Policies about Homework

Jorge Ramos
Language IX
Crystal Hickerson
May 20th, 2009.

Policies about Homework

Harris Cooper, in his article called “Homework Research and Policy”, argues about the lack of interest on homework in the United States and the need of policies to regulate its implementations. The author supports his arguments on researchers which represent a limited population and at the same time reduces the spectrum of analysis in a certain period of time which does not represent the real tendency on students’ way of life because society is constantly changing as themselves.

According to studies that Cooper mentions in his research, some points such as; amount of homework, grade, students’ levels and internal and external factors that should affect students’ performances doing homework appear as considerable factors to take into consideration but they are not really decisive when the purpose of homework is students’ learning. In other words, establishing homework as an instrument that has time at home as its main characteristic, means a big issue that students have to deal without any possibility to question its effectiveness.

Arguing about the importance of Homework, Cooper demonstrates using researchers, the importance of homework in his country. He states that the higher is the level where the task is given the higher is the effectiveness of the homework on students learning. However he has not developed a clear example about the importance of considering homework as an instrument to help students to progress in their learning. When the author constructs a table that contains the positive and negative effects of it implementation there is not a clear perspective about how effective homework is on students. The negative effects such as; lost of interest in academic duties, mental and physical fatigue and parental interferences, shows us that homework represents a complex element that teachers and students have to deal with.

On the other hand, the concept of not using homework as a punishment given by Cooper it is a complementary idea about the use of policies to determine homework as a standardized instrument to implement in every district. It demonstrates the lack of evidence that the author gives us about having a common framework to put this idea into practice. Why the author establishes a common framework for homework when he argues that every students in every level has different needs and different reactions in front of homework. Moreover, Cooper mentions parental control to help students in their tasks which is a risk, because it depends on their economical situation and parents’ educational levels. Considering the importance of homework in any society, its use and utility compels teachers who have to observe cautiously its consequences and at the same time, the role of implementing policies that become homework in something general without any strong and updated research that should affect learning negatively.

Finally, this research built under a model which is not a suitable representation of students realities, deals with a big and non identified problem by the author, which is the lack of attention on learners who are part of the forgotten percentage that appear as an statistic in the final numbers. There is not any attention for them, when the real purpose of giving homework is to facilitate the learning process of every student and not only the ones who can deal with this instrument. Homework has to be focused on identify learners learning and to achieve specific goals with them.
Sources
Cooper , Harris. “Homework Research and Policy: A review of literature”. CAREI Newsletter. (May ,2006) May 12th, 2009 retrieved from
<http://cehd.umn.edu/CAREI/Reports/Rpractsctice/Summer94/homework.html>