Week 9- Teaching Practice

Week 9

In the past week, I had to go through my first end of a grading period which was less than ideal. I had students coming in everyday during every lunch break and after school period to turn in redo assignments for work. One day, I had over twenty students in line to ask about a redo or turn in material to me. Many students were very impatient and got loud. For those loud students, I gave them a warning and said if they continued to talk, then I would kick them out and they would not be able to redo any assignments. As for the impatience of my students I have told all of my classes now in detail that if students continued to monitor their grade regularly and redo every assignment throughout the quarter, then they would not have to wait in a long line to make up assignments at the last minute. 

I highly doubt that my mentioning of this fact will change the minds of the majority of my students, but I thought it was worth a shot to mention it. I also found that my students who come to me regularly for help on either homework or redo assignments were not the people who needed to redo work during the last week. I also told my students that most weeks I have either three or less students at coach class any given day and most days, no students come in for help. I have continued to instill the idea that the homework is important to emphasize the extra practice to learn how to do something and get feedback, but many of students still do not understand that. 

I find the grading policy difficult to teach within because it allows students to be lazy and not do work and their parents then wonder why their student is failing in class because they do not get enough practice of material in the 90 minutes of class, especially if they are off-task as well. This grading policy gives students a 50% for any assignment even if they do not attempt the work. The idea behind this is great, but so far in practice, my standard level students have taken this great mastery learning grading policy and decided to do less work.