I totally agree with you but it’s all a matter of control–“everyone must do it my way”. I tell teachers all the time “it’s not your job to teach the curriculum; it’s your job to make sure the kid knows the curriculum”. It mostly falls on deaf ears.

So what are you doing? Can you give them the comprehensive set of Algebra assessments, have them be done in October, and then let them start on Geometry in the corner, finishing it in summer school next year?

Now the question is: do you perpetuate the cycle and assign these students that very same homework which will do absolutely nothing for their comprehension?

As someone who did math up until about the third quarter of calc almost reflexively, I love you.

Nothing makes an easy class more miserable than not being able to fly through the work. I second H’s idea. Maybe not cut and dry Geometry, but definitely something extra. I’ve had teachers give me logic problems to mull over, so even if I wasn’t doing the homework, they knew I was passively putting a few cycles into math every night because I’d come back the next day and had made progress on the problem. I enjoyed that more than anything else.

I agree that the student should be praised for demonstrating and applying the skills that were taught throughout the year. Although I might be a little skeptical as to how authentic her paper really was. I would have to talk to this student and do a little oral examination to futher evaluate. However, I don’t believe homework should be weighed so heavily.

What’s even worse is now that student will probably hate math. If the student isn’t challenged and inspired to learn then what good is school. Thanks for speaking up for all the students like that hypothedical one who need somebody to be an advocate for them.

In your scenario, unicorn kid needs a teacher who is willing to throw out the playbook and do better by her.

But in the larger question of how we decide who gets what grade, is there an assumption in your reasoning that students will voluntarily participate in activities that aren’t reinforcing?

In a perfect world, I would put together a series of academic experiences, whereby a sincere child endeavoring to master mathematical content would succeed by cheerfully and voluntarily participating. The child would then submit to a fair assessment of her understanding of these concepts, and be rewarded with a grade that reflects her learning.

In my world, I am compelled to attach point values to these experiences that are not intended to be assessments, to compell an effort. As a result, her assessment grade is skewed by all these other grades that I had to give to get her to learn and practice some new material. If I have done my job, I have designed these learning experiences such that completing them will result in good test grades, and there won’t be a conflict.

Maybe I’m just a hopeless cluebag, but I don’t have a way to motivate kids to work at something that doesn’t “count”. Even my most fun, rewarding, awesome activities don’t escape the dreaded “Is this going to count?!” I learned early on that a “No” to that question guarantees a roomful of out-to-lunch, disengaged teenagers for the next hour.

I also get several kids a year that don’t do well on written tests even when they understand concepts. Whether due to a learning disability, anxiety, or something else, it seems more fair and reasonable to give them other opportunities to earn points and get a decent grade than basing it solely on written tests.

I could theoretically let a summative assessment grade override earlier grades, but I am certain that the kids would catch on, and that would be the end of them making any effort until the test rolled along. Their faith in their own abilities to be successful without doing any work is mind-boggling.

I hope that it’s not all me, but an antiquated schooling structure of 1 teacher vs 100+ kids, where we, by necessity of time and attention constraints, subsitute authentic assessment and relationships with the shortcut of grades.

If I’m missing some insider secret to motivate 15 year olds to do some algebra without holding their grade over their head like a horrible mean ogre that I would rather not be, please, enlighten me, I’d love to hear it. Nobody ever taught me how.

Wait, a composition class?

If there’s four big essays in a semester and skips all of them but the final essay, should they really get an A?

This is a different situation from mathematics, where all the knowledge can be neatly encapsulated by a single test.

Okay, fair enough.

I’m guessing the hand-raisers at your school didn’t take the question purely abstractly, though.

Sarah, could you do the homework collection at the end of class somehow then? (Still not exactly solving your problems, I know.)

(I give 15% credit for homework, as per our department policy. I’m ok with it. It is high enough to get the want-points effect but not so large as to be overwhelming the grade.)

Jason, it really is a kill the mood policy. We have to sign every student’s yellow card at the beginning of class. They get a “Yes” if a) they’re on time and b) have their homework. Miss one of those and you get a “No.”

A single “No” through the 7 periods of the day means detention. And if I assign 10 “No”s during the day, I have to stay after too.

I’m hoping that if I have homework assigned two class periods before it’s due, it might help. The dreaded finish the steps you’ve been working on in class sure hasn’t been perfect. (For one, I want them to actually do the work in class…)

KarenJan, there are moments, sometimes days. Here joy is found on an individual level and killed at a group level. The trick is to find as many ways to create it as possible.

Thanks for highlighting Gary’s strategy. I’ll see how I can bring it in. (Though an incomplete would probably still mean a “No.” Way to boost morale.)