DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... Allowing school assignments to be turned in late

That's almost one every day. I assume you considered nightly homework as a graded assignment?


I think we all want them to succeed, we just want them to earn it. We want them to learn the life lesson that doing your work is expected, working harder is rewarded, and no work or sloppy work is punished.

jc, for an additional viewpoint:

I was a very good student at times and a very bad one at other times. For example, I was a straight-A student as an upperclassman in high school. For much of my earlier schooling though, especially middle school and even early on in high school, I was a disaster.

The only thing, and I mean the ONLY thing that motivated me to get any work done whatsoever in middle school was the fear of failing and having to repeat a grade. I came pretty close a couple times. I just did not care about school. So anything that a mature adult could say about learning new things, teaching good habits, preparing for college, etc. just didn't matter.

It was the fear of a very real punishment that got me to at least put in a novel effort so I could pass. Obviously at age 12 someone isn't mentally mature, a kid's life experiences at that age are very limited but kids are smart in their own way. I know that I was very cunning and I could game the system, again those are things I'm not really proud of but that's just the reality of it. I know I was not the only one, and that there are a lot of kids in school whose mindsets are very similar to how mine was. Take away all possibility of a kid failing and what do you have for someone like that?

While I'm at it: Out of school suspension is great. Good time to get some more video game playing in. In school suspension sucks and Saturday detentions are the worst.

Thanks for the story.. for me it was sports. I played sports every season from about the age of 5 to 18 (football then soccer, basketball, baseball, golf)... I was told quite clearly by my parents that getting a C was reason enough for my parents to yank me out of sports. I wasn't mature enough to be self-motivated to understand the need for education until I was probably 15 or 16 years old.. what kept me afloat before that was my fear of losing sports.

I think this is also important. Within your classroom, a good teacher promotes a community. Our classes were more of a family than a classroom. We laughed together, we cried together, we got upset w/another, we learned together, we debated and disagree w/one another, we grew together, and we loved one another. That is HUGE!!!!

The kids wanted to be in the class. They enjoyed being there and didn't want to leave. There are hundreds of thousands of examples, but I will share only two to clarify the point:

1. We were a Title One school and received funding. We had two big-wigs from one of the agencies visit our classroom. I was teaching Math and Science classes. I integrated a Science lesson w/many of our Math standards. The kids were in groups planning their projects when the government people came in. They were simply amazed by the energy of the students and how cooperative they were w/one another. It came time for lunch and a lot of the kids were yelling out that they would rather stay and work on the project than go to lunch. LOL...it was great. Afterwards, the ladies spoke to my principal about what a great class it was. They were amazed by how well the kids worked together and how engaged they were.

--We were at a school assembly that ran over. The presenter tried to pump the kids up by saying something like: "...and you get to miss part of your next class..." I taught regular ed and I remember some of the other classes, and especially the "Gifted" kids, cheering and celebrating. My kids started yelling out: "We wanna go back to Math class." Man, what a feeling for a teacher. I had to shush them..LOL...but inside, I had such a feeling of bliss. I knew that class "got it" and would rock it on no matter what was thrown their way.

The key is creating a positive climate in the classroom. Kids are capable of great things. It's amazing how much more flexible they are than us adults. They can achieve so much......you just have to demand, beg, plead, encourage, praise, nurture, push.......and love them enough to get them to realize their own potential.

And that is why I am so against lowering the standards. I am opposed to the Three E's----Excuses, Enabling, and Entitlement. Those three things are huge in today's schools. People have good intentions, but they are actually hindering students because they are actually encouraging students to accept mediocrity or less.

I believe in challenging the students to strive to be the very best they can be. The Three E's get in the way of greatness. Kids will take what you present them. It's time we start believing in just how great their potential is rather than stunting their growth!!!

Awesome post vers...

That is pretty cool. You can change a lot of peoples' lives for the better with that style and engagement of teaching. That is something that is definitely uncommon and will stick with them. It is interesting to hear from you and the other teachers about your much wider experiences in education. I know I sound like a downer in here, that's not really my intention, but hopefully it is somewhat insightful to hear the perspective of a formerly not-so-interested student.

j/c

I don't have a lot to add to this thread. I will say that during my years in high school, that there were a few teachers that really impacted my life in a positive way. They were a true force in my life. Most of them have passed on from this earth. But even to this very day I look back on that time and remember the true additions they gave to my life.

I guess I just wanted those who teach to know just how much of an influence you are to your students throughout their life and how much you truly mean to the world we live in. I don't believe you're told nearly enough.

My son finally got what was coming to him in a class yesterday - a class he had 100% in.

Apparently they needed to shoot a video for a project last Friday, which he didn't do - it 50 was worth points. They all have iPads provided by the school, so shooting a video is not a big deal. Only 4 kids out of 30 did it, that is very hard for me to even grasp that so few did it. The teacher was pretty pissed apparently, and rightfully so.

