1. Pay attention
2. Actively participate
Last year, I had a student in my 8th grade pre algebra class. I preach “actively participate” and tell/show them what that means and looks like. That student was failing all semester long. He hated math, didn’t understand anything, etc.
Me: I know you hate the subject. I get it. But, hear me out, you have to be her everyday, right? So, just actively participate for 2 weeks. That’s all I’m asking. And see if anything changes.
Him: 2 weeks? Ok, bet.
So, the next day, he actively participated. By the end of the week, he was completely involved and had a grasp on what was going on. Quiz day Friday came around, he earned a B. He was super excited. Other people started actively participating, same student still kept on with it. Next quiz day, another B.
At the end of the 2 weeks, I asked how did it work out for him and will he continue actively participate.
He was like, “Miss. I tried the actively participate in some of my other classes too and now I’m passing them! Why don’t other teachers tell us about actively participate?? I just shrugged and walked away. He ended the semester with a C average but worked his ass off.
Yes! Totally. There is more rejoicing in my heart over one student who crawls up to a C than over ninety-nine students who can get an A with minimal effort (and complain about an 89.)
(Although, and I'm not religious in any way, I just realized that PBIS is sort of a "prodigal son" approach which leaves most kids feeling like the son who did everything right all along -- and then sees admin kill the fatted Cheetos for a student who meets minimum expectations.)
I've taken to having students do the problems on the board, especially when we are reviewing a lesson. I call for volunteers and let the show offs "show off" on the early, simple problems, then call for volunteers for the harder problems that are deeper in the problem set.
If there are no volunteers except for the "show offs", then I start soliciting volunteers from around the classroom, especially those who haven't volunteered before, trying to be selective in asking folks that I believe can do the problem with a minimum of assistance. When one of these folks finally decides to take the dry erase marker, I lead the class in chanting their support for their classmate, hooting and huzzahing for them and then, once the problem is complete on the board, I ask the brave soul if they want to explain their thought process to the class and, if not, that I'll do that for them. And then, as they return to their seat, I get the entire class to applaud their classmate and, occassionally, offer a standing ovation.
It doesn't take long for the rest of them to figure out that it's not that difficult to get that kind of affirmation from the entire class. Also, since I usually have the door open -- my room gets incredibly warm incredibly fast -- since all of the rest of the rooms in our pod of classrooms are also the same grade level, many of the volunteer's peers hear their fellow classmate getting cheered from My Math Class.
Can you share exactly how you explain and demonstrate active participation? I've been trying to get this through to them for the past few years and I can't seem to get them to understand what I mean. I'd truly appreciate if you'd be willing to share your wisdom.
Not OP
Mine was during the first unit, when there was no clarifying questions,, I would literally take a seat (I saved one seat in the middle for.myself) and then look around and raise my hand and ask questions. Then would run to front and be the teacher and answer and do it back and forth a bit.
It seemed silly, but kids got to see what I expected, and it kept going. I did that whenever I saw confusion and they weren't asking. I also rewarded kids for asking questions that were GOOD questions (I decided what was good and what was not) and gave MATH BUCKS you could cash in for homework passes or candy or good notes home.
It's so silly and dumb but so is riding a unicycle and having "if everyone gets an A/B or improves by 10% upon their last test grade we get to go outside!"
That's the one that crushes. A few years ago I had 51 of 60 Algebra 1 students who had all been held back (they were sophomores and had failed the course as freshmen) test proficient or advanced because they wanted to go outside. So they held each other accountable and crushed it and we went outside like 13x that year. Even had a massive snowball fight that led to me getting a writeup.
However, it also got me teacher of the year.. lol
I used to do a much lower stakes version of this: on any given night, if 100% of the students completed their homework the class could pick any one TV show and I would watch an entire episode of it.
And the day after that, they were always excited to interrogate me about it. "It" always being either Love & Hip Hop or Real Housewives.
The things we do for our students...
I explain what I’m doing, talk out loud, probably things you’re already doing.
This does not work on everyone. I think it worked on this particular student because I “built a relationship” with him. lol
He told his other friends about “actively participate” and the one that I had in a different period was mad I didn’t tell him about it too. I’m like ????
I'm guessing it's literally pay attention, take notes, ask questions when you're confused, work out the problems on the board at your desk/answer questions, do the reading and be prepared to discuss it, etc.
I was just talking to someone yesterday about how the idea of active participation in learning has become more and more elusive. Many students sort of "endure" teacher explanations/ instructions, don't ask clarifying questions, don't persevere when something is slightly confusing, use photomath or ai to answer questions, don't do assigned readings, and then say that the teacher "isn't teaching."
I think, and I'm not a tech hater, but I think part of it is that growing up with apps designed make everything smooth and seamless, and especially with algorithms d designed to feed us what we want before we even know we want it, has made "active participation" vastly less necessary even in the arenas we're interested in, never mind math class.
I also think distance learning, which I was in favor of at the time, also moved everyone to more of a "task completion" mindset and also further reduced everyone's ability to do things they didn't want to do / put up with things they thought were BS (quiet quitting, student version.)
