The instructor has the following grading scale:
weekly exams = 65% of total grade
opinion papers = 20% of total grade
final exam - 15% of total grade
Students are allowed to miss three class periods without penalty. There are no excused absences after the three have been utilized, and one-half point from the 100 total points for the class is subtracted for each additional absence.
A student with a baseball scholarship received the following grade in your class:
weekly exams = 45% of possible 65%
opinion papers = 18% of possible 20%
final exam = 7% of possible 15%
unexcused absences = 2, equaling a minus of 1 full point from total grade.
weekly exams = 45
opin. papers = 18
final exam = 7
total = 70 = C-
-1 (two absences at one-half point each)
69% = D+
Variables:
1. Student will lose scholarship, if a grade below a C- is received.
2. The administration is very concerned about grade inflation. You know that your college has the highest grade inflation of any of the institutions in the state as compared to a major university in the area.
3. The father of the student calls you twice to convince you that his child should be given the C- to save the scholarship, the self-esteem and future baseball career of your student.
and the answer is???.......................
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
The Teacher And The Student
Sally Thomas, the teacher of this combination 5th- and 6th-grade class of 31 students, is a highly dedicated professional, respected by students, parents, and administrators for her teaching and for her leadership at local and state levels in whole language practices and alternative assessment strategies. Through interviews and through observations with Sally Thomas, I learned that she has a social constructivist educational philosophy, a holistic approach to curriculum development, and a nurturing interpersonal style. The students used the following phrases to describe their teacher: supportive, caring, understanding, accessible, sharing mutual trust and respect, listening to and respecting diverse opinions, explaining things, not telling all the answers, fun, humorous, enthusiastic, sharing interests, holding high expectations, and giving specific feedback.
Sally often articulated to the students her reasons for offering particular activities, topics, or learning processes. For example, when preparing for a cooperative learning jigsaw activity in which students were responsible for "becoming experts" on certain social studies readings in order to teach their peers, she mentioned that researchers have found that more learning takes place when we know we will be responsible for teaching the material to others. After the jigsaw, students examined their learning experience in that light. Sally asked students to critique the value of what they were learning, using questions like the following: "Is this a valuable topic to understand? Why or why not?"; "Have you ever needed to know how to do this in the "real world?"; "How might this skill be useful to you in the future?"; and "Why might the writers of this curriculum believe that this should be included? Do you agree or disagree with their decision?" The focus was on valuing learning, rather than on extrinsic rewards, and as such, fit Marshall's (1990) description of a learning-oriented classroom. As one student described his views on how his school culture was different, Instead of not wanting to read, they'll read. Instead of not wanting
to write, they'll write. They want to write. One of the things I love
in school is that we're trying to learn - not just get the right answer.
That's really good. You want to get the right answer, but you still
learn. You do better because learning is more important than
getting the right answer.
This classroom was a caring community of learners in which the contribution of ideas from every member was encouraged and responded to. Risk taking was explicitly encouraged by Sally as an important part of learning. She and the students participated together as learners and as teachers. Through seeking and responding to the ideas and feelings of each member of the classroom culture, Sally was able to convey to her students a sense that their ideas and their own construction of meaning were important, valuable, and worthy of being taken seriously. Students and teacher figured things out together in ways described by Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, and Tarule (1986) as connected knowing. Sally shared the "ownership of knowing" (Oldfather, 1992).
The students' desks were arranged in groups of four or five. The room was filled with samples of creative work: illustrated poems, stories written on the computer and placed in handmade illustrated books, art projects, and works in progress, which included projects in clay, papiermâché, and other graphic arts. The classroom contained hundreds of books, many related to the thematic unit being studied. The curriculum was developed thematically, incorporating students' interests and suggestions. Topics were based on large concepts, and often included large issues that related to current events (e.g., a censorship debate) or environmental concerns. Students read selfselected books and books from the core curriculum. They kept dialogue journals and reading logs. Writing was the favorite school activity of most students in the class. The schoolwide practice was to give no grades; report cards were in narrative form. Students' dominant experience in this classroom was of interest in and engagement with learning.
Sally often articulated to the students her reasons for offering particular activities, topics, or learning processes. For example, when preparing for a cooperative learning jigsaw activity in which students were responsible for "becoming experts" on certain social studies readings in order to teach their peers, she mentioned that researchers have found that more learning takes place when we know we will be responsible for teaching the material to others. After the jigsaw, students examined their learning experience in that light. Sally asked students to critique the value of what they were learning, using questions like the following: "Is this a valuable topic to understand? Why or why not?"; "Have you ever needed to know how to do this in the "real world?"; "How might this skill be useful to you in the future?"; and "Why might the writers of this curriculum believe that this should be included? Do you agree or disagree with their decision?" The focus was on valuing learning, rather than on extrinsic rewards, and as such, fit Marshall's (1990) description of a learning-oriented classroom. As one student described his views on how his school culture was different, Instead of not wanting to read, they'll read. Instead of not wanting
to write, they'll write. They want to write. One of the things I love
in school is that we're trying to learn - not just get the right answer.
That's really good. You want to get the right answer, but you still
learn. You do better because learning is more important than
getting the right answer.
