Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The goal of school is to learn the material. Why does it matter if they do retakes — they demonstrate they have learned the material. If you fail the bar exam you can take it again. If you fail your drivers license exam you can retake. So why should school be any different?

+1 That's growth mindset, "I don't know this yet"

Exactly. We want kids to learn the material and be motivated to keep trying.

My kid right now has a cool grading policy for geometry that is motivating: the grade is only based on quizzes and tests. If you do better on the test than the quizzes then your quiz scores get bumped up to the test score. And if you get any problems incorrect on the test, you can do a thoughtful exercise on why you got it wrong and how to do it correctly - to bump up grade by 1/2 point per problem.

It's been very motivating for my kid and I hope to see more teachers (esp math) use this grading policy.

I used to agree with this but then I heard someone say - what it’s going to be like when it’s these kids age working at nasa. Oops we just missed the moon - we will just do a redo.

I have zero problem with retakes and some additional credit given. I DO have problems with retakes and allowing full credit. I have problems with allowing late assignments and kids getting full credit. If you missed a deadline, you shouldn't get the same grade as the person who followed directions and turned it in on time. You essentially got a free extension of time to complete the work.

Generally, I'd agree with this, but during the pandemic - and even now somewhat - it's been extra difficult to track assignments. Even hard-working kids can miss assignments here or there.

Tough sh--. And, untrue. Between Schoology, SIS, and parents who should be helping them learn to track assignments, there is no reason not to track assignments.

100% true. It was very difficult to track assignments in virtual/concurrent/hybrid. Every teacher assigned work a little differently. My kid was out with covid several weeks ago and it was a nightmare to track down missing assignments, reschedule tests, etc.

This is no longer the case. Our school uses Schoology - period. Track it. Get a calendar.
It's not that hard. And even if it is, that is a you problem to solve.

Anonymous wrote:You mean like it was when we were kids and nothing was on computers yet? People managed to navigate school for an awful long time without computers.

Somehow my brother and I got through school with ADHD, reasonably serious ADHD, with regular old planners. My brother struggled more then I did but he graduated with a B average, went to college, and graduated from college so he figured it out.

Get your kid a planner. Go on the various sites and write down the assignments that you can find. Go to Teacher and confirm that what is in the planner is what is due.

Have you ever tried to reach a MS or HS teacher in FCPS? Pretty sure there is some unwritten rule that says once a kid passes 6th grade teachers no longer need to respond to a student or parent email. In MS and up it's all about self advocacy and they want the kid to do the talking but I'm convinced much of that is because it's easier to ignore a kid, they give up. MS and HS teachers barely grade on time. They surely are not responsive to planner/assignment checks.

These are kids and they are required by law to be at school. Why is there such a desire to make it harder for them?

Who on this board went to school during a global pandemic? Who on this board had to worry about being shot in their classroom when they were a student? Who on this board cheated on tests? The olden days weren't necessarily better; they are just what we know.

They are kids. They make mistakes. They have bad days. Give them a break.

And everyone saying that you can't turn work in late in the real world -- that is true very rarely; for most work, there is flexibility with deadlines.

Anonymous wrote:You mean like it was when we were kids and nothing was on computers yet? People managed to navigate school for an awful long time without computers.

Somehow my brother and I got through school with ADHD, reasonably serious ADHD, with regular old planners. My brother struggled more then I did but he graduated with a B average, went to college, and graduated from college so he figured it out.

Get your kid a planner. Go on the various sites and write down the assignments that you can find. Go to Teacher and confirm that what is in the planner is what is due.

Pretty hard for kids to do in virtual school or when they are out for two weeks.

Anonymous wrote:The logic by some of the posters here is insane. “Biology isn’t useful to some kids in life, so we should just give them a passing score with no effort.” If we deem Biology 2 useless, then we focus on removing the requirement to take the course, not watering down passing requirements.