Now my son dropped from A+ to B+ because of this, but what bothered me the most is he didn't really seem that upset.

The Shop Teacher?

Similar for me. Football, basketball, baseball and track. From 7th grade on, I never went home after school. Either had practice or a game.

Don't know what my gpa was in middle school, but highschool cumulative was 3.5.

However - sports wasn't why I did school work. My mom was a teacher. Nuff said. (I never had her, thank goodness)

Actually it was a history teacher, a music teacher and an english teacher.

But I'm sure the teachers on the board appreciate you trying to trash a post that was an honest effort to thank them for their contributions.

Wow, big overreaction to a simple question.

What can the kids do on the school iPads? Are they mostly unlocked and free to be used like a personal iPad, or are there filters and such where only school-related stuff can be done? Is it tracked?

I'm kind of torn on that whole idea. On one hand I understand the usefulness and even necessity of technology in the modern world, and it's a good idea to teach kids how to use it. On the other hand, there are countless more stimulating and entertaining things to do on an iPad than school work, so I am not really surprised that so few kids got that done.

A couple thoughts.. first, the distraction of technology is always going to be there, kids need to learn to deal with it.

Second, if you don't provide iPads, then some kids will have access to personal technology and others will not so you are going to get the argument that some kids had a built in advantage in doing this assignment more efficiently and at a higher quality.

Having the iPads is the most amazing experience ever. All of their books are on them. All of their homework is done on them , even if a teacher gives an assignment on paper. They just take a picture of it, bring it into an app and answer the questions and e-mail it to the teachers in-box. Every class has a QR code on the wall that they can use to link their screen to the projector. I love it, the kids love it, the teachers love it.

They got the iPads last year in 6th grade, so this is year 2 with them for my son. The school district is Hilliard, OH and they have roughly 1200 kids in each grade so that's a lot of iPads. The 8th graders got them this year as well, as did the incoming 6th graders so 6-8 are now using them.

They are completely unlocked and they can install whatever they want on them. The only rule is that personal items come off if space is needed for academics. Playing games in class will also get it taken away, possibly permanently. They turn them back in at the end of the year and get the same one back at the start of the following year.

There have been a lot of other school districts visit due to the success of the program. Los Angeles apparently tried to implement iPads 3 or 4 years ago and failed miserably - the reason? They locked them down, which is why Hilliard decided not to do so.

That does sound pretty cool. It's amazing how fast technology has been integrated with education. We used to have some old macs in one of our classrooms and we mostly just used them to play Oregon Trail.

Aren't Los Angeles schools pretty much a disaster? I'm skeptical that the iPads being locked down is the major difference between that project failing in L.A. and succeeding in Hilliard but I don't know much about it. That's just a gut feeling. Has the Hilliard school district traditionally done well?

So the project that only 4 out of 30 kids completed-- is that a normal thing? Is there a huge problem with procrastination? Or was there something about that project that made people not do it?

Where I'm going with this is that iPads are amazing pieces of technology, you speak glowingly of the whole project and I trust your judgement on that. There is still this nagging thing where I see people who can spend all day on their tablets (or smart phones, computers) and get nothing accomplished. I've been there myself many times. I guess I'm wondering if kids in classrooms largely have the same problem or if they mostly get their work done and then goof around on it after.

Sorry about all the questions... this whole thing is a genuine interest of mine.

Our school issues ipads to all high school students. You get them as a freshman and keep them through graduation. (unless they update, at which time you get a new one).

All the classes are on the ipad, the "books" are there as well. Yet, somehow, my daughter lugs a 20 lb. book bag to school and home each day.

Assignments are done on them, but, they still have paper homework to do.

They ipads are "locked" - that's the best way I can describe it. How they monitor it, I don't know, but they do know if someone is using it in a manner they shouldn't. When, not if, they are caught, the illegal stuff gets deleted. A second offense forfeits the i pad for a period of time.

I don't know how exactly it works with iPads but there is probably just some administrator account that can 'see' all the activity from the devices that are handed out. They might have a program that automatically flags whatever content is deemed not appropriate (games, etc.)

I personally think that is more sensible than having a completely unlocked device where nothing is tracked and nothing is off-limits. That's just a hunch though.. maybe just a guess.

Oh, I'm sure LA had lots of other reasons for failure, but the big one they touched on was locking down. Hilliard is an excellent school district (a suburb of Columbus).


No, my son did it over the weekend. There were 2 parts to it - they had to film a bunch of stuff at different perspectives - that was the 50 points. They were supposed to then do the editing in class on Friday (shoot the video Thrusday) - with only 4 kids prepared to work on Friday you cold imagine how upset the teacher was. My son did it all over the weekend and turnd the entire project in on Monday which was worth 200 points.


My son has an iPhone too, so he does most of his time wasting on that. The school account is different than his home account for his iPhone. He does mainly use it for school.


No problem! I'm a geek, so this stuf is fascinating to me as well.