Texan Mosaic

Story by Matthew Brown/COMM 2311-601 and photos by students in COMM 1318/Photography 1

It’s after 10 p.m.  You’ve just gotten home after finishing an evening shift at work, and you haven’t seen your family all day.  But you know an essay for one class and a worksheet for another class are not yet done.  Both are due tomorrow. 

Do you slug back some coffee and tackle the homework?  That’s a question a lot of South Plains College students may face.  

From staying afloat at work, to pursuing internships, to maintaining family life, students face challenges in order to succeed in school.   Is assigning students additional tasks outside the classroom counterproductive?  After all, homework and school seem to be as inseparable a combo as algebra tests and all-nighters.

Gail Malone, the SPC director of the Teaching and Learning Center, points out home is where students have a chance to apply what they learn in class and help ensure they retain what they learn.

“If there was a quiz at the end of the class,” she says, “you’d have one hundred.  But it’s a natural process that within 24 hours, you’ve forgotten more than half of what you had done.”

She says a person remembers about 20%.

Malone says if a student doesn’t do something to review information learned in class, it could make the difference between passing and failing.

 “And, so it doesn’t have to be a long review,” she says.  “If you just look over your notes, maybe 10 or 15 minutes.”

Sheyleah Harris- Plant, SPC professor of mathematics and chairperson of mathematics, engineering and computer science, says homework provides an excellent way for students to practice skills.  She explains that students in STEM courses tend to easily follow along with exercises in class but lack the skillset to work on the curriculum independently.

“I don’t care how much time you watch Lebron James or Michael Jordan in my generation,” Harris-Plant says, “you don’t get any better at shooting free-throws, or playing basketball unless you put a ball in your hand and go out there and shoot.”

While both SPC educators can list direct benefits of homework, they can also agree there are considerable drawbacks to assigning homework as well.  Obviously, college students tend to exhibit a wide diversity in age, economic standing, and other elements that could potentially clash with their academic responsibilities and aspirations.  For some students, homework can make the notion of finishing school and maintaining a sustainable work and school balance insurmountable.

“My students, gosh, the majority, have to work,” Gail Malone says.  “Yeah, it’s not a choice of working.  They’ve got to work, and they have families in addition to that.  And some of them have a lot of family members they have to care for, not just their kids.  And, so I try to be very respectful not to give them a lot of homework, or to say, ’Well, I’m sorry, but you’re going to spend the whole weekend doing this.’”

Harris-Plant says, especially since the pandemic, she’s seen the same thing about students needing to work.  In order to adapt, she has a “practice as much as you need” homework policy in her classes.

“It’s practice until you don’t need to practice anymore,” she says, “until you’re proficient with what you want to do.”

And perhaps “what you want to do” is the answer to the original question: is homework a pro or a woe?  She says there are obviously different levels of math competency expected in various career paths.  In other words, if someone wants to be an engineer or architect they may need to know more math than someone in public relations.

Most students would probably say no more homework.  But is that the answer?

“If you take that homework out, you take a ball that they’re trying to juggle out,” Harris-Plant says, “making it a little bit easier with time management.  The other side of that though, is they don’t actually cultivate those skills that they need to be successful in a course.”

Again, she points out, homework as a way of practicing skills. 

“So, you may even have to take the course multiple times as you have a practice,” she says.  “But you had more time to possibly spend with family or friends or work or something else.  So, it becomes now a question of priorities.  What’s most important to you with that?”