Is Homework Important for Students?

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As a teacher, I always consider what tasks or exercises I should give to my students. Effective tasks will greatly affect on the achievement of learning, especially in the classroom. Besides, I also consider how the activities to be done by the students in completing the task. Ideally, the task that I give not only can improve the competence of students, but also can cultivate students' creativity, critical thinking, problem solving and autonomy skills.

However, in the process of learning the questions arise in my mind as a teacher in relation to the kinds of tasks other than what I have mentioned above. For example, the question that often arises is "is homework important for students?"

Regarding the question, I think that homework not important for student in many cases. Homework is not important for them because they have learned while they are in the school, and giving homework to students will burden them to learn what they have learned in the classroom. In addition, in the process of completing the work at home students will likely ask for help from their parents. This reflects that homework is not the student's own work.

My opinion about disagreement with homework is also supported by student statements when I asked them in the classroom. They are reluctant to do homework because it will reduce their time for more useful activities such as playing or interacting with the community. I've also heard that my students always complain about homework given by other teachers. They feel overwhelmed if they can not complete the task, and they prefer not to go to school if they have not finished the homework. From this case, it can be understood that for some aspects, homework give a negative impact on the learning process of students, and also does not provide significant benefits to the achievement of learning outcomes.

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However, it should be underlined that in some cases or in certain contexts homework is considered important. For a socially oriented task model, homework will give a lot of benefits for students. For example, teachers give practical homework to student where students should carry out social activities in their area of residence, then they should document the activities to be submitted to the teacher. Such this work, I believe it should be implemented by teachers considering its benefits for students long life education in society.