Do Ms. Panda a big favor...

[clarinet89]

Oh god, and I'm going to be a teacher? I hopefully don't have to worry about homework too muchbecause I'm going to be a band teacher...though teaching music theory might be fun...

[DossarLX ODI]

From what I heard college is like a matter of life or death. If you do bad on one test, you're screwed. Because there is supposedly one test and then a final, so you aren't given many oppurtunities to boost up your grade. I could probably understand a lot of people getting insane grades in high school, but when they move on to college it's a lot more harsh since the tests are what determine your grade, not labs, experiments, homewor, etc.

[Tasselfoot]

i don't get you guys.... i had an unweighted 3.6 in HS (4.4 with the extra 1.0 from honors... aka, i was in almost all honors classes). my HS was extremely hard... we had 2 1600 SATs, 2 1590s just from my graduating class of 360. We had 4 people tied for valedictorian with like a 4.89 and 5 more at 4.88. 36% of my graduating class was in national honors society. we had 3-4 honors classes for almost every single subject, because there was 25-35% of our grade in each honors class. and this was a generic public school.... not a private school or an inner city public school that you have to apply to get in to.

but beyond all that... i never studied for exams and never did homework at home. you guys just absolutely suck at in-school time management. the KEY thing is if you have something due for your 5th period class... do it in 4th period.

but, then i tried doing the same type of stuff in college.... and it didn't quite work out. so having the terrible work ethic is ok in HS if you're really smart, but it doesn't work in college, even if you are. i graduated with a 2.6x in college because i never went to class or studied. only failed 1 class though and still graduated in 4 years. then again, i did go to a top10 rated business school and a top30 or so overall school.

[IDKW2CM]

I'm good at in school management, I usually come home with nothing or 1 thing, but if I have nothing I study

[Demidetirus]

Take your worst student, and beat him/her savagely as an example to the rest of the class.

...They'll work.

[csoup1414]

in our school, failing is 65 or below...it was 59 but that was too hard to achieve I guess?
oh well, I do alright in school...two AP classes and a 3.6 in school
never do homework at home because that's what FFR is for, crushes your boredom at home

[Reach]

Originally Posted by DossarLX ODI

From what I heard college is like a matter of life or death. If you do bad on one test, you're screwed. Because there is supposedly one test and then a final, so you aren't given many oppurtunities to boost up your grade. I could probably understand a lot of people getting insane grades in high school, but when they move on to college it's a lot more harsh since the tests are what determine your grade, not labs, experiments, homewor, etc.

Depends on the college and the class, but yeah, for science students tests are usually weighted heavily. A calculus class at my university was, for example: Midterm = 35%, Assignments = 15%, Final Exam = 50% IIRC. The exams were typically 3 hours long with averages of about 50-60. Maybe 1-2% of the class would score over 90.

So yeah, if you fail the final there's a good chance you fail the course. Stakes are pretty high. High School in comparison is quite easy. Do your Homework and work hard now to build up study skills that will be necessary later on.

[stretchypanda]

Originally Posted by Reach

Depends on the college and the class, but yeah, for science students tests are usually weighted heavily. A calculus class at my university was, for example: Midterm = 35%, Assignments = 15%, Final Exam = 50% IIRC. The exams were typically 3 hours long with averages of about 50-60. Maybe 1-2% of the class would score over 90.

So yeah, if you fail the final there's a good chance you fail the course. Stakes are pretty high. High School in comparison is quite easy. Do your Homework and work hard now to build up study skills that will be necessary later on.

What's unfortunate is that I don't think a lot of my students see themselves in post-secondary education, either because they don't want to go or they've never been made to think they COULD go to college and do something.

So we try to teach them that the skills they learn now will help them hold jobs they can get with a high school diploma and they don't care. =(

Half my 4th period failed. Half.

Also, my bio. classes in college were graded based on two or three tests and a final.

[EnR]

I never do my homework. Teachers always bitch at me, telling me I have potential, and I know I do but I'm just way to lazy. If you get me interested in the class, like last year we had this awesome english teacher who let us lisin to our iPods, play games on our laptops and we were allowed food. We also watched a ****load of movies (All these break the schools rules).

Anyways, I was the only person to get a 100% on a test in his class, just goes to show, letting kids lisin' to music, play games, have fun at school will actually make them do better.

[dietsnapple135]

Originally Posted by Tasselfoot

i don't get you guys.... i had an unweighted 3.6 in HS (4.4 with the extra 1.0 from honors... aka, i was in almost all honors classes).

