For elementary school students, the recommended amount of homework time each night is 10 minutes for Kindergarten, 20 minutes for 1st grade, and so on as they go up. But today, Kindergarten-5th grade students have an average of 2.9 hours of homework per week. 

Students Kinsley Smith and Miranda Caudell of Piedmont University presented their presentation entitled “Homework: Is it Effective?” at the annual symposium. The 15 minute presentation centered around elementary students and math. Both students are in a “math for teachers” class so their topic needed to be math related. 

“We started looking for topics that we could pull lots of information from, and this was one both of us thought would be a good controversial topic that we agree with on both sides,” Smith said. 

Smith pointed out that this topic has pros and cons on both sides, leaving her and Caudwell to be neutral on the topic. Both presenters have personal experiences in their own life directly correlating to their topic, making this presentation even more meaningful.

“There’s just so many factors going into math homework,” Caudell said. “It was definitely interesting to see, for instance, I wouldn’t even have thought about reinforcement at home being a problem.” 

Many people believe that homework is the key to a student’s success in school. However, Smith and Caudwell mentioned that there is much research and data that has been done on this topic and all show no correlation to homework and a student’s success specifically at the elementary level. 

“It all depends on the perspective,” Caudwell said. “For me, it’s more of looking at it as a student but for Kinsley, she has the perspective of a parent and seeing the work her kids bring home.”

Smith mentioned her two kids, who both play baseball year round and how busy their schedule is while trying to balance homework, family time, and their extra curricular activity. 

Presenters: 

Kinsley Smith- kismith0122@lions.piedmont.edu

Miranda Caudell- jcaudell0929@lions.piedmont.edu

Faculty adviser:Susan Winstead- swinstead@piedmont.edu