Let kids drop the lowest scoring assignment or two, like they do in college. On my first college Physics exam, I got a 33% for leaving the i and j off all of my numerically correct answers. I was devastated. I ended up with an A+ in the class because I was able to exclude my lowest exam score. So if the issue is that kids “can’t come back from” a zero, let them have one that doesn’t matter, not every exam.

It's not that teaching chemistry and biology and geometry isn't useful, but those curriculums are developed and taught assuming the students are at least close to the level of native English speakers and assuming that they've had a solid 9 years of K-8 schooling leading up to these HS courses. That's totally fine in an ideal world.

The concern is that FCPS and other districts are increasingly taking in first-gen children from 3rd-world countries who simply do not have the requisite foundational math and basic science backgrounds, or even English skills, to meaningfully absorb and learn these relatively advanced materials (like chemical reactions and trig identities) in such compressed time. I don't blame the children or the parents, but rather it's FCPS's or VDOE's problem for trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. These children must have some other way to assess their progress. Currently specific schools and districts are seen as a failure and receive terrible reputations for not being able to get their high-ELL populations to pass these exams. Students aren't benefitting from being in classes they don't get meaning out of, and schools don't benefit from being seen as horrible schools. It's a lose-lose as it is.

A move towards a solution is to adapt different requirements for ELL learners so that they can take meaningful courses.

You mean like it was when we were kids and nothing was on computers yet? People managed to navigate school for an awful long time without computers.

Somehow my brother and I got through school with ADHD, reasonably serious ADHD, with regular old planners. My brother struggled more then I did but he graduated with a B average, went to college, and graduated from college so he figured it out.

Get your kid a planner. Go on the various sites and write down the assignments that you can find. Go to Teacher and confirm that what is in the planner is what is due.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The goal of school is to learn the material. Why does it matter if they do retakes — they demonstrate they have learned the material. If you fail the bar exam you can take it again. If you fail your drivers license exam you can retake. So why should school be any different?

+1 That's growth mindset, "I don't know this yet"

Exactly. We want kids to learn the material and be motivated to keep trying.

My kid right now has a cool grading policy for geometry that is motivating: the grade is only based on quizzes and tests. If you do better on the test than the quizzes then your quiz scores get bumped up to the test score. And if you get any problems incorrect on the test, you can do a thoughtful exercise on why you got it wrong and how to do it correctly - to bump up grade by 1/2 point per problem.

It's been very motivating for my kid and I hope to see more teachers (esp math) use this grading policy.

I used to agree with this but then I heard someone say - what it’s going to be like when it’s these kids age working at nasa. Oops we just missed the moon - we will just do a redo.

I have zero problem with retakes and some additional credit given. I DO have problems with retakes and allowing full credit. I have problems with allowing late assignments and kids getting full credit. If you missed a deadline, you shouldn't get the same grade as the person who followed directions and turned it in on time. You essentially got a free extension of time to complete the work.

Generally, I'd agree with this, but during the pandemic - and even now somewhat - it's been extra difficult to track assignments. Even hard-working kids can miss assignments here or there.

Tough sh--. And, untrue. Between Schoology, SIS, and parents who should be helping them learn to track assignments, there is no reason not to track assignments.

100% true. It was very difficult to track assignments in virtual/concurrent/hybrid. Every teacher assigned work a little differently. My kid was out with covid several weeks ago and it was a nightmare to track down missing assignments, reschedule tests, etc.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The goal of school is to learn the material. Why does it matter if they do retakes — they demonstrate they have learned the material. If you fail the bar exam you can take it again. If you fail your drivers license exam you can retake. So why should school be any different?

+1 That's growth mindset, "I don't know this yet"

Exactly. We want kids to learn the material and be motivated to keep trying.

My kid right now has a cool grading policy for geometry that is motivating: the grade is only based on quizzes and tests. If you do better on the test than the quizzes then your quiz scores get bumped up to the test score. And if you get any problems incorrect on the test, you can do a thoughtful exercise on why you got it wrong and how to do it correctly - to bump up grade by 1/2 point per problem.

