homework

[Nemmerle]

Most of the homework that teachers assign doesn't help worth Jack.
'Go away and make a presentation on this.'
Alrighty, you look in the book, type it into PowerPoint or whatever, don't really understand it and then spew it all out in class again.
Or 'read this chapter and answer questions' fair enough, read through the chapter answer the questions and by next week it will be gone from your mind again.

That sort of homework isn't worth anything.
Then there's the other kind.

'I'm a good little parrot, parrot, parrot.'
You see subjects at school have a basic premise, even in things like Physics and Maths: here's the sequence/study to memorise, then repeat it back to me in the exam.
So the other kind of homework, most often the stuff that teachers don't assign you but anyone who wants to do well will do on their own, consists of sitting at home with a dictaphone and the book repeating the same thing by rote until it can be recalled perfectly.

I can quote studies from memory in all of my subjects

Walster and Walster, 1969, repeat study of the computer dance. In 1969 Walster and Walster performed a repeat study of the computer dance with the exception that the participants were allowed to meet beforehand. This time the findings of their study were in line with the matching hypothesis in that those with partners of like attractiveness had the best time at the dance. This may have been due to the participants having had more time to contemplate the values they would like in their partners.

Really teaching needs to go back to parrot fashion work, it's what's relevant to the exams.

What's homework worth? Well most of it isn't worth diddly. The stuff you do yourself will help to memorise stuff by rote and repetition, and it will get you through the exams with fantastic grades from which perspective it's worth a lot but it won't make you any smarter.