Why grade today what you can put off ’til tomorrow?
With the 2010 school year starting to wrap up, grades are getting more and more important. Students try to keep their grades up to finish the year strong, but there’s a slight problem with this strategy.May 5, 2010 • Molly White, Reporter
Many teachers are putting up their grades extremely slowly, and are causing stress to some students.
The reason for installing infinite campus in the first place was to help teachers keep track of students’ grades and make them known.
Some teachers are taking as long as a month to post these grades, for both homework and tests.
At the beginning of the year this wasn’t as big of a problem because there were always opportunities to raise a bad test score with homework or quizzes.
Now, with the school year coming to a close, students are desperate to find out which vocabulary quiz they missed, what homework assignment they forgot to turn in and what else they could possibly do to raise that B+ to an A-.
Not like it’d matter.
Whenever students ask for an extra assignment just to obtain a few more bonus points, the answer is always no.
“I don’t believe in extra credit,” they say.
Really? When did extra credit become a religion? I think, then, that it’s time for the teacher’s to convert. After all, part of it is their fault.
Students receive so much homework at the end of the year that they have to choose the class that they need the points most in and do that as top priority.
Now, if teachers would’ve had all their grades up in the first place, students would know exactly what they needed.
Another pet peeve of mine is how a teacher reacts when a student accidentally misses a quiz due to a sickness or being out of town.
How the situation usually ends:
“Mr. Teacher, I just saw on infinite campus that I missed a quiz about a month ago. When can I make it up?”
“Well Johnny Jr., I’m sorry but the deadline for grades was yesterday, so it’s too late now.”
“But Mr. Teacher, how could I have known that I missed the quiz and make it up on time if you added the grade to infinite campus right on deadline day?”
“Sorry Johnny, you just need to know when you miss something.”
Awkward silence. Student walks away in disbelief.
This situation could have been easily avoided if the teacher would have just put the grades online with enough time for the student to do something about it.
After all, a teacher’s main goal is to aid their students on the road to success, right?
It’s time they start showing that they care, and truly help students in getting the grade they deserve.
Link: http://lhsimage.com/opinions/2010/05/05/why-grade-today-what-you-can-put-off-til-tomorrow/