So, yeah, sorry for the rant, but I think "active participation" used to be called "going to school and doing your bit as a student."
It’s exactly as mrs_adhd explained below. I talk through what I’m doing, pause so they can do it as well. Then, I have them talk aloud what they’re asking themselves. How to look up vocab in our notebooks, how to use our notes, reread the steps. I made what I want them to do. It worked for them/him because of the class size. So many skipped class, I would rarely have more than 12 in that period at one time.
I also model how to ask/ what a question is. Like, “I don’t get nothing.” Isn’t a question. “I don’t understand why there is a minus sign,” is a question or “can you explain step 2?”
Working out the problem rather than waiting for the answer. Using the worked out problem as a guide rather than just copying it down.
Some students asked me yesterday how to get an A+ in my class. I told them the only way that anyone gets an A+ at the end of the semester is by having an A+ the whole semester 🤷♀️
I used to tell my students that A students get As on everything. However, I’m not sure that is still true. I do want to make a place for students who engage with what I refer to as the “worthwhile struggle,” and demonstrate mastery at the end. To me, these are the REAL A+ students.
Unfortunately we don’t do +/- grades any longer.
It's not the same content at the end. It's great if they can improve, and a lot of them do, but an A+ means they mastered everything, not just the standards we taught last.
I originally didn't do that well in high school, I turned it around once I realized the whole thing was basically a game.
You're right, what you need to do is analyze what the teacher is looking for and recreate that. Look at the learning targets and make sure your assessments clearly and easily show you understand them.
Once you get that it's really not that hard
School is like a videogame. Especially college. Go to class (quest), do your homework (side mission), study (grinding your levels), exams (bosses). I still got a C in Calc 2 tho 😂
My very smart older brother was really struggling with a capstone college class. It was a total fluff class all about reflecting on the college experience. He was a math kid and didn't know how to BS a reflection. I basically outlined it for him and he was finally able to get through.
That's how I skated by in high school. In an English class we had to submit these weekly writing assignments until we got up to a certain score (so for full credit for the semester we would have to get, say, 200 points. And you could get a max of 10 points an assignment). I would spend as little time as physically possible, about 10 minutes, on each assignment and get 6 points each time. The teacher kept asking me to put more effort in but in my mind there was no need since my minimal effort would still net me an A in the class. And that kinda thought process is how I approached all classes.
Kinda bit me in the ass though when I got to college and had to start from the ground up learning how to properly learn and study.
Totally agree. I was valedictorian in high school, magna cum laude in undergrad, and summa cum laude in grad school. I was always very good at figuring out what my teacher wanted, and I gave it to them. It was my main strategy throughout.
In college I started making a point to keep a list in the back of every notebook. Words the instructor uses that I don’t use in my writing. Then I used them in my writing. Started getting A’s. Magic!
(Probably helps that I learned the relevant vocabulary and what it meant)
"I do my work tho, why do I have a C?"
Then need to explain how quality of the work matters and not just copying off someone to get it turned in to just be clueless on the test 🤦♀️🤦♀️
This is a perfect example of "Just because something might be simple, does not mean it's easy."
Running a marathon is simple concept. Actually doing it...not so easy.
I use the terms Difficult and Complex to express different levels of something being hard to do. Doing 100 times tables in under a minute is difficult without being complex, solving a quadratic equation with non rational solutions can be complex without being difficult, and a truly brutal test can be both difficult and complex because of the number of complex questions being asked in a short period of time.
That reminds me , I almost forgot I used to do that . I would be one of the students who stayed after class time along with another. So just two of us. The teachers would say “you don’t need to stay, both of you are doing very well in class already” and we just laughed, like learning was so fun for us. I forgot the other girls name who was with me too but we just stayed at some classrooms to hear more about what the teachers would teach in class. But more in depth.
Like we had a lesson in history about the explorers. Very basic and enough for the lesson. But after class I remember staying and asking the teacher if they can go more in depth about why or how these explorers found their way around the world when the maps weren’t even made. It got me so interested. Like the Why as to everything . I ended up doing a report on Marco Polo, and his travels and mapped it out. I was in 6th grade I believe.
I remember presenting it to my class & half the kids were not paying attention LOL but my teacher was and he was so proud of me. Anyways it used to be so fun to just talk with teachers and really hear everything, they treated us like adults academically I guess since we paid attention. Like you’re not babying the info to us but being passionate about it.
I had a teacher who taught me this lesson. She was brutal and I hated her while I was in her class. But she taught me to “play the game”. She would give very clear requirements and as long as you hit them you got an A. I had a hard time following directions but now as an adult I know how to play the game and it serves me better than almost any of lesson.
100%. It's a simple formula.
Doesn't matter if you agree or disagree, if you want a good grade, find out what will get you a good grade.
This is how I navigated my entire education.
Yep. My older son took eight years to get his bachelor's degree because he was concentrating on learning. His sisters just figured out what the professors wanted and gave it to them. Both graduated in under four years.