It's been very motivating for my kid and I hope to see more teachers (esp math) use this grading policy.

I used to agree with this but then I heard someone say - what it’s going to be like when it’s these kids age working at nasa. Oops we just missed the moon - we will just do a redo.

I have zero problem with retakes and some additional credit given. I DO have problems with retakes and allowing full credit. I have problems with allowing late assignments and kids getting full credit. If you missed a deadline, you shouldn't get the same grade as the person who followed directions and turned it in on time. You essentially got a free extension of time to complete the work.

Generally, I'd agree with this, but during the pandemic - and even now somewhat - it's been extra difficult to track assignments. Even hard-working kids can miss assignments here or there.

Tough sh--. And, untrue. Between Schoology, SIS, and parents who should be helping them learn to track assignments, there is no reason not to track assignments.

Anonymous wrote:OP, I agree with you. So many students have no motivation.
It is getting worse every year. They lack basic knowledge. It is because they are not held accountable.

However, I have other students that keep me motivated. They care. I do it for them and I know they appreciate how hard I work to teach them everyday.

My advice is to focus on the ones that care. I tell that to my grade partner every day. Those kids come from all walks of life. Many are poor and from immigrant families.

You think the reason they know nothing is because of the grading scale?

Look in the mirror.

Anonymous wrote:The logic by some of the posters here is insane. “Biology isn’t useful to some kids in life, so we should just give them a passing score with no effort.” If we deem Biology 2 useless, then we focus on removing the requirement to take the course, not watering down passing requirements.

Let kids drop the lowest scoring assignment or two, like they do in college. On my first college Physics exam, I got a 33% for leaving the i and j off all of my numerically correct answers. I was devastated. I ended up with an A+ in the class because I was able to exclude my lowest exam score. So if the issue is that kids “can’t come back from” a zero, let them have one that doesn’t matter, not every exam.

That is Professor dependent. I allowed students to drop their lowest exam score. I gave 2 mid terms and a final. They were equally weighted. My logic was that a student can have a bad day or struggle during the class. If they show me on the two earlier exams they know the material, there is no need for a demonstration of knowledge over the course of the semester. If they bombed a test, they had an opportunity to demonstrate that they knew the material at the final. On the plus side, I had to grade a lot less at the final exam and most of the students had something taken off their plate at a stressful time of year. I also passed out term papers in chunks forcing the work on them to spread out over the course of the year. It also allowed students to see how I was grading and allowed them to improve their product pretty quickly. Again, they were less stressed at the end of the semester because their paper was done except for cleaning it up based on my comments and I had a better product to read.

Students till failed because they skipped two tests or didn't turn in papers. You can set things so students can succeed but it is up to the student to take advantage of that. Honestly, it was rare for the student who missed the first exam without contacting me to take the second exam or the final. It was rare that the student not turning in paper bits as required turned in a final paper. I am guessing that the majority of high school students who are suppose to benefit from the 50% BS are getting Ds and Cs and that the number of students using it to honestly improve in a class are far smaller. I would not be surprised to find out that kids with Bs are using it to improve to an A but that is a smaller percentage of kids then the number of kids who would fail and not graduate without this policy.

I think this is more about artificially improving the graduation rate then trying to help kids improve in their classes.

Anonymous wrote:The logic by some of the posters here is insane. “Biology isn’t useful to some kids in life, so we should just give them a passing score with no effort.” If we deem Biology 2 useless, then we focus on removing the requirement to take the course, not watering down passing requirements.

Let kids drop the lowest scoring assignment or two, like they do in college. On my first college Physics exam, I got a 33% for leaving the i and j off all of my numerically correct answers. I was devastated. I ended up with an A+ in the class because I was able to exclude my lowest exam score. So if the issue is that kids “can’t come back from” a zero, let them have one that doesn’t matter, not every exam.

Did anyone actually say that?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The goal of school is to learn the material. Why does it matter if they do retakes — they demonstrate they have learned the material. If you fail the bar exam you can take it again. If you fail your drivers license exam you can retake. So why should school be any different?

