EXCELLENCE & ETHICS

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  Public Display of Good Work

  Mark Schumacker posted in Character Blog, Power2Achieve Community at 10:00 pm on April 27, 2011 | 1 Permalink | Reply
  

  I have always been in search of ways to motivate the kids to do good work in my classroom.  Over the years I have found that the kids really enjoy being recognized for their hard work, even though some might resist admitting to it.  Like most things in life, having a good variety lowers boredom and increases curiosity.  I like to find at least one new way to show off my kids’ efforts each year.

  One way I can brag about my students is through letters home.  It may seem old fashion, but writing a letter to “The Parents of Suzy Smilealot” is a very big deal to the kids…when done well.  I like to think of the most amazing compliment I can give to the kids.  I usually try to pick out 2 to 3 great qualities and the go over the top gushing about their qualities.  I want to make the student feel as if he or she is the most special and important person in my class.  I want them to know I think so highly of them that I am willing to take the time to hand write a personal letter to their parents about their hard work.  The old adage then comes into effect – the child will do everything to live up to your compliments.

  At the start of the year I ask each student to fill out a form, with their picture included, stating their academic goal for the year.  Beneath their goal is the plan they intend to follow to reach their goal.  I believe that displaying this information creates positive peer pressure that can’t be touched.  Every student will see what you believe is a goal worth shooting for and they will witness your efforts throughout the year.  This year I had several students aim VERY high – their goals fell between 97% – 99%.  While I am impressed the kids are willing to aim high, I have decided to place some limits in the future.  I think I will cap the goals at 95%.  It isn’t that I don’t want the kids to aim high; rather I had several kids that finished the quarter with a 98% and by their measure, the goal was not met.

  One might ask what the problem with a goal not being reached is.  Normally I would completely agree, though I offer a HUGE display of good work that reflects their academic goals.  At the end of each quarter, I look to see what students reached their academic goal for the year (that quarter).  If a student reaches her yearend goal for the quarter, she has the choice to receive one of my amazing baked goods or she can earn 5 extra credit points on a quiz.  I then place her picture on the letter (G-O-A-L-S), representing the current quarter, which is placed in the front of my classroom.  The letters stand for each of the quarters of the year, while the letter “S” represents reaching their goal for their end of the year average.

  At the start of the year, the kids choose one person from their math class, to become their goal partner.  They meet with this person every two weeks to discuss their academic progress and to give each other honest feedback regarding their efforts.  The idea behind this is to have at least one additional person monitoring each student’s work.  At the end of each quarter, I offer an additional 3 points extra credit on a quiz for partners that BOTH reach their goal.  The idea behind this is to provide just a little more positive peer pressure to succeed.  I have found that the little bonus has made quite a difference when it comes to the goal partners’ efforts when they meet.

  I am always looking for new ways to recognize the efforts of my kids.  Sometimes I will even go to them for suggestions.  We do a few online surveys, through Survey Monkey, and I can receive a lot of insight by asking key questions.  My career goal is to figure out a way to help all of my kids reach their goals, at least once, before the year ends.  I have confidence that together, we can figure out a path to this success!  Once we do reach this summit, you can certainly bet we will display it to the world!

  

   

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  The Power of Revisions: Part II

  Mark Schumacker posted in Character Blog, Power2Achieve Community at 8:09 pm on February 22, 2011 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: performance character (4)

  As most teachers do, I always look at what I am doing and analyze the success of my work.  I want to make sure I am doing the best I can and if I am not, I want to figure out what can I do to improve my product.  The work ethic, drive, passion, effort, and academic achievement of my students are the means to my analysis.  The revision policy, as well as our goal system, has allowed many of my students to achieve success more aligned with their actual ability (and beyond in some cases).  This has been a true joy to personally witness.

  An area I have struggled with, since my first year teaching, is motivating the kids that seem to not care.  Every year I have a group of kids who refuse to work for me, accept failure, and seem rather apathetic towards turning this vicious cycle around.  And every year I bust my tail trying to motivate these kids.  I contact their parents, I offer help, I give second and third chances, but by the second semester I am ready to give up.  Have you been here before?  Can you relate?  We don’t want to give up, but we feel as if we have given so much and received little effort in return.  It is frustrating.  We begin to worry about the other 110 kids in the classroom who ARE willing to work.  Have we now neglected them?

  I have tried everything!  Have you ever said that?  Did you ever think that?  For a moment, reflect and consider this thought:  This is the same feeling the parents of these kids probably feel, though my guess is much more desperate by this point.  Maybe these kids feel the same way.  My guess is the kids feel as if they can’t do the work, regardless of their effort.  Failure is much easier to deal with when it is self-inflicted.  When you choose to fail, you have some control.  I can’t imagine the level of frustration the kids feel from trying their best and not seeing much success.  Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. ~ Thomas Edison

  What can we do about this?  How can we stop the cycle?  I think I have stumbled upon a solution, though it does take some work and a lot of perseverance and patience.

