You know it's a rough day when only one student in the class did the assignment correctly (or at all).
That was my first class. In the second class, not a single student did the reading. Not one! And it's wasn't even a lot of reading--just 15 pages from a highly readable novel. There goes my entire lesson plan!
What do you do? In the first class I reminded the students that the assignment sheet includes a handy list of the four items that needed to be included in this assignment. Only four! It's not a huge number! But exactly one student included all four and most of them included only one. It doesn't take a math genius to figure out that completing one-fourth of the assignment results in an F. No second chances on this assignment!
The second class got a little bit of a second chance: they're up in the classroom right now doing the reading (except for those who have not yet purchased the book). "Come and get me when you're done and we can talk about it," I told them, but that means we won't have time in class to work on the papers due on Thursday--and they really need to work on those papers.
I don't like making this kind of dramatic gesture, giving the come-to-Jesus speech and leaving them to stew in their own juices. I don't like the time and energy I have to spend trying to force students to do things that are in their own best interest. I especially don't like feeling as if I'm working harder on their learning than they are. But everyone once in a while, there's nothing to do but to kick a few butts and hope that the message gets through.
No comments:
Post a Comment