Work Habits? What Does That Mean? How Can You Grade It?

Typically, in my middle school classroom, work habits has been based on consistent homework habits. An enlightening conversation with our school's computer teacher had me rethink my simplistic view: work habits is an entire schema, a broader range than simply turning something in. Is the work neat? Is it presentable? Did the student follow the rubric? Is the paper prepared correctly?

Further, work habits become also "preparation". Did the student arrive with the expected and required materials? Textbook, pencil, agenda? Notebook?

Work habits then broadened itself into "accountability". Did the student read the requested chapter the night prior?

Whew! It was overwhelming!

However, it's important. Although it is a basic to grade homework habits as equivalent to work habits, and probably easier than the alternative: grading these mentioned skills individually and then combining the scores into some quantifiable number, a teacher who seeks to pinpoint one or several of the mentioned areas is nurturing lifelong skills that will ultimately benefit the student and, in retrospect,by the very act of doing so raises the bar for the teacher as well.

Yet how? I chose to focus on 'preparation'. I chose that because being unprepared has been a thorny issue with my classes this year.

I've started to include the "supplies check" as part of a simple roll call. I require four things. Pencil, notebook, textbook, agenda. I ask for the student to hold up or lay on their desk the item as I walk up and down the rows. I do it slowly, deliberately, and one item at a time, to convey the seriousness of my task. Initially students were tittering among themselves as some students look aghast at being checked for (heaven forbid!) the correct textbook. It appears to work well to do this "supplies check" during their "warm up exercise", typically for my math class is about 20 problems. I save the agenda check for last. I request the students after the check to write down the homework since the agenda is now so conveniently in front of them. I pretend to eye their actions so it seems like students bend over their Agenda to copiously copy the homework. At least I think so.

It has taken so far about ten minutes of my time. I imagine as we get used to this roll call, it'll go faster. Already the second day into the program, I had a few students who had stacked up their items on their desk ready for my inspection.

What do I do if they don't have the supplies? Well, I mark it a zero. A complete whole zero? Yes. If they are missing one item, they get a zero for the day. I don't really tell them this. I think it will be demotivating. But I am overwhelmed at the idea of micro-managing this and instead focus on the general question, "Did they come prepared? or not?".

Well, that's terrible, you might say. No pencil and they get a zero! I can understand that point of view and thought about it for a long time. I've decided to include these scores with their homework scores. For example, I've created a seperate grading column in my computerized grading program and I call it "Work Habits". If they turned in most of their homework, and were mostly prepared, their total combined percentages should average on the higher end. For some schools, this is indicated by a G for Good. How it specifially works is if they are 80% on Work Habits, and 100% on Homework, I add the two scores (I can do this in the grading program... thank goodness!) and average them. The 80% and the 100% average to a 90% Work Habits score.

Part of my mission as a teacher is not only to educate my students about the subjects I teach, but also to prepare them to become responsible adults. I am hopeful that simply focusing on this one aspect will enable me to push forward toward this little goal.

Happy Teaching!