When a Student Leaves

Recently, a popular young lady in my homeroom has left our school. She was popular not because of any clique but simply, I believe, she had a warm heart and a happy personality. She left for personal reasons and I wish her the best.

It'll be interesting to see any change in the class. Up until the last day, the excitement of giving themselves "permission" to express their joy about her friendship overshadowed any sentimentality. They shouted her name in to microphone and cheered her entrance and, eventually, her exit. Their giddiness nearly reached a point near delirium. The class chatter was at an all time high. That was Thursday. As a gift to her, I showed a powerpoint slideshow of her and her friends, set to fun music. Everyone enjoyed it very much, and I thought it was a nice way to happily reflect on all the sunny days she had given us. I made it a point to not allow the music to become too, too somber. That just isn't her personality.

Fridays are always hectic because it's a short day and there is no lunch. This afternoon, cleaning up after the students had left, I reflected on the waning of the chatter, the slow tidal turn of the class' emotion.

Eventually her departure will affect her classmates. Just how deeply is yet to be determined. I am aware that this may come has a slow motion shock to some of them. I am prepared to catch them.

I am looking forward to Monday.

Once again, Math Saved My Life

I remember for a long time PAINFULLY trying to make my 17 or 23 or 27 quiz questions equal one hundred points. The theory went that it'd be easier to translate to a understandable percentage.

Well.... DUH.

I don't have to do that. In hindsight, that was ridiculous. But a new teacher, under the gun trying to do everything ALL at once and everything the RIGHT way sometimes can't think too clearly. Or see the obvious.

NOW

No matter how many questions, I show a percentage correct (for communicating to students: "See, if you get only 15 correct out of 30, that's a 50%.... which is a FAIL..."). I divide the number correct by the number of questions on the test. DUH. DUH. DUH. You try it. What a simple relief. This will work for any number of questions.

Now let's talk about points.

I make the test and quizzes worth points and fairly close in point value. This is a better way to ultimately ensure an equitable representation or distribution of grading points. Depending on your philosophy. You might think the test is the ULTIMATE. So, you make it worth a 1000 points while your quizzes are worth 20. But huge swings of grades can degrade (pun intended) a student's desire to do well. A little like dating a manic-depressive. Ouchie. So for me, quizzes are 20 points while a test is worth 40 points. This helps those students who also put a huge amount of stress on THE TEST and freak out and have brain-freeze when it's test day. They do exist. If you do weekly quizzes like I do, then good quizzes combat the evil brain-freeze reaction....which, in turn, is a better representation of that student's ability in the subject. So I feel like I've done myself and the student a huge favor.

Anyway, I take my magical percentage and multiply that against the total points possible. Voila! I now have the points they earned on my quiz. They also have a percentage (due to years of social training), which is easier to understand than "You earned only 17 points on that last quiz. The whole quiz was worth 20 points." (That is gibberish to a student. They are wondering "DID I PASS? DID I FAIL? WHAT are you talking about?").

Hope this helped someone out!
Happy Teaching!

Update on grading Work Habits

Well, planning on percentages isn't going to work very well with the grading program I have.
I am forced to give it a point value for it to show up on the student report. Therefore I gave the prepartion or work habits assignment a low point value. You say I should give it a high one? Well I disagree. I intend to form good work habits, but I don't think I can actually motivate children by penalizing them against their grade for it.
The math of it didn't work for me. The logic of it didn't work for me. My primary job is to teach math and science. I didn't want work habits to take away their hard work (studying, asking questions, taking notes, turning in most of the work) in those core subjects. It can be impacted as a matter of course, by their slovenly work habits (has to borrow a pencil, paper; shares a book with a friend frequently; forgot last night's work).
If I were teaching a course in organization, then I'd weigh the preparation score much higher. Since it's a byproduct or... um, a small part of learning my material, I gave it a small score. Hey, it's only five points in a week. But it could be the difference between a B+ student and a A- student. For some of us, that's important. Low points also ensures that I don't A+ students who truly are C+ in knowledge of the subject. SOME kind of points gives value for the students' efforts in trying to keep it together. So ... I decided on one point per day, or five points per week. Not bad. To compare, my homework is about 20 points per week, and a quiz is 30 points.

Think about what you're doing: WHAT exactly is your job? It's a myriad of tasks, including teaching skills on organization, but the actual purpose is to teach the material so I can't defend giving "preparation" more value than 5 points per week. By being unprepared, the students' grades are impacted ANYWAY. My keeping points on their work habits just provides a graphic for evidence of the impact.

Happy Teaching!