Endgame

[hauntmeister]

One week to go before spring vacation. I've just charted out what I'm doing, day-by-day, in each of my classes. And then, after vacation, it's just coasting to summer. With the distractions of prom, graduation, field trips and the sundry other activities, the last quarter of the year is only about two-thirds the length of any other quarter

Comments

[jcgbigler]

This is why I calculate my course grades similarly to the way that our guidance department calculates students' GPAs--based on the letter grades, rather than the percentages.

I set our grading software to assign the following number equivalents to letter grades:
A+ = 98.5 (middle of the 97-100 range)
A = 95 (middle of the 93-97 range)
A- = 91.5 (middle of the 90-93 range)
etc.
D- = 61.5
F = 57

Yes, it's a little odd. A student earns a 90.5, which gets translated to an A-, and then gets translated back to 91.5 to calculate the final grade. However, because the students who care tend to work to make it just past one of the cutoffs, it ends up helping a lot more students than it hurts. But the real benefit is that a student who has failed the first three quarters can still pass the course by getting at least a C- in 4th quarter. Given that the 4th quarter grade includes the final exam (20% of the overall grade), only students who have actually turned themselves around and learned the content will end up being capable of passing.

The big win for me is that as of the beginning of 4th quarter, every one of my students still have a chance of passing for the year, and I can dangle it as a carrot when I need one.

However, that said, there are still one or two of my students who make me happiest when they cut my class, especially because I can write them up for it, which means they'll miss a second class by having a day of indoor suspension.

[hauntmeister]

I can see the point of that ... but on the other hand, it could also "inspire" students to completely blow off the first three-quarters of the year, knowing that their 17% scores will be transmogrified into 69% at the last minute, and blithely anticipating that they'll ace the final. I've learned to never underestimate my students' magical thinking and inability to plan ahead.

[jcgbigler]

I mention at the beginning of the year that "I calculate grades the same way the school computes GPA," but I don't emphasize this or discuss the implications in detail until 3rd or 4th quarter.

By 3rd quarter, I tell students who have failed first and second quarter that because I do letter grade averaging, they can still pass the course, but they need to pass the last two quarters to make that happen. (While this isn't technically true, for all practical purposes most of them who don't turn it around during 3rd quarter usually end up too far behind to pull it off in 4th quarter.) In 4th quarter, I point out to the students who are still failing that their last hope for passing the course is to earn at least a C- for the quarter, and I make sure they understand what that entails. This becomes the carrot I dangle at every assignment and test. Each year one or two of them manage to pull it off.

Every year, I have a few kids who end up failing for the year, but I've never had any of them claim that it was unfair or that I never gave them a chance. (In fact, when I tell them that I'm sorry that they weren't able to pass the course, most of them comment that they were fully aware that I was bending over backwards to help them pass, and they failed to take advantage of it.)