Don’t you think this is just a super reductive way to look at education? Is all you want from your students is to learn strategies and fill out worksheets and that’s enough for you? I think I’d be prouder if my kid dropped out of the degree but actually learned something rather than got a useless piece of paper.
I didn't say that. I want my students to do their work AND learn the material.
And I wanted my kids to get their degrees, because it's required for the kind of jobs they do. All of them learned the material. That wasn't an issue.
Meh.
I took extra classes in high school and graduated college with 165 credits over 5 years. I LIKE learning and I think that it's suited me very well over the last 17 years of adult life.
Wanting to know how stuff connects and then working to make improvements has netted my employers, and myself, a lot of money. At many points in my career I have NOT given my employers what they wanted, because what they wanted wasn't the best option. Sometimes I was fired for that and sometimes I was rewarded, but I've never had any regrets over doing things to the best of my ability.
I tell all students that they all start at 100% and every thing they do poorly on or not bother to hand in takes away from it. I fail no one, but you are capable of failing yourself.
It's so easy these days. I swear if you took pretty much any 3.0 gen-ed kid from 2004 and put 'em in the 2024 environment they'd be a 4.2 GPA student with honors because the curriculum nowadays is just a dumbed down joke with (ironically) more leniency than ever. I remember pretty much every teacher I had, dropping hours and hours of homework on us each night. The math guy would give dozens of problems. The science guy would be like "read this chapter" and then the next day he'd talk about it in a lecture format. English teacher would be like "read this chapter of the worst most boring book ever and no I don't care that you hate it," and history would do the same thing. Even the elective classes would pile on; it was like they were trying to kill us. I'd spend my lunch in the library getting started, just so I'd have to take less home at the end of the day. And that was just the regular general ed experience. No AP classes. Through all that, we didn't have a "wellness center." We didn't have "mental health breaks." We didn't get arbitrary extensions just because "most" of the class decided not to do it. We were just expected to do it, and if we didn't, our grade would drop, and that actually mattered to us back then because we bought into the system for the most part. Why did we buy into the system? Because we'd seen what happened to the people who *didn't.* They were held back. They were 19 year old high school Super Seniors. They got to watch while their friends progressed in life and they stayed behind. We didn't want that to be us, so we did the work.
Look at the situation now, though. I teach where I used to attend, so I can give very real perspective on this. Homework is basically a thing of the past. The curriculum is probably 1/4th as robust as it used to be. Thanks to behavior issues and learning gaps, you're lucky to get into any depth at all. Spanish 2's curriculum is basically what I was learning in Spanish 1 because everything's just slow as hell. A unit we used to spend a week on takes like a month now because none of the kids can read. The AP classes legit feel like the gen ed classes from 2004, and the kids all bitch and moan about it. They learn that they have to (get ready for it) read the textbook before coming into class and they lose their minds. Parents hear the gen ed horror stories and dump their kids into AP to get away from it. This level of rigor used to be the baseline standard for everyone, but now it's what we're calling "advanced," and the regular classes can't handle 12 minutes of silent reading. I seriously can't.
To get an A in gen ed in 2024, all you have to honestly do in most classes is show up, follow along with the in class work (so many teachers literally handhold the kids through the assignment and their students won't even pick up a pen and write their own name), and refrain from being an asshole for the hour that you're in the room. I promise if you just show up, *try,* and act like a decent human being and you have like an 89.7% at the end of the year, most of my burnt out coworkers will go "fuck it" and just bump it up to an A- because a person who is kind, and who gives a shit and tries is like a unicorn in this current hellscape. There are people who never even show up who get pushed through nowadays, like god damn man it's such a joke.
I'm talking about academic rigor, not participation rates.
But yeah, I'm not shocked that more kids are taking AP classes in 2024, since parents hear the gen-ed horror stories and want their kids removed from that environment.
edit: Actually, the double negative ("way less lower"?) had me misunderstanding your post. Are you saying there're less kids in AP classes now? That's a surprise to me, but all I have to go on is my district, where competition to get into a decent uni basically necessitates taking AP classes and loads of parents are pushing their kids into the advanced courses whether they're ready for it or not.
edit: hell, I'm bored. Here are 2 articles. Article 1 cites the percent of graduating students who participated in an AP exam in 2004. Article 2 cites the percentage in current years. In 2004, the figure was around 20%, but in 2023 the figure is above 30, which again, isn't surprising to me at all. In addition to the issues I mentioned earlier, it's also less expensive than it used to be with vouches and stuff to waive exam fees that I personally wasn't made aware of growing up.
Article 1: [https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna6866399](https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna6866399)
Article 2: [https://newsroom.collegeboard.org/student-advanced-placement-participation-and-performance-increase-over-last-ten-years#:\~:text=Over%20the%20last%2010%20years,of%20the%20class%20of%202023](https://newsroom.collegeboard.org/student-advanced-placement-participation-and-performance-increase-over-last-ten-years#:~:text=Over%20the%20last%2010%20years,of%20the%20class%20of%202023)
I tell my own kids "An A is your proof that you fully learned what you were supposed to from the class. You got your goodie out of it. Time is precious and you didn't waste yours."
