|
Scheduling Homework
Okay, you have the time to take a class; how do you do the work?
First of all, it helps if you work regularly.
A typical class runs in multi-week cycles: it starts slowly, speeds up,
rushes into a test or due date for a term paper, and then suddenly slows
again.
Classes whose work consists of only a few papers or a few tests are especially
prone to work this way.
Most mathematics classes do not work this way: there is a steady
stream of homework, usually with inflexible due dates, that keep students
working regularly.
This leads to the popular notion that it is especially dangerous to fall
behind in a math class (or indeed any class with lots of regular homework).
This is not quite accurate: the reality is that in practically any
class, it is unwise to fall behind.
It is just that the consequences of being behind in mathematics courses appear
more rapidly.
Besides just losing credit for late homework, there are two more reasons not to
fall behind:
-
Once you form the habit of working regularly, it is easier to work regularly.
But if you don't work regularly, every time you work, you find
yourself pushing against the inertia of established habits.
-
If you are behind, you have no time margin for things you don't understand,
or for something outside your class that suddenly gobbles up time.
Staying ahead is a form of insurance.
In fact, one of the most successful strategies is to get ahead by
about a week, and stay ahead.
In a math course, if you have all the assignments ahead of time, you can
start looking at them perhaps a week before they are due: if there
is something wrong, you have plenty of time to ask questions.
So if working regularly, and on (if not ahead of) schedule is important, how
should one study?
Here are two extreme positions.
-
The behaviorists claim that ``time management'' requires a
a realistic schedule --- with a system of rewards for keeping to it
(and maybe punishments for not keeping to it).
Such a schedule would set time in hour-long blocks, because:
-
after an hour, a typical person reaches the point of diminishing returns,
and
-
it is easier to schedule hour-long blocks.
Students and tenure-track faculty who try to study and research in longer
blocks of time are unproductive because:
-
there are very few such blocks, and
-
they are demoralized by how little they did in a single multi-hour
block.
For more of this slow and steady spiel, see Robert Boice's
Procrastination and Blocking.
-
The creativity experts agree that schedules should be realistic,
but recommend multi-hour blocks.
It takes time (perhaps up to fifteen minutes) to get one's brain in gear
(i.e., into the correct
state
of consciousness), and then the creative flow lasts for perhaps three
hours, and it is a waste not to take advantage of the entire time.
For more of these deep currents, see Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's
Creativity.
Notice that they agree on the need for a schedule.
If you are not a very organized person, a schedule may be a good idea.
Notice also where they disagree: short time segments versus long ones.
Boice, who was interested in therapy for people who needed to improve,
pushes short time blocks, while Csikszentmihalyi, who is interested
in how some of the world's leading genies work, pushes longer ones.
Perhaps this simply compares what is appropriate for beginners versus
what is appropriate for the more experienced.
On the other hand, niether author is inclined to be so compromising:
Boice complains about Charles Dickens and his self-destructive work
habits, while Csikszentmihalyi makes it clear that flow requires long
blocks of time, period.
Perhaps the most sensible thing is to look at the advice, and remembering
Thales' advice (``know thyself''), experiment.
|
|