+1 That's growth mindset, "I don't know this yet"

Exactly. We want kids to learn the material and be motivated to keep trying.

My kid right now has a cool grading policy for geometry that is motivating: the grade is only based on quizzes and tests. If you do better on the test than the quizzes then your quiz scores get bumped up to the test score. And if you get any problems incorrect on the test, you can do a thoughtful exercise on why you got it wrong and how to do it correctly - to bump up grade by 1/2 point per problem.

It's been very motivating for my kid and I hope to see more teachers (esp math) use this grading policy.

I used to agree with this but then I heard someone say - what it’s going to be like when it’s these kids age working at nasa. Oops we just missed the moon - we will just do a redo.

I have zero problem with retakes and some additional credit given. I DO have problems with retakes and allowing full credit. I have problems with allowing late assignments and kids getting full credit. If you missed a deadline, you shouldn't get the same grade as the person who followed directions and turned it in on time. You essentially got a free extension of time to complete the work.

Generally, I'd agree with this, but during the pandemic - and even now somewhat - it's been extra difficult to track assignments. Even hard-working kids can miss assignments here or there.

The logic by some of the posters here is insane. “Biology isn’t useful to some kids in life, so we should just give them a passing score with no effort.” If we deem Biology 2 useless, then we focus on removing the requirement to take the course, not watering down passing requirements.

Let kids drop the lowest scoring assignment or two, like they do in college. On my first college Physics exam, I got a 33% for leaving the i and j off all of my numerically correct answers. I was devastated. I ended up with an A+ in the class because I was able to exclude my lowest exam score. So if the issue is that kids “can’t come back from” a zero, let them have one that doesn’t matter, not every exam.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The goal of school is to learn the material. Why does it matter if they do retakes — they demonstrate they have learned the material. If you fail the bar exam you can take it again. If you fail your drivers license exam you can retake. So why should school be any different?

+1 That's growth mindset, "I don't know this yet"

Exactly. We want kids to learn the material and be motivated to keep trying.

My kid right now has a cool grading policy for geometry that is motivating: the grade is only based on quizzes and tests. If you do better on the test than the quizzes then your quiz scores get bumped up to the test score. And if you get any problems incorrect on the test, you can do a thoughtful exercise on why you got it wrong and how to do it correctly - to bump up grade by 1/2 point per problem.

It's been very motivating for my kid and I hope to see more teachers (esp math) use this grading policy.

I used to agree with this but then I heard someone say - what it’s going to be like when it’s these kids age working at nasa. Oops we just missed the moon - we will just do a redo.

I have zero problem with retakes and some additional credit given. I DO have problems with retakes and allowing full credit. I have problems with allowing late assignments and kids getting full credit. If you missed a deadline, you shouldn't get the same grade as the person who followed directions and turned it in on time. You essentially got a free extension of time to complete the work.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The goal of school is to learn the material. Why does it matter if they do retakes — they demonstrate they have learned the material. If you fail the bar exam you can take it again. If you fail your drivers license exam you can retake. So why should school be any different?

+1 That's growth mindset, "I don't know this yet"

Exactly. We want kids to learn the material and be motivated to keep trying.

My kid right now has a cool grading policy for geometry that is motivating: the grade is only based on quizzes and tests. If you do better on the test than the quizzes then your quiz scores get bumped up to the test score. And if you get any problems incorrect on the test, you can do a thoughtful exercise on why you got it wrong and how to do it correctly - to bump up grade by 1/2 point per problem.

It's been very motivating for my kid and I hope to see more teachers (esp math) use this grading policy.

I used to agree with this but then I heard someone say - what it’s going to be like when it’s these kids age working at nasa. Oops we just missed the moon - we will just do a redo.

That person was an idiot. NASA needs people who persevere and take time to master things.

+1

My kid actually goes back and figures out what they got wrong now. Before they would have ignored it because it wouldn’t affect the grade.