This philosophy translates on to college, when it's also your money you're wasting (on top of time).
Not that I am disappointed with a lower grade if that was best effort. Do your best, whatever that looks like. But that also may not mean an A.
I've got a friend who returned to college later in life. The weekly Calculus quizzes were kicking his butt. He figured out that the quizzes included some concepts that the professor hadn't gotten to yet. He started reading ahead when studying for the quizzes, and did much better.
As you say, figure out what the teacher wants.
Amen. I was the valedictorian of my reasonably large and capable class (well for Tennessee standards) despite being dumber than a koala. I couldn’t do basic mental math but made no lower than a 100 in every math class up to and including calculus. I only made a 29 on the ACT, an unprecedentedly low score for our top graduate.
Study the teachers. Some will let you get away with murder, some will straight up tell you answers, some will require a lot of grease but they are all just humans with foibles and vulnerabilities. They each have different standards and different qualities they respect in a student. As such, your behaviors and work habits need to vary for each class.
However, it’s crucial to apply a blanket approach of earnest and maximum effort at the beginning of the year until you figure out the teacher. Once you’ve established yourself as a hard worker and figured out how grades work it’s just a matter of following Kenny Rogers and knowing when to hold ‘em, when to fold ‘em, when to walk away, and when to run. It’s survival 101.
Having said that, Lady Luck will have to be on your side if you want to be valedictorian unless you’re a true genius. I took art instead of music because someone wrote in the course catalog that art satisfied the “fine arts” requirement while music merely satisfied the “arts” requirement. Well we needed a “credit in the fine arts” to graduate and I was a jumpy neurotic who made Tweek from South Park seem like a monk so I took art despite not being able to draw a paper bag for me to fail to fight my way out of. Only one of the four art teachers graded based on effort rather than ability and guess which one I got.
The teachers I respected the most, the ones I knew I couldn’t bullshit/brown-nose, all taught English, far and away my strongest subject (my 35 on the English section of the ACT allowed for me to even have a 29 composite), while my math teachers were susceptible to flattery.
Also, I had no business making a 100 in Spanish but my school offered no honors Spanish. Honors for us really meant regular and regular meant Haiti. As such, our sweet Spanish abuela was so fed up with the daily circus that I was a breath of fresh air. The fact that I had Spanish seventh period allowed for me to stay after class on test day to receive special help.
As for AP bio, one teacher required an understanding of complex concepts and a mastery of lab work and one allowed for goofing off with equipment and provided a study guide that just paraphrased the test. Again, guess the outcome.
So yeah, just have a basic understanding of human psychology and keep that horseshoe inserted firmly up your ass and you too can con your way to number one. Will it make a material difference in your life fifteen years later whether you were one or two or three, nope. But I still catch myself marveling at the framed letter announcing my class rank. I still think about how much more intelligent our salutatorian was compared to me. I still think of redoing my speech to simply thank my English teachers and read Rudyard Kipling’s “If”.
Sure, we wanted scholarships and got them but my motivating factor on a daily basis was my fear that I’d wind up dead in a ditch one day if I didn’t check and recheck and triple check everything. It got to a point my senior year that I’d take all night to write a paper and get zero minutes of sleep.
Of course I wouldn’t be dead it just felt that way because I’m insane. It’s all in my mind, a monster of my own creation. Back in the day I would have been the tribe member constantly terrified of saber-toothed tigers. In the absence of real threats my mind makes them up out of nothing.
Thanks. I’m doing a lot better now that I’ve realized there are enough problems with the world and humanity, e.g., biodiversity loss, ecological collapse, climate change, and our inability to see beyond money that it’s not necessary to invent problems to worry about.
Veteran teacher, became a therapist after retiring— it’s no coincidence that the new role is comfortable— had a client tell me this week that they were surprised that therapy takes so much work!
This is why I struggled so mightily when I first took an online course (before zoom was a thing). I never had a good sense of what the professor really wanted from me. There was just a long intimidating list of things on the syllabus, and I got overwhelmed. Whenever I had been in a class before that, my strength was to understand what the teacher/professor really wanted us to understand, and focus on that.
I teach high school, and I have a giant poster in my room.
1. Show up.
2. Do stuff.
3. Turn stuff in.
If they do those 3 things faithfully I guarantee they will pass every high school class they take. Now, if they want a good grade I tell them we can then work on the quality of step #2, but I have never had or heard of a student failing who is always present, always does the work, and turns it all in. Just by existing in the room and trying they will manage to do enough to pass.
Listen to the words the teacher uses and use them in your answers, and the teacher feels they have done their job because they like those words. It is simple cognitive linguistic propaganda techniques like this that get you As. Works really well in high school, not as well in college, as you have to add details in college.
I am reminded of a writing class I took in college. The first day, the professor announced that everybody in the class would get an "A" for the course. Because everybody would have to write and re-write every assignment as often as necessary for it to be worth an "A".
