How Do You Handle Extra Credit?

I’ll be honest. I don’t handle extra credit well. In fact, I’m so lousy at it, I offered just two projects each year. If you’ve ever tried offering extra credit, you know the problems it can cause:

• Students might focus all their energy on the extra credit project and neglect their everyday work.
• Students will ask for extra credit projects the night before grades are due.
• Too much extra credit can skew a student’s grade to the point where you’re not sure if she mastered the material or just knew how to play the game.
• You get slammed with extra credit projects in addition to your end-of-quarter grading and have no time to sleep.

The Pros and Cons of Rubrics

I read on Professor Maryellen Weimer’s excellent higher education teaching blog, The Teaching Professor, a post about a discussion college teachers were having about the pros and cons of using rubrics to grade student products.

It’s an interesting discussion and probably something you and your teaching colleagues have discussed before: do rubrics guide both teacher and student or do they limit student creativity and independent thinking?

Here’s What I Do: Zero Papers for Missing Work, Part Two

Hemet, Calif., middle school language arts teacher Syndi Carlson uses a system she calls Zero Papers to encourage students to turn in assignments. Students who have not completed the day’s assignment turn in a piece of paper with the assignment name, the date, the reason they did not complete the work, and their parents’ phone number. Carlson calls parents about the missing work.

Posting Homework Online: Is It a Benefit for Students and Parents?

Lexi (named changed) has ADHD. She writes her assignments in her assignment notebook, but she doesn’t come home with all the books and materials she needs to complete her homework. Nearly every night Lexi asks her mother to drive her back to school to collect a missing book or packet.

Some nights Mom spot-checks Lexi’s assignment notebook against the homework the teacher posted online. It helps prevent missing assignments, Mom said.

Here’s What I Do: Zero Papers for Missing Work, Part One

Syndi Carlson has been using this Zero Papers system for dealing with missing work in her Hemet, Calif., middle school language arts classes for 10 years.
When a student has a missing assignment, the student writes the usual heading on a blank sheet of paper. In addition to the heading, he writes the name of the assignment, the date Carlson collected it, a phone number where a parent can be reached, and the reason the assignment was not completed. Carlson calls these Zero Papers.