  Up until this year, I have always made revisions an option.  I wanted the kids to make the personal choice to better their work.  I wanted this choice to have intrinsic value to the kids.  I have discovered that the kids who tend to be my higher level thinkers usually revise most of their work with little prompting from me.  The kids, who would most benefit from the revision policy, typically avoid revising their work.  I decided that I needed to intervene.

  What did I do?  I used an idea I heard from Matt Davidson, this past October, and applied it to my classes.  The idea I secured is called “F or D and You See Me”.  The premise of this idea is that I will no longer accept F’s and D’s from any of my students.  The kids no longer have the choice to revise assignments of this quality.

  F or D and You See Me:

  1. If you earn a D or an F on any assignment, you have 5 days to revise it at your pace.
  2. After the 5^th day, you will be invited to join me for lunch to revise said assignment(s).
  3. You will be asked for the revision the following day, and if you still don’t have it revised you will join me for lunch again.
  4. We continue this process until the assignment has been revised to a C or better quality.  The student still receives the grade change in the grade book (at this point).
     1. If the assignment was an incomplete, I will simply check it off in my grade book once it is revised to a C or better quality, though the grade will remain a zero.  The understanding of the material is the goal – not the actual grade.
  5. Once we come to the end of the chapter, revisions can no longer be submitted for grade changes.  Students that still have D or F papers must still revise their work though.  The only change is that I will enter a check in my grade book once the revision is to a C or better quality.

  This new process is a true testament of perseverance and endurance.  Many of my kids didn’t really think I would go through with this process.  I did.  I do.  I will.  I have made laminated passes for the kids to help reduce my time involvement in this process.  I hand out the passes before lunch each day.  If the said students have the revisions prior to lunch, they can turn them in to me and return the pass.  Is this a lot of work?  You bet it is!  Has it made a difference?  Absolutely!  The vast majority of my students figured out that I won’t quit.  My hope is that my students will learn how to “not quit”.  Most of my kids now revise the D and F papers prior to the 5^th day.  I do still have a few that fight me on this, though my team and I are trying to come up with new strategies with them.  It is an ongoing effort!

  

   
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  The Power of Revisions

  Mark Schumacker posted in Character Blog, Power2Achieve Community at 8:28 pm on January 26, 2011 | 4 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: performance character (4), Revisions

  As a young teacher, I always searched for ways to motivate my students to work to their fullest potential.  It wasn’t until I read The Smart and Good Schools report that I finally realized what I was missing in my teaching tool belt:  Revisions.

  The idea seemed so clever, yet so obvious, so necessary.  From that moment, I have allowed and encouraged my students to revise any and all of their work.  Since making this change in my class, I have seen what has worked well and what has worked amazingly well.  As Vince Lombardi once said, “Practice doesn’t make perfect.  Perfect practice makes perfect”.

  My students are given the opportunity to revise any problems missed on an assignment and resubmit it to me for a new grade – full credit.  The idea behind doing this is class work and homework should be considered practice.  We practice to become proficient.  Therefore, if we make mistakes along the way, we should be given the chance to learn from our errors and redo it mistake free.  My students may revise assignments multiple times; there is no limit on the number of attempts to produce a great math product.

  I do have some limitations with this process.  Revisions can only be done, for an improved grade, during the current chapter.  Once we take the chapter test, the assignment scores are locked and cannot be changed.  While I believe it is always important to continue the revision process, I found early on that a time limit must be placed or some of the students might be tempted to wait until the end of the quarter to revise the assignments in a last ditch effort to raise their grade.  My thought is the grade is the secondary reason behind revisions.  The primary reason for revisions is to understand the concept and the test date is the deadline to show full understanding of the concepts for the given chapter.

  There must be pros and cons for revising, right?  The answer is yes, though my belief is the pros heavily outweigh the cons.  The one con of revising is the extra work placed at the feet of the teacher.  We must grade assignments on a daily basis and have the graded papers back the very next day, to be effective.  I strongly believe that we should practice what we preach and if we are asking our kids to work to their fullest potential, we should model the same work ethic to the class.

  The pros for revisions are endless.  By using this process, you can expect more from your students and they know that it is ok to take risks because they will have a second and third chance if needed.  This process also promotes honesty.  Students know it is ok to mark problems when they are wrong because they are allowed to fix their mistakes and the benefit of the relearning far outweighs those for cheating.  The greatest benefit from using this process is the depth of understanding that occurs.  The focus of assignments goes from getting them done to learning the concept more deeply and completely.  The proof is bottom line.  Students that use this process actually test better and retain longer.  The benefit I enjoy most is the attitude changes.  I have kids every year that come back to tell me how well they are doing in math and how easy it is.  I contribute much of their success to this life choice.