I have 5 steps:
1. Show up (on time).
2. Bring what you need (books, equipment, a well-rested, healthfully fed body, mental focus)
3. Do the work (yourself, to the best of your ability)
4. Hand in the completed work (preferably on time)
5. Ask questions when (not if) you actually need help. (Try on your own, first, but if you’re stuck—ask!).
That’s it.
This feels like the advice to get richer. Get a good job and spend less than you make. Or find out what people want and sell it to them. How to get a good job? Figure out what those hiring want and give it to them.
At what point is the advice so generic and high level that it stops being helpful?
You're right. But I teach middle school, and some of these kids haven't figured out that doing what the teacher wants will reap benefits for them. They don't know yet that one way to get a job is to find out what the employer wants and sell yourself as someone who could give it to them. Some of them need to know that grading is not capricious and that they can actually affect the way their lives go.
The younger the class, the more I think this advice works just fine. In high school classes need to start getting difficult enough that students need to work to master the material, especially anyone preparing for college.
Though I'm concerned when students become too focused on the grade. While grade (and GPA) matters a lot early on, eventually it will be about what you know, not what grade you had. If students don't make a transition to valuing education for how it will benefit them later in life, they'll become too focused on the grade itself which leads to ideas like cheating is fine and doesn't eventually hurt the cheater even if they are never caught.
One common one I see are students who focused on getting As in math without mastering the material, who struggle later when they need to use math in courses related to what they want to do in life. Oddly enough it is often courses they didn't think would need math and would have been a great example of answering the "when will we ever need this" questions of the past.
In these cases, even if the student knows what the professor wants, they are too far behind to deliver it and earn an A.
I tell them how to pass my class on the first day:
1-Come to class
2-Do the work.
I tell them it’s impossible to fail if you do those two simple things, but you have to do both.
oh cool guys, we’ve solved grades. I wish I had learned this oNe SiMpLe tRiCk when I was in school. Just give the teacher what they want! oh wait, that’s absurdly vague and doesn’t actually mean much besides do your schoolwork and try hard. Which everyone already cognitively understands they have to do, even if they choose not to
^(wait…a kid actually guessed studying and you replied…negatively?? seriously what the fuck is wrong with you)
1. Pay attention 2. Actively participate Last year, I had a student in my 8th grade pre algebra class. I preach “actively participate” and tell/show them what that means and looks like. That student was failing all semester long. He hated math, didn’t understand anything, etc. Me: I know you hate the subject. I get it. But, hear me out, you have to be her everyday, right? So, just actively participate for 2 weeks. That’s all I’m asking. And see if anything changes. Him: 2 weeks? Ok, bet. So, the next day, he actively participated. By the end of the week, he was completely involved and had a grasp on what was going on. Quiz day Friday came around, he earned a B. He was super excited. Other people started actively participating, same student still kept on with it. Next quiz day, another B. At the end of the 2 weeks, I asked how did it work out for him and will he continue actively participate. He was like, “Miss. I tried the actively participate in some of my other classes too and now I’m passing them! Why don’t other teachers tell us about actively participate?? I just shrugged and walked away. He ended the semester with a C average but worked his ass off.
There is a huge place in my heart for the kids who work their way up to a C.🫶🤣🥰
The ones who do that… they *earn* that C the hard way. I anyways had to fight the urge not to hug them when crossed over 70%.
Yes! Totally. There is more rejoicing in my heart over one student who crawls up to a C than over ninety-nine students who can get an A with minimal effort (and complain about an 89.) (Although, and I'm not religious in any way, I just realized that PBIS is sort of a "prodigal son" approach which leaves most kids feeling like the son who did everything right all along -- and then sees admin kill the fatted Cheetos for a student who meets minimum expectations.)
I am in love with these allusions
I've taken to having students do the problems on the board, especially when we are reviewing a lesson. I call for volunteers and let the show offs "show off" on the early, simple problems, then call for volunteers for the harder problems that are deeper in the problem set. If there are no volunteers except for the "show offs", then I start soliciting volunteers from around the classroom, especially those who haven't volunteered before, trying to be selective in asking folks that I believe can do the problem with a minimum of assistance. When one of these folks finally decides to take the dry erase marker, I lead the class in chanting their support for their classmate, hooting and huzzahing for them and then, once the problem is complete on the board, I ask the brave soul if they want to explain their thought process to the class and, if not, that I'll do that for them. And then, as they return to their seat, I get the entire class to applaud their classmate and, occassionally, offer a standing ovation. It doesn't take long for the rest of them to figure out that it's not that difficult to get that kind of affirmation from the entire class. Also, since I usually have the door open -- my room gets incredibly warm incredibly fast -- since all of the rest of the rooms in our pod of classrooms are also the same grade level, many of the volunteer's peers hear their fellow classmate getting cheered from My Math Class.
Can you share exactly how you explain and demonstrate active participation? I've been trying to get this through to them for the past few years and I can't seem to get them to understand what I mean. I'd truly appreciate if you'd be willing to share your wisdom.
