Thursday, December 06, 2007

Six percent

I think I finally managed to convince a large portion of my students to turn in an assignment.

First, I printed out a summary of their assignments to date and grade breakdown and gave them each a copy. After they had looked it over, I drew their attention to the total grade percentage at the bottom.

"Look at that number. Now, add six to it. This assignment," I said, "that we will be doing for the rest of class will raise your grade approximately six percentage points. It's not hard; it just requires a little thought and reflection. I know you can all do it.

"Remember. Six. That will raise a whole bunch of you up a grade. It's so easy."

You know what happened then? They all worked on the assignment! It was awesome.

LaBloShoeMo

I got these Tevas for a trip to Costa Rica that I took with my mom a few years back. I'm still not exactly sure why I got tan ones. They look like something my mom would wear. Still, they're quite comfortable and I have gotten a decent amount of wear out of them.

4 comments:

moonbirdliz said...

YAY! You win! Yay for having to spell it out to adolescents exactly what their rewards will be for putting in a tiny bit of effort. You da woman. They need a bit of hand-holding sometimes to jump-start their motivation-- and it will probably last a week or so. Blah. Good job, you. MISS YA!!!

Anonymous said...

That's just fantastic. I have to admit I've never had trouble inspiring my kidlets. They were all 5 and 6 year olds. Haha. Still gung-ho about schoolwork. That cat is seriously adorable.

Unnaturally Blonde said...

I remember those end of the quarter assignments that could literally save your grade. Damn kids just don't get it!! At least you gave them the proper motivation by spelling it out :-)

Teacher Anonymous said...

The class I was talking about, my good class, turned all of them in except for one (who took hers home to finish over the weekend). Unfortunately, my not-so-good class (whose grades need the help even more) only turned in a few of theirs. I don't think many of them will wind up turning theirs in, as we have a project due Monday, which makes me sad. I think there are a lot of people who have given up in that class.