These conversations are always eye-opening for the number of people who don’t understand homework. You’re exactly right that it’s practice. The test is the test (obviously) and the homework is practice with a feedback loop (the grade).
Giving people credit for homework helps because it gives students a chance to earn points outside of high pressure test times and it also encourages people to do the homework. A lot of people need the latter.
My friends who teach university classes have experimented with grading structures where homework is optional and only exam scores count. Inevitably, a lot of the class fails the exams because they didn’t do any practice on their own. They come begging for opportunities to make it up. So then they circle back to making the homework required and graded as a way to get the students to practice.
ChatGPT short circuits this once again. Students ChatGPT their homework then fail the first exam. This time there is little to do, other than let those students learn the consequences of their actions.
>>You’re exactly right that it’s practice.
Thinking is a incremental process, you make small changes to things, verify if they are logically consistent and work from there.
What is to practice here? If you know something is true, practicing the mechanical aspects of it is text book definition of rote learning.
This whole thing reads like the academic system thinks making new science(Math, Physics etc) is for special geniuses and the remainder has to be happy watching the whole thing like some one demonstrating a 'sleight of hand' of hand trick.
Teach people how to discover new truths. Thats the point of thinking.
>Thinking is a incremental process, you make small changes to things, verify if they are logically consistent and work from there. >What is to practice here?
You just described the homework for a college-level math class (which will consist largely of proofs). That’s what you’re practicing.
Also, it’s 2025, if you want to discover new truths in math and science you’re going to need quite a lot of background material. We know a heck of a lot of old truths that you need to learn first.
One can memorize a piano piece, write out the notes on a grand staff and tell you all the different musical patterns in it, but if they never put there hands on the keys they won’t be able to play it. Rote learning is part of learning. This trope that’s gotten popular that if you teach concepts the rest will follow is just false. You need both.