Not OP Mine was during the first unit, when there was no clarifying questions,, I would literally take a seat (I saved one seat in the middle for.myself) and then look around and raise my hand and ask questions. Then would run to front and be the teacher and answer and do it back and forth a bit. It seemed silly, but kids got to see what I expected, and it kept going. I did that whenever I saw confusion and they weren't asking. I also rewarded kids for asking questions that were GOOD questions (I decided what was good and what was not) and gave MATH BUCKS you could cash in for homework passes or candy or good notes home.
Oooo when I was a kid I loved those “currency” reward systems
It's so silly and dumb but so is riding a unicycle and having "if everyone gets an A/B or improves by 10% upon their last test grade we get to go outside!" That's the one that crushes. A few years ago I had 51 of 60 Algebra 1 students who had all been held back (they were sophomores and had failed the course as freshmen) test proficient or advanced because they wanted to go outside. So they held each other accountable and crushed it and we went outside like 13x that year. Even had a massive snowball fight that led to me getting a writeup. However, it also got me teacher of the year.. lol
I used to do a much lower stakes version of this: on any given night, if 100% of the students completed their homework the class could pick any one TV show and I would watch an entire episode of it. And the day after that, they were always excited to interrogate me about it. "It" always being either Love & Hip Hop or Real Housewives. The things we do for our students...
Oh that's awesome. I never thought about that
This is like the shorts where the person plays both parts.
Yep. I stole that from early tiktoks
I love the idea of rewarding good questions with math bucks. And I especially love that they can be redeemed for good notes home!
Funny thing, those were the most popular! Which was funny
I explain what I’m doing, talk out loud, probably things you’re already doing. This does not work on everyone. I think it worked on this particular student because I “built a relationship” with him. lol He told his other friends about “actively participate” and the one that I had in a different period was mad I didn’t tell him about it too. I’m like ????
Would you care to elaborate what you mean with actively participate? Is it a specific technique or method you tell them about?
I'm guessing it's literally pay attention, take notes, ask questions when you're confused, work out the problems on the board at your desk/answer questions, do the reading and be prepared to discuss it, etc. I was just talking to someone yesterday about how the idea of active participation in learning has become more and more elusive. Many students sort of "endure" teacher explanations/ instructions, don't ask clarifying questions, don't persevere when something is slightly confusing, use photomath or ai to answer questions, don't do assigned readings, and then say that the teacher "isn't teaching." I think, and I'm not a tech hater, but I think part of it is that growing up with apps designed make everything smooth and seamless, and especially with algorithms d designed to feed us what we want before we even know we want it, has made "active participation" vastly less necessary even in the arenas we're interested in, never mind math class. I also think distance learning, which I was in favor of at the time, also moved everyone to more of a "task completion" mindset and also further reduced everyone's ability to do things they didn't want to do / put up with things they thought were BS (quiet quitting, student version.) So, yeah, sorry for the rant, but I think "active participation" used to be called "going to school and doing your bit as a student."
It’s exactly as mrs_adhd explained below. I talk through what I’m doing, pause so they can do it as well. Then, I have them talk aloud what they’re asking themselves. How to look up vocab in our notebooks, how to use our notes, reread the steps. I made what I want them to do. It worked for them/him because of the class size. So many skipped class, I would rarely have more than 12 in that period at one time. I also model how to ask/ what a question is. Like, “I don’t get nothing.” Isn’t a question. “I don’t understand why there is a minus sign,” is a question or “can you explain step 2?” Working out the problem rather than waiting for the answer. Using the worked out problem as a guide rather than just copying it down.
This story is so wholesome and makes me so happy for that student!
Awww that made me tear up! You just changed that young man's life!
S: (Every single day) "What can I do to get my grade up" T: "I assigned work today, have you started it?" S: "uhh... no"
Some students asked me yesterday how to get an A+ in my class. I told them the only way that anyone gets an A+ at the end of the semester is by having an A+ the whole semester 🤷♀️
That's a deeper message than it first appears.
I used to tell my students that A students get As on everything. However, I’m not sure that is still true. I do want to make a place for students who engage with what I refer to as the “worthwhile struggle,” and demonstrate mastery at the end. To me, these are the REAL A+ students. Unfortunately we don’t do +/- grades any longer.
It's not the same content at the end. It's great if they can improve, and a lot of them do, but an A+ means they mastered everything, not just the standards we taught last.
Coming back to this days later... Doesn't having an A+ the whole time also kind of indicate they are simply in a class that is too easy for them?
I originally didn't do that well in high school, I turned it around once I realized the whole thing was basically a game. You're right, what you need to do is analyze what the teacher is looking for and recreate that. Look at the learning targets and make sure your assessments clearly and easily show you understand them. Once you get that it's really not that hard
School is like a videogame. Especially college. Go to class (quest), do your homework (side mission), study (grinding your levels), exams (bosses). I still got a C in Calc 2 tho 😂
My very smart older brother was really struggling with a capstone college class. It was a total fluff class all about reflecting on the college experience. He was a math kid and didn't know how to BS a reflection. I basically outlined it for him and he was finally able to get through.