You get an extra 1.0 for honors classes? We only get .5. I've made all A's, I have over 10 Honors classes and 6 college courses(1.0 gpa addition) and my weighted gpa is like a 4.3. Might get a B this semester in Physics 2, though.

[bmah]

Some people I've talked to who didn't plan on going to college/university said stuff like they'd "probably get a job in the trades instead", "do not prefer a more academia-related job", or they "simply want to enjoy life". Which isn't to say that you should slack off in school anyways.

Originally Posted by DossarLX ODI

From what I heard college is like a matter of life or death. If you do bad on one test, you're screwed. Because there is supposedly one test and then a final, so you aren't given many oppurtunities to boost up your grade.

Tell this to my cousin who had 100% finals. And I have many 50%+ finals too. Like my calculus courses. T.T

[DossarLX ODI]

Well good for you. You're a smart ****** :P

[sonic-fast-fingers]

So does anyone from your school know that you are a profile/forum mod?

That would be pretty bad ass if a teacher from my school was a profile/forum mod.

You should tell all your students about FFR!
Lol.

[Chrissi]

Originally Posted by csoup1414

in our school, failing is 65 or below...it was 59 but that was too hard to achieve I guess?
oh well, I do alright in school...two AP classes and a 3.6 in school
never do homework at home because that's what FFR is for, crushes your boredom at home

Your signature is way, way, way too long.

[who_cares973]

sounds like people in high school maybe even school in general don't care anymore

makes me sad to think what the future hold for your students =/




anyone know if seniors still have to do a senior project?

[devonin]

Just remember though, that you can't actually compare a percentage grade from one place to another. If a 50% is a pass in one board and a 70% is a pass in another board, the general conclusion to draw from that is that the second board grades more easily, and the same piece of work handed into the first school that got a 50 ought to get about a 70 in the other school.

Raising up that number is the worst idea you can have IMO for designing a grade scheme because it gives you less room to actually distinguish between levels of work.

If everything over a 70 is a pass, you only have 30% worth of room to rank passing students among one another. If 50% is a pass, you have 50% worth of room to rank people, thus the grades are more accurate to the actual quality of work the student completes.

Also, in university I made a point of not handing in work whose marks I didn't need, to concentrate on work whose marks I did need. It made for a lot of "Going into the last assignment with a 95 and coming out with a 65" sorts of things, but since I had no intention whatsoever to go into teacher's college or post-grad work, passing was all that was relevant to me.

[Afrobean]

Originally Posted by stretchypanda

I had an honors kid make a 38 and laugh about it.

My mind boggles at these kids.

Give those kids an option to weigh their grades entirely (or at least, more heavily) on tests.

Assuming your tests are actual tests and not "find the answers in your book/notes" kind of test.

This will give these brilliant kids a way to prove their worth without wasting their time on stupid-homework. If they can learn the material and prove they've learned the material, homework is irrelevant. For them, it's just busywork.

You don't need to be smart to do well in school. I don't see why people don't do better.

That's a fundamental problem. Smart people who don't want to do meaningless busywork fall behind because the way the system works favors those who blindly work hard rather than those who are smart. Obviously, an ability to work is a necessary skill in the real world, but often, those who neglect homework aren't lazy, they just don't care. For instance, I didn't do my homework a lot of the time because I already learned well enough during class time (and I was able to prove it by getting test grades in the top 5 of the class). I got bad grades in the class anyway. Fastforward to now, I have a job, and am a contributing member of society. And yet, despite my homework habits, I am one of the hardest working members in my department. Laziness runs rampant across the entire hotel I work at, actually, but I do everything required of me, everything I am asked to. Because there is a reason to it that is innate to it's function. If I don't clear the trays from the floors, trays are left out and guests see them and complain. If I don't take up housekeeping calls, guests don't get what they need and complain. If I'm not at my post, I can't help guests who need assistance. But if I don't do my homework? Nothing. The only effect of it is an artificial effect, in that despite my understanding of the subject matter, my transcripts will say that I'm stupid.

Plus it's hard trying to study something you don't understand :/

This is a failure on the teacher's part. If they can't teach you during class and they use homework to teach instead, that means that it's THEM failing.

Homework should be for review or for cementation of the material taught that day in school. It shouldn't be used to teach, because at that point, you're counting on the student's to be autodidacts, but then also limiting their speed to the rate you think they should learn at. Self learning isn't a bad thing, but if it's practiced, it shouldn't be limited, and furthermore, it shouldn't be forced either.

Originally Posted by Tass

the KEY thing is if you have something due for your 5th period class... do it in 4th period.

Then you fail to learn the material from 4th period. I don't know about you guys, but when I was in school, I was there to learn. I wasn't there to work.

