Homework how long

Nightly assignments can help prepare them for scholarly work, and research shows that homework can have moderate benefits for middle school students Cooper et al. Crossing that upper limit can drain student motivation and focus. Brian Sztabnik, a veteran middle and high school English teacher, suggests that teachers take a step back and ask themselves these five questions :. When students spend too much time on homework—more than two hours each night—it takes up valuable time to rest and spend time with family and friends.

Homework in high school should always relate to the lesson and be doable without any assistance, and feedback should be clear and explicit.

Teachers should also keep in mind that not all students have equal opportunities to finish their homework at home, so incomplete homework may not be a true reflection of their learning—it may be more a result of issues they face outside of school.

They may be hindered by issues such as lack of a quiet space at home, resources such as a computer or broadband connectivity, or parental support OECD, In such cases, giving low homework scores may be unfair.

Since the quantities of time discussed here are totals, teachers in middle and high school should be aware of how much homework other teachers are assigning. Psychologist Maurice Elias sees this as a common mistake: Individual teachers create homework policies that in aggregate can overwhelm students. The researchers asked students whether they experienced health issues such as headaches, exhaustion, sleep deprivation, weight loss and stomach problems.

Students were more likely to drop activities, not see friends or family, and not pursue hobbies they enjoy. A balancing act The results offer empirical evidence that many students struggle to find balance between homework, extracurricular activities and social time, the researchers said.

Many students felt forced or obligated to choose homework over developing other talents or skills. Also, there was no relationship between the time spent on homework and how much the student enjoyed it. The research quoted students as saying they often do homework they see as "pointless" or "mindless" in order to keep their grades up. Pope said the research calls into question the value of assigning large amounts of homework in high-performing schools. Homework should not be simply assigned as a routine practice, she said.

High-performing paradox In places where students attend high-performing schools, too much homework can reduce their time to foster skills in the area of personal responsibility, the researchers concluded. Clifton B. Parker is a writer at the Stanford News Service.

Enter your keywords for search. Apply News Directory Events Give. In some schools and grades, children have no homework at all. In others, they may have 18 hours or more of homework every week. In the United States, the accepted guideline, which is supported by both the National Education Association and the National Parent Teacher Association, is the minute rule: Children should have no more than 10 minutes of homework each day for each grade reached.

In 1st grade, children should have 10 minutes of daily homework; in 2nd grade, 20 minutes; and so on to the 12th grade, when on average they should have minutes of homework each day, which is about 10 hours a week.

In , the University of Phoenix College of Education commissioned a survey of how much homework teachers typically give their students. From kindergarten to 5th grade, it was just under three hours per week; from 6th to 8th grade, it was 3. There are two points to note.

First, these are the amounts given by individual teachers. To estimate the total time children are expected to spend on homework, you need to multiply these hours by the number of teachers they work with. High school students who work with five teachers in different curriculum areas may find themselves with The time that individual children spend on it will be more or less than that, according to their abilities and interests.

One child may casually dash off a piece of homework in half the time that another will spend laboring through in a cold sweat. Do students have more homework these days than previous generations? Some studies suggest they do. In , a study from the National Center for Education Statistics found that, on average, high school students spent around seven hours a week on homework.

A similar study in put the average at less than five hours a week. Mind you, I [Robinson] was in high school in England in the s and spent a lot more time than that—though maybe that was to do with my own ability.

One way of judging this is to look at how much homework your own children are given and compare it to what you had at the same age. Supporters argue that it benefits children, teachers, and parents in several ways:.

Families have busy lives, and it can be hard for parents to find time to help with homework alongside everything else they have to cope with.

One influence is the growing popularity of the so-called flipped classroom. In the stereotypical classroom, the teacher spends time in class presenting material to the students. Their homework consists of assignments based on that material.

In the flipped classroom, the teacher provides the students with presentational materials—videos, slides, lecture notes—which the students review at home and then bring questions and ideas to school where they work on them collaboratively with the teacher and other students. Even so, many parents and educators are increasingly concerned that homework, in whatever form it takes, is a bridge too far in the pressured lives of children and their families.

It takes away from essential time for their children to relax and unwind after school, to play, to be young, and to be together as a family.