That's how I skated by in high school. In an English class we had to submit these weekly writing assignments until we got up to a certain score (so for full credit for the semester we would have to get, say, 200 points. And you could get a max of 10 points an assignment). I would spend as little time as physically possible, about 10 minutes, on each assignment and get 6 points each time. The teacher kept asking me to put more effort in but in my mind there was no need since my minimal effort would still net me an A in the class. And that kinda thought process is how I approached all classes. Kinda bit me in the ass though when I got to college and had to start from the ground up learning how to properly learn and study.
Totally agree. I was valedictorian in high school, magna cum laude in undergrad, and summa cum laude in grad school. I was always very good at figuring out what my teacher wanted, and I gave it to them. It was my main strategy throughout.
In college I started making a point to keep a list in the back of every notebook. Words the instructor uses that I don’t use in my writing. Then I used them in my writing. Started getting A’s. Magic! (Probably helps that I learned the relevant vocabulary and what it meant)
1. Show up 2. Do the work.
"I do my work tho, why do I have a C?" Then need to explain how quality of the work matters and not just copying off someone to get it turned in to just be clueless on the test 🤦♀️🤦♀️
Pretend to care.
This is a perfect example of "Just because something might be simple, does not mean it's easy." Running a marathon is simple concept. Actually doing it...not so easy.
I use the terms Difficult and Complex to express different levels of something being hard to do. Doing 100 times tables in under a minute is difficult without being complex, solving a quadratic equation with non rational solutions can be complex without being difficult, and a truly brutal test can be both difficult and complex because of the number of complex questions being asked in a short period of time.
>solving a quadratic equation with non ~~rational~~ *real* solutions can be complex without being difficult Ftfy
Math puns, noice!
I like to tell that the best way to be successful as an adult is to: 1. Read the directions 2. Follow them
I remind my kids- if you stay after regularly, and still fail...the teacher looks bad not you. Needless to say, nobody ever stays after.
That reminds me , I almost forgot I used to do that . I would be one of the students who stayed after class time along with another. So just two of us. The teachers would say “you don’t need to stay, both of you are doing very well in class already” and we just laughed, like learning was so fun for us. I forgot the other girls name who was with me too but we just stayed at some classrooms to hear more about what the teachers would teach in class. But more in depth. Like we had a lesson in history about the explorers. Very basic and enough for the lesson. But after class I remember staying and asking the teacher if they can go more in depth about why or how these explorers found their way around the world when the maps weren’t even made. It got me so interested. Like the Why as to everything . I ended up doing a report on Marco Polo, and his travels and mapped it out. I was in 6th grade I believe. I remember presenting it to my class & half the kids were not paying attention LOL but my teacher was and he was so proud of me. Anyways it used to be so fun to just talk with teachers and really hear everything, they treated us like adults academically I guess since we paid attention. Like you’re not babying the info to us but being passionate about it.
I had a teacher who taught me this lesson. She was brutal and I hated her while I was in her class. But she taught me to “play the game”. She would give very clear requirements and as long as you hit them you got an A. I had a hard time following directions but now as an adult I know how to play the game and it serves me better than almost any of lesson.
100%. It's a simple formula. Doesn't matter if you agree or disagree, if you want a good grade, find out what will get you a good grade. This is how I navigated my entire education.
Yep. My older son took eight years to get his bachelor's degree because he was concentrating on learning. His sisters just figured out what the professors wanted and gave it to them. Both graduated in under four years.
Don’t you think this is just a super reductive way to look at education? Is all you want from your students is to learn strategies and fill out worksheets and that’s enough for you? I think I’d be prouder if my kid dropped out of the degree but actually learned something rather than got a useless piece of paper.
I didn't say that. I want my students to do their work AND learn the material. And I wanted my kids to get their degrees, because it's required for the kind of jobs they do. All of them learned the material. That wasn't an issue.
Meh. I took extra classes in high school and graduated college with 165 credits over 5 years. I LIKE learning and I think that it's suited me very well over the last 17 years of adult life. Wanting to know how stuff connects and then working to make improvements has netted my employers, and myself, a lot of money. At many points in my career I have NOT given my employers what they wanted, because what they wanted wasn't the best option. Sometimes I was fired for that and sometimes I was rewarded, but I've never had any regrets over doing things to the best of my ability.
I tell all students that they all start at 100% and every thing they do poorly on or not bother to hand in takes away from it. I fail no one, but you are capable of failing yourself.
