Hello All,
This was actually brought up a while ago but I found it written in one of my books and I remembered that I meant to blog about it so here it goes! Recently in Kelowna the school board decided that no marks will be allowed to be taken off for late assignments because that is not assessing the student's learning but their organizational skills. Personally, I think organization is a big part of the learning experience and while the content of an assignment may be amazing, if it is not done on time there should be some sort of natural consequence. In the professional world lateness could result in the loss of an account/client, or the loss of a job. Is the purpose of high school to prepare students for the workforce? And if so, as educators should we be assessing all aspects of students' academic performance, lateness included? If not, is there another consequence that educators could use to reinforce the importance of handing assignments in on time?
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I observed this first hand during my observation. It was incredibly frustrating for the teachers, because it was incredibly difficult to motivate students to hand in assignments on time. The students instead received a N or A in the work ethic portion of their grade.
ReplyDeleteAs a result of this policy, I found many teachers that gave daily quizzes as a way of making sure that their classes were up to date with the course information, because much of the curriculum builds on prior knowledge. I personally don't like the idea of being tested every day, so I plan on giving my students the option of a 5 minute quiz, or showing me their homework. I'm hoping it will work as positive reinforcement.
I think this issue goes back to our philosophy classes. What is our overall goal for students? Is it to teach them facts, life skills, attitudes, or how to learn? In this case, it seems the school board has prioritized facts.
I also came across this method of marking in my observation. My mentor teacher dealt with it in a way that seemed quite successfull. He would post class marks in the class weekly. Those students who had not completed all their assignments could not see their mark because they had "incompletes". In his experience, if a student saw a passing mark, they were unmotivated to hand in late assigments. By not being able to see marks they were faced with the possibility of a failing mark and became motivated to complete late assignments.
ReplyDeleteThis puts a little more responsibility in the hands of the students, while still allowing education to be more focused on the learnign process rather than completion marks and/or organization.
The policy of no marks off for lateness is an interesting one indeed. If it were I who was teaching at a school with this policy I would implement some reward system for handing in assignments on time. Whether it be an extra 5%,a few answers to the upcoming quiz or whatevs, I would hope that this would reward the students who handed in the assignment on time, along with perhaps still maintaining the gap between grades of those who are organized with those who are not. I am a firm believe that organizational skills are essential to the "real world" and cannot be ignored (Though at times, myself included, lateness occurs).
ReplyDeleteI completely agree Toban!! Organizational skills are essential! On my observation my mentor teacher sent out "checkpoints" that students needed to self-reflect on their marks, assignments and effort thus far and needed to have it signed by their parents and brought back. I found it so frustrating that for the full 2 weeks I was there, there were still students that hadn't handed them in yet. Even though the teacher hounded them each day for it, there was no sort of punishment for not handing them in. For me, being organized keeps me afloat, especially in a program like this. I learned by organizational skills from losing marks on assignments in high school and during my undergrad. I know it is a policy that we can't deduct marks but I think that should only be to an extent. If students start handing stuff in a month late because they know they wont lose marks, its not doing very much to prepare them for the real world. I guess a reward system for the punctual students would work but I still don't readily agree with no loss in marks for lateness.
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