Student-Led Grade Review Activity
So this year I had 30 students in seminar. I do have an AVID seminar, and my students are sophomores. Last year, I only had 19 freshmen.
So when grade review came around...I was thinking, how am I going to have time to talk to all thirty of these kids about their grades?
When I used to do a grade review with my seminar, I would call each student up one by one. We would look at their grades together. The students that had good grades would get a “Great job! Keep up the great work! Way to go on that AP World grade!” But nothing really deeper than that, because of the students who had D or Fs, to me, they needed more attention and a plan.
But with all these kids, I couldn’t do that. All of them deserved equal treatment, and I wanted the positives to come from them. They are the ones earning the grades. They are the ones who should be proud of what they have done.
So what I did was have each student screen capture their final grades from semester 1. I had them put their picture into Notability so they could annotate it. I had them highlight their grades and then come to me with two positives and something they could work on.
This to me was what I needed. I wanted the students to come to me and tell me about their grades. They could come up with a plan of what they needed to do. So I presented this at a TLC meeting last week and got some even better ideas.
Jason English asked, “How do I know they are keeping up with their plans?” Well this time I think I can also do the same thing, but create a spreadsheet and write down each student’s “challenge”. For example, if they say they want to stop procrastinating and do their homework, I have a record. I can call a student up and ask, “have you done all of your homework?”
This one step will really show the students that I am paying attention to what they say and following up, leading to better discussions as they get older.
Finally, Dawn Bodden recommended for older students, something they can find on Infinite Campus is their transcript. They can see their GPA, and then see trends in their grades over time. They can even see their current GPA and see if this is where they need to be to get to college.
What I really liked about presenting this TLC session was all the feedback from each colleague and a way to make it better. If you missed out on this TLC session, I’m presenting at the district institute day with a more generalized approach.
Any other ideas? Please leave them in the comments section! Thanks!
Kathy Thorburn
Guest Blogger
So when grade review came around...I was thinking, how am I going to have time to talk to all thirty of these kids about their grades?
When I used to do a grade review with my seminar, I would call each student up one by one. We would look at their grades together. The students that had good grades would get a “Great job! Keep up the great work! Way to go on that AP World grade!” But nothing really deeper than that, because of the students who had D or Fs, to me, they needed more attention and a plan.
But with all these kids, I couldn’t do that. All of them deserved equal treatment, and I wanted the positives to come from them. They are the ones earning the grades. They are the ones who should be proud of what they have done.
So what I did was have each student screen capture their final grades from semester 1. I had them put their picture into Notability so they could annotate it. I had them highlight their grades and then come to me with two positives and something they could work on.
This to me was what I needed. I wanted the students to come to me and tell me about their grades. They could come up with a plan of what they needed to do. So I presented this at a TLC meeting last week and got some even better ideas.
Jason English asked, “How do I know they are keeping up with their plans?” Well this time I think I can also do the same thing, but create a spreadsheet and write down each student’s “challenge”. For example, if they say they want to stop procrastinating and do their homework, I have a record. I can call a student up and ask, “have you done all of your homework?”
This one step will really show the students that I am paying attention to what they say and following up, leading to better discussions as they get older.
Finally, Dawn Bodden recommended for older students, something they can find on Infinite Campus is their transcript. They can see their GPA, and then see trends in their grades over time. They can even see their current GPA and see if this is where they need to be to get to college.
What I really liked about presenting this TLC session was all the feedback from each colleague and a way to make it better. If you missed out on this TLC session, I’m presenting at the district institute day with a more generalized approach.
Any other ideas? Please leave them in the comments section! Thanks!
Kathy Thorburn
Guest Blogger
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