Homework

[EvilSeph]

Despite how things may appear, the school system is actually designed with you in mind. Therefore, if the school system includes things like homework, assignments and tests, then they are there because it will benefit you in the long run. I know of many teachers who would rather not give their students homework, assignments or even tests and just teach them what they need to know, then give them the exam but I can almost guarantee that unless the students were to go home and practise the right concepts, the whole class would fail the exam - even the most attentive students.

If you look at homework as a bore and a chore, then it will be. However, if you look at homework as an opportunity to extend your knowledge on the subject you are studying, then things get more interesting. Life could be made much simpler by simply changing your outlook on it.

Homework exists because students would go home and not know where to begin practising the material they had learnt that day. With the invention of homework, teachers are able to assign certain exercises that will enable their students to practise the right concepts and produce an effective understanding of the subject matter. Those that choose not to do their homework will find it more difficult to prepare for a test or exam and so, force themselves to have to have those awkward cramming sessions that I'm sure we all hate.

If you want to make your life and your school life more easy-going then I have this advice for you: at the risk of seeming like a nerd (which I am, and I don't care), you should go home each day and review everything you learnt - re-teach yourself what the teacher covered that day then do a few of the assigned questions from each section while making sure to include questions of varying difficulty (in a Math book, the last questions your teacher gives you tend to be the most challenging and the ones you should be focusing on while working on the fundamentals). Do this and you will find yourself without a need to study for an exam. Or if you do, it will be a brief review period while all your friends will find themselves placed under so much stress and pressure that usually results in them not being prepared for the exam.

One really important point I just have to make is that homework is generally optional. The reason for this is simply because every student is unique. We all learn at different speeds and through different means. As such, the teacher is unable to give us specialised question assignments (or they can, but don't because it would be too much work and take too long). That being said, it is important to know your own learning style so that you may choose the questions that apply to you (the ones you struggle with is a good place to start) and not have to wear yourself out by doing questions that you're already familiar with (although practise is good).

Hope this helps.

 

[ilyace]

Despite how things may appear, the school system is actually designed with you in mind. Therefore, if the school system includes things like homework, assignments and tests, then they are there because it will benefit you in the long run. I know of many teachers who would rather not give their students homework, assignments or even tests and just teach them what they need to know, then give them the exam but I can almost guarantee that unless the students were to go home and practise the right concepts, the whole class would fail the exam - even the most attentive students.

If you look at homework as a bore and a chore, then it will be. However, if you look at homework as an opportunity to extend your knowledge on the subject you are studying, then things get more interesting. Life could be made much simpler by simply changing your outlook on it.

Homework exists because students would go home and not know where to begin practising the material they had learnt that day. With the invention of homework, teachers are able to assign certain exercises that will enable their students to practise the right concepts and produce an effective understanding of the subject matter. Those that choose not to do their homework will find it more difficult to prepare for a test or exam and so, force themselves to have to have those awkward cramming sessions that I'm sure we all hate.

If you want to make your life and your school life more easy-going then I have this advice for you: at the risk of seeming like a nerd (which I am, and I don't care), you should go home each day and review everything you learnt - re-teach yourself what the teacher covered that day then do a few of the assigned questions from each section while making sure to include questions of varying difficulty (in a Math book, the last questions your teacher gives you tend to be the most challenging and the ones you should be focusing on while working on the fundamentals). Do this and you will find yourself without a need to study for an exam. Or if you do, it will be a brief review period while all your friends will find themselves placed under so much stress and pressure that usually results in them not being prepared for the exam.

One really important point I just have to make is that homework is generally optional. The reason for this is simply because every student is unique. We all learn at different speeds and through different means. As such, the teacher is unable to give us specialised question assignments (or they can, but don't because it would be too much work and take too long). That being said, it is important to know your own learning style so that you may choose the questions that apply to you (the ones you struggle with is a good place to start) and not have to wear yourself out by doing questions that you're already familiar with (although practise is good).

Hope this helps.

My chemistry teacher is like this- the little homework we do get is entirely optional (she never checks or collects it, it's entirely for our benefit), but then here tests are ridiculously hard.

 

[-chw42-]

So you're in a one semester scheduled school, that's a shocker...no where else in the world follows that routine.
I hope you felt the sarcasm in that statement.

But that's not the point of me responding, I'm responding to ask you one single question:
How did your reply have remotely anything to do with the topic, which frankly was about getting your self to do homework not find the time to do it?

The topic was "Homework", stop nitpicking. He's talking about how his schedule makes doing his homework a bit easier because it's spread out. Seems on topic to me.

 

[Slasher]

I got through all of high school not doing any homework whatsoever except for assignments (because they actually counted for grades). The teacher's never checked for homework so my perspective was that, why should I do homework when it doesn't actually count towards my grade? Well, I did decent enough to get me by and it got me accepted into university.

So now that I'm in university, I entirely regret building upon and maintaining this homework mindset all throughout my high school career. Since I haven't done homework for so long, I've developed a generally lazy way of doing things. I can't bring myself to do all of the optional lecture reviewing and textbook reading because it bores the living shit out of me, I wouldn't be surprised if I have ADD or something. If I managed to do all of these additional things I would certainly have retained a lot more information and would understand things better... and so now that it's exam time, I completely regret it. Cramming things at the end isn't very useful, so next term, I'm going to take another stab at doing lecture readings and additional work

 

[Access_Denied]

I'm finding myself doing less and less homework now that it's my senior year, and I can't seem to bring myself to do it anymore. It's not that I don't care about the class; I just don't want to do it. Sometimes it's just procrastinating, but sometimes it's understanding the material. If I understand Calculus like the back of my hand, I don't see the point in doing eight hundred problems every night.

Any other thoughts about homework?

Now, for someone who actually understands Calculus, I can see your point. But c'mon Mave.

 

[EvilSeph]

I got through all of high school not doing any homework whatsoever except for assignments (because they actually counted for grades). The teacher's never checked for homework so my perspective was that, why should I do homework when it doesn't actually count towards my grade? Well, I did decent enough to get me by and it got me accepted into university.

So now that I'm in university, I entirely regret building upon and maintaining this homework mindset all throughout my high school career. Since I haven't done homework for so long, I've developed a generally lazy way of doing things. I can't bring myself to do all of the optional lecture reviewing and textbook reading because it bores the living shit out of me, I wouldn't be surprised if I have ADD or something. If I managed to do all of these additional things I would certainly have retained a lot more information and would understand things better... and so now that it's exam time, I completely regret it. Cramming things at the end isn't very useful, so next term, I'm going to take another stab at doing lecture readings and additional work

Good on you! However, a lot of people say this every year and when the end of that year comes, they say the same thing again. I'm glad that you've recognised the problem, I just hope you take fixing the problem a step further by not getting stuck in the "I'm going to do x" next year but end up not doing it.

Good luck!