choate for three days, interviewing faculty, administrators, and students. After observing a hectic pace of life on campus, Ms. Higgins recommended that the school shift to a schedule with longer class blocks. She said, “Frankly, I found that the pace of the day was frenetic. The more classes you have in the day, the more you are transitioning, that is, for example, having to turn off algebra and turn on Spanish. The more transitions a student has in the day, the more frenetic it is. The less you have, the more paced it is.”
A slower pace of life might help reduce the amount of homework. Lemmons, who during her sophomore year studied in a Chinese school with longer class blocks, said, “When I studied abroad, that was the system we were on, and it was really helpful because instead of having to prepare for five classes of homework, each with more than 45 minutes of homework every night, we prepared for two or three. They might be more in-depth assignments, but you have more time to do them because you don’t have class four times a week.”
HPRSS teacher Ms. Amy Salot explained that one of the proposed daily schedules would cut the homework assignment from eight assignments every two weeks to five assignments every two weeks because of the fewer class meetings each week. Following that model, AP U.S. History teachers would lose roughly an entire term of assignments. “To lose so many assignments is scary to me,” Salot said, though she added, “I could find a way to make up for what we lack in homework assignments by using class time in a more creative way.”
Even if new daily schedule were finalized, it would not be implemented until, at the earliest, the 2017-2018 school year. Still, longer class blocks and more time between class meetings would not guarantee a solution to Choate’s homework predicament. A more fundamental change might be order. Speaking of Choate’s faculty, Mr. Rogers said, “I think we believe that we’ve been given the equivalent of high-powered students, and so we need to give them a high-powered education. There are some of my colleagues who believe, because you’re a high-powered student, you can do more in less time and do it better.” For now, Choate is left to continue to debate whether that philosophy is accurate and beneficial.