This classroom was a caring community of learners in which the contribution of ideas from every member was encouraged and responded to. Risk taking was explicitly encouraged by Sally as an important part of learning. She and the students participated together as learners and as teachers. Through seeking and responding to the ideas and feelings of each member of the classroom culture, Sally was able to convey to her students a sense that their ideas and their own construction of meaning were important, valuable, and worthy of being taken seriously. Students and teacher figured things out together in ways described by Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, and Tarule (1986) as connected knowing. Sally shared the "ownership of knowing" (Oldfather, 1992).
The students' desks were arranged in groups of four or five. The room was filled with samples of creative work: illustrated poems, stories written on the computer and placed in handmade illustrated books, art projects, and works in progress, which included projects in clay, papiermâché, and other graphic arts. The classroom contained hundreds of books, many related to the thematic unit being studied. The curriculum was developed thematically, incorporating students' interests and suggestions. Topics were based on large concepts, and often included large issues that related to current events (e.g., a censorship debate) or environmental concerns. Students read selfselected books and books from the core curriculum. They kept dialogue journals and reading logs. Writing was the favorite school activity of most students in the class. The schoolwide practice was to give no grades; report cards were in narrative form. Students' dominant experience in this classroom was of interest in and engagement with learning.
Classroom Motivation
Children locked into classroom discussion are no different than adults locked into boring, irrelevant meetings. If you do not understand how something relates to your goals, you will not care about that thing. If an adult cannot see the relevance of the material covered in a meeting, and has no desire to score political points, he will tune out or drop out. If a child does not understand how knowing the elements of the periodic table will help to address the concerns of his life, and he is not particularly interested in pleasing the teacher, he will do the same.
Because we do not want our children to be motivated solely by a desire to please the teacher, what we need to address is how to make the content of the curriculum fit into the concerns of the child. Sometimes, this is easy. The child who wants to design a roof for the family doghouse will gladly sit through a lesson on the Pythagorean theorem if he understands that the lesson will teach him how to calculate the dimensions of the roof he needs. If a piece of content addresses a particular concern of a student, or even a general area of interest, that student will not tune it out.
Most children, as they work through their years of school do, in fact, find areas of study they genuinely enjoy. But these areas are different for different people. The general problem of matching individual interests to fixed curricula is one that is impossible to solve. People obviously have different backgrounds, beliefs, and goals. What is relevant for one will not be relevant to another. Of course, we can force something to be relevant to students--we can put it on the test. But this only makes it have the appearance of significance, it does not make it interesting.
Some children decide not to play the game this system offers. Instead, they continue to search for ways in which what is taught makes sense in their day-to-day lives, becoming frustrated as they realize that much of what is covered is irrelevant to them. If children are unwilling to believe that their own questions do not matter, then they can easily conclude that it is the material covered in class that does not matter.
What is left, then, if the content has no intrinsic value to a student? Any teacher knows the answer to this question. Tests. Grades. When students don't care about what they are learning, tests and grades force them to learn what they don't care about knowing. Of course, students can win this game in the long run by instantly forgetting the material they crammed into their heads the night before the test. Unfortunately, this happens nearly every time. What is the point of a system that teaches students to temporarily memorize facts? The only facts that stay are the ones we were forced to memorize again and again, and those we were not forced to memorize at all but that we learned because we truly needed to know them, because we were motivated to know them. Motivation can be induced artificially, but its effects then are temporary. There is no substitute for the real thing.
Because we do not want our children to be motivated solely by a desire to please the teacher, what we need to address is how to make the content of the curriculum fit into the concerns of the child. Sometimes, this is easy. The child who wants to design a roof for the family doghouse will gladly sit through a lesson on the Pythagorean theorem if he understands that the lesson will teach him how to calculate the dimensions of the roof he needs. If a piece of content addresses a particular concern of a student, or even a general area of interest, that student will not tune it out.
Most children, as they work through their years of school do, in fact, find areas of study they genuinely enjoy. But these areas are different for different people. The general problem of matching individual interests to fixed curricula is one that is impossible to solve. People obviously have different backgrounds, beliefs, and goals. What is relevant for one will not be relevant to another. Of course, we can force something to be relevant to students--we can put it on the test. But this only makes it have the appearance of significance, it does not make it interesting.
Some children decide not to play the game this system offers. Instead, they continue to search for ways in which what is taught makes sense in their day-to-day lives, becoming frustrated as they realize that much of what is covered is irrelevant to them. If children are unwilling to believe that their own questions do not matter, then they can easily conclude that it is the material covered in class that does not matter.
What is left, then, if the content has no intrinsic value to a student? Any teacher knows the answer to this question. Tests. Grades. When students don't care about what they are learning, tests and grades force them to learn what they don't care about knowing. Of course, students can win this game in the long run by instantly forgetting the material they crammed into their heads the night before the test. Unfortunately, this happens nearly every time. What is the point of a system that teaches students to temporarily memorize facts? The only facts that stay are the ones we were forced to memorize again and again, and those we were not forced to memorize at all but that we learned because we truly needed to know them, because we were motivated to know them. Motivation can be induced artificially, but its effects then are temporary. There is no substitute for the real thing.
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