Chapter 10

Abstract:

This chapter was all about allowing students to redo their work and some guidelines teachers should follow when doing this. Teachers should reserve the right to change their make-up policies when students are taking advantage of the situation. If a student fails a test, then that test should be signed by the parents before the student is allowed to redo the test. This ensures that the parents are aware of the students situation and it helps keep them involved with their child's academic life. When allowing work to be redone it is not fair to average the new grade with the old one as this is not done in real life. If you fail your driving test the first time and go to take it again, they will not average your two grades together. It is an inaccurate way to assess someones knowledge. For the sanity of the teacher, it is recommended that you do not allow make-up work during the last week of grading. This prevents the teacher from being buried under a pile of papers that need to be corrected at the same time they are trying to finish every one's grades.

Reflection:

Our group really liked this chapter and it really put the idea of make-up work into a new perspective for some of us. There was at least one person from our group who before reading this chapter felt that make-up work was unrealistic and set students up for failure in the real world. This person thought that make-up work was just a way to get students grades higher so the teacher would come off looking better. Now, after reading this chapter, it is clear that the reason teachers allow make-up work is because they realize that students learn at different rates, and just because it took one student longer than another does not mean that student should be punished. As one member in our group wrote: "Your goal is to get students to understand the material". It really shouldn't matter when they come to understand it, as long as it happens. We all liked the idea of having parents sign students failing work. We thought this would be a good way to keep parents involved, however it was brought up that this could also cause a lot of stress for the students. No student wants to take a failing paper home and show it to their parents. We all believe that it will be important for us to come up with policies regarding make-up work for our students so that we can get an accurate grasp on what our students know and help them continue in their learning.

*Posted by Chelsae