Have you ever faced a situation when you had to do something on a regular note that you were not comfortable doing? Well, what if you still had to continue with it in spite of the fact that you were not enjoying it? Well, homework is one such date that comes on a regular basis, and yet almost leaves one completely drained even though the receiving party lacks complete interest in it.
“Dear homework, I truly detest my dates with you! But I have to date you as per rules!â€
Before you get such a feeler from your children, it is best that something substantial be done to protect them from the ever-increasing burden of homework. Being an educational counselor, I have come across a number of students, both inside classrooms and at various seminars who completely render homework as a useless burden.
However, this cannot be said about a specific method that was derived to ensure that students are well prepared to attend the next day’s class. With thelevel of competitiveness increasing, it seems that the major factor and reason regarding initiation of this system is defeated.
Time to bring in a change!
Homework: Its basic concept and defeat in present times
The initial reason for starting off with homework was to ensure that students after a specific topic was over, would completely rub them off their mind and get involved in other activities. When next time this topic would be discussed in class, there would be no backup data stored in mind, and hence it had to face the same ordeal of acomplete explanation.
It is based on this problem that homework was used as a modeof recapitulation that made students aware of what they had been taught in class before the next day’s class. However, after a certain point of time, this became quite tiring and most of the students that I have found these days are rather interested in pursuing other activities rather than completing their homework.
Being an educational counselor for close to a decade now, I have realized that even today, the so-called defeated homework has a lot of scopes if targeted in a proper manner. Rather, I can state that effective usage of homework would ensure a better learning process for students and therefore they can also challenge their mental faculties to a great extent.
Wondering what I am speaking of? Well, here are some techniques that you can apply to your child to ensure that his homework is not merely rendered as a regular work, and your student or child gets to learn something out of it.
Using homework as process of learning:
If you think that homework as such is a mere recap process, then it is high time for you to know how it can be an effective tool for learning.
- Understand the text and its internal meanings:
Before starting off with their homework, your child should definitely understand what is in the text and check out its meanings. No reference material is greater than text and hence it is best that before solving puzzles, a student is thorough with text against which that homework is based.
When a text is read, it is definite that certain questions will be raised and it is based on those that answers will either be framed, or taken up to respective teachers for better understanding. When ideas are exchanged, as I have seen on more than a singular occasion, a text is abetter read.
Clearly, this starts off with thecompletion of homework.
- Consult reference material:
This is another way to ensure that you learn via your completion of homework. While you complete your homework, it is natural that certain questions will be raised. Finding answers in text is not possible always. Hence, reference materials are of great help in this case.
With the help of these associated materials, every topic related to that chapter can be understoodin a better way and that too within a limited time frame. Being an active member of a student’s help group, I tried using this technique with students, and after a period of 1 month, I had a better set of students who knew their concepts well.
Who said homework was redundant and dating it on a regular basis was a waste of time? Wondering if that is all? Well, skim through theimportance of scheduling homework to achieve perfect grades to ensure that your’ learning process finally gives you marks as well!
- Combine subjects:
Have you ever thought of combining different subjects and completing your homework? If you haven’t, then I would surely suggest this to you. There are quite many subjects that have interconnection with each other. However, while we do our homework, we tend to segregate them.
If those subjects were to be combined, then completion of homework would not only become easy but would also be more informative. Here, I would suggest that while you or your children are doing homework of a specific subject, then in case you have found that there is a connect between concepts, immediately note it down for later usage. In this way, you would be able to learn better.
- Using videos:
If you thought that YouTube was only for fun, then move over! There are a number of online professional websites apart from YouTube that would help you to understand concepts and solve homework, rather than mere cramming.
It is this understanding that is much required while completion of homework, and hence, this whole process can surely become a learning process and that too in a visual manner.
- Form groups and divide homework:
Have you ever asked your child to segment the homework and then complete it? It really works! Having tried this technique in my class, I can surely state that in this grouping and division of homework, more students get involved, and workload is divided.
Thus, research procedure and techniques are bettered, and ideas are exchanged to a great level. Thus, on the whole, homework is completed on time, as well as every member of the group gets to learn deeper facets of this subject.
So, what makes you wait? Try out these techniques today itself, and see how a mundane date becomes a learning procedure!