So yeah, if you fail the final there's a good chance you fail the course.

Is this not how it should be? If you can't even pass the final, thus proving you failed to learn roughly HALF of the material in the entire class, you DESERVE TO FAIL THE CLASS. I don't care if you did all the homework, if you fail the final exam, you didn't learn ****.

[who_cares973]

Originally Posted by Afrobean

If you can't even pass the final, thus proving you failed to learn roughly HALF of the material in the entire class, you DESERVE TO FAIL THE CLASS. I don't care if you did all the homework, if you fail the final exam, you didn't learn ****.

truer words have yet to be spoken

[Afrobean]

Originally Posted by KgZ

Let's be honest here, unless you plan on taking up a major in that field, are you really going to remember all of that?

You should be able to remember the vast majority of it throughout the few months that the semester lasts. You might not use the skill of predicting formulas for ionic compounds in your field of network administration, but you should at least be able to remember it a few months while you're in the class.

Chances are, hell no. My long term memory sucks so bad, that I get 70's on the exams, despite getting low 90's for everything else (honors courses by the way). I just suck at remembering things over a prolonged period of time.

Long term memory is irrelevant. These topics should be kept relatively fresh by simply paying attention in class every day, and they can be purged mere months after learning them, ONCE YOU'VE TAKEN THE TEST. If these topics are touched on early in the class, then never mentioned again until you see it on the final, it should be up to the instructor to review material, or to let you know what material will be on the exam so that you can review it yourself.

If you go into a test having forgotten things, that's a failure on your part to not ensure you recall the topic completely. In addition, teachers often guide reviews on topics which may be hard to recall, particularly ones that were learned a long time ago and ones which haven't received much practical application in the class.

Stretchy, have fun dealing with incompetent ignorant parents who think their child is a genius and you're a just bad teacher.

This may not be far from the truth some times. There are bad teachers, and there are genius students who aren't challenged. Not all bad students are wasted potential geniuses, and not all teachers are bad, but both of these things DO exist.

And frankly, if they know their child is of an above average IQ and yet still see them getting poor grades in a class that they have a strong understanding of, yeah, I'd say at least some of the blame should fall on the teacher. Really, how can you watch this kid get As on tests, then fail them because they never do their homework? They obviously understand the material, why give them a grade that indicates otherwise? Yes, work ethic is important, but abstract, meaningless work does nothing but hold a person back.

I love how parents think that teachers just live for their own students, and that if their child has a problem in that class, it's up to the teacher to fix it.

It's not always a student's fault when he/she fails. It could be unreasonable course work on the teacher's part, it could be that the previous course didn't adequately prepare the student, it could be that the teacher is just plain incompetent. Yes, it could also be that the student is lazy, but in the case of bright kids, I'm more apt to guess that they're just not receiving the right kind of attention to advance themselves rather than to simply say that they're just "lazy". These "bright" kids cannot be lazy, because if they truly were so much so, their brightness would not be apparent to anyone.

It's like the parent doesn't want to put in their own effort to actually help the child.

Often, there's nothing a parent can do to help. Seriously, I don't know about you guys, but once I was in like 7th grade, my parents wouldn't have been able to do my homework. Hell, some of the stuff that was touched on in later elementary was outside the realm of what my parents know. They might be able to figure it out if they had the book in front of them, but they don't just know, they can't just help.

But maybe I'm unique in this case, coming from a lower middle class household where the highest education anyone in my family has had is "a little community college".

[Sullyman2007]

And frankly, if they know their child is of an above average IQ and yet still see them getting poor grades in a class that they have a strong understanding of, yeah, I'd say at least some of the blame should fall on the teacher. Really, how can you watch this kid get As on tests, then fail them because they never do their homework? They obviously understand the material, why give them a grade that indicates otherwise? Yes, work ethic is important, but abstract, meaningless work does nothing but hold a person back.

Bussywork is probably the worst thing ever. Teachers that don't have anything else to do other than give their students useless worksheet packets obviously can't teach. A teacher that actually cared, that actually wanted his/her students to succeed, would use real life situations with the curriculum and make the material worth learning.

However that requires that a teacher has to know what he/she is doing. Unfortunately teaching down here in Florida has become somewhat of a joke. It's obvious to me when a teacher doesn't know what he/she is doing. Just this morning I heard an advertisement on the radio from the county begging people to attend seminars and become a teacher.

"You don't even need a college education. Simply attend one of our free seminars at the public library next week, take a county sponsored teaching course, and you're all set".
That was pretty much the gist of it, not including some dates and times, and of course how much fun teaching is.