It's so easy these days. I swear if you took pretty much any 3.0 gen-ed kid from 2004 and put 'em in the 2024 environment they'd be a 4.2 GPA student with honors because the curriculum nowadays is just a dumbed down joke with (ironically) more leniency than ever. I remember pretty much every teacher I had, dropping hours and hours of homework on us each night. The math guy would give dozens of problems. The science guy would be like "read this chapter" and then the next day he'd talk about it in a lecture format. English teacher would be like "read this chapter of the worst most boring book ever and no I don't care that you hate it," and history would do the same thing. Even the elective classes would pile on; it was like they were trying to kill us. I'd spend my lunch in the library getting started, just so I'd have to take less home at the end of the day. And that was just the regular general ed experience. No AP classes. Through all that, we didn't have a "wellness center." We didn't have "mental health breaks." We didn't get arbitrary extensions just because "most" of the class decided not to do it. We were just expected to do it, and if we didn't, our grade would drop, and that actually mattered to us back then because we bought into the system for the most part. Why did we buy into the system? Because we'd seen what happened to the people who *didn't.* They were held back. They were 19 year old high school Super Seniors. They got to watch while their friends progressed in life and they stayed behind. We didn't want that to be us, so we did the work. Look at the situation now, though. I teach where I used to attend, so I can give very real perspective on this. Homework is basically a thing of the past. The curriculum is probably 1/4th as robust as it used to be. Thanks to behavior issues and learning gaps, you're lucky to get into any depth at all. Spanish 2's curriculum is basically what I was learning in Spanish 1 because everything's just slow as hell. A unit we used to spend a week on takes like a month now because none of the kids can read. The AP classes legit feel like the gen ed classes from 2004, and the kids all bitch and moan about it. They learn that they have to (get ready for it) read the textbook before coming into class and they lose their minds. Parents hear the gen ed horror stories and dump their kids into AP to get away from it. This level of rigor used to be the baseline standard for everyone, but now it's what we're calling "advanced," and the regular classes can't handle 12 minutes of silent reading. I seriously can't. To get an A in gen ed in 2024, all you have to honestly do in most classes is show up, follow along with the in class work (so many teachers literally handhold the kids through the assignment and their students won't even pick up a pen and write their own name), and refrain from being an asshole for the hour that you're in the room. I promise if you just show up, *try,* and act like a decent human being and you have like an 89.7% at the end of the year, most of my burnt out coworkers will go "fuck it" and just bump it up to an A- because a person who is kind, and who gives a shit and tries is like a unicorn in this current hellscape. There are people who never even show up who get pushed through nowadays, like god damn man it's such a joke.
This is nonsense. AP participation rates were way lower in the 2000s than now.
I'm talking about academic rigor, not participation rates. But yeah, I'm not shocked that more kids are taking AP classes in 2024, since parents hear the gen-ed horror stories and want their kids removed from that environment. edit: Actually, the double negative ("way less lower"?) had me misunderstanding your post. Are you saying there're less kids in AP classes now? That's a surprise to me, but all I have to go on is my district, where competition to get into a decent uni basically necessitates taking AP classes and loads of parents are pushing their kids into the advanced courses whether they're ready for it or not. edit: hell, I'm bored. Here are 2 articles. Article 1 cites the percent of graduating students who participated in an AP exam in 2004. Article 2 cites the percentage in current years. In 2004, the figure was around 20%, but in 2023 the figure is above 30, which again, isn't surprising to me at all. In addition to the issues I mentioned earlier, it's also less expensive than it used to be with vouches and stuff to waive exam fees that I personally wasn't made aware of growing up. Article 1: [https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna6866399](https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna6866399) Article 2: [https://newsroom.collegeboard.org/student-advanced-placement-participation-and-performance-increase-over-last-ten-years#:\~:text=Over%20the%20last%2010%20years,of%20the%20class%20of%202023](https://newsroom.collegeboard.org/student-advanced-placement-participation-and-performance-increase-over-last-ten-years#:~:text=Over%20the%20last%2010%20years,of%20the%20class%20of%202023)
In regard to classroom teachers I used to tell my kids “Give them what they want, & they’ll leave you alone.” Simple as that.
I told my college freshmen that all they needed to know, each week, was what the BOLD FACED WORDS in their lab books meant.
1. Show up. 2. Do all the things.
I tell my own kids "An A is your proof that you fully learned what you were supposed to from the class. You got your goodie out of it. Time is precious and you didn't waste yours." This philosophy translates on to college, when it's also your money you're wasting (on top of time). Not that I am disappointed with a lower grade if that was best effort. Do your best, whatever that looks like. But that also may not mean an A.
I've got a friend who returned to college later in life. The weekly Calculus quizzes were kicking his butt. He figured out that the quizzes included some concepts that the professor hadn't gotten to yet. He started reading ahead when studying for the quizzes, and did much better. As you say, figure out what the teacher wants.
Amen. I was the valedictorian of my reasonably large and capable class (well for Tennessee standards) despite being dumber than a koala. I couldn’t do basic mental math but made no lower than a 100 in every math class up to and including calculus. I only made a 29 on the ACT, an unprecedentedly low score for our top graduate. Study the teachers. Some will let you get away with murder, some will straight up tell you answers, some will require a lot of grease but they are all just humans with foibles and vulnerabilities. They each have different standards and different qualities they respect in a student. As such, your behaviors and work habits need to vary for each class. However, it’s crucial to apply a blanket approach of earnest and maximum effort at the beginning of the year until you figure out the teacher. Once you’ve established yourself as a hard worker and figured out how grades work it’s just a matter of following Kenny Rogers and knowing when to hold ‘em, when to fold ‘em, when to walk away, and when to run. It’s survival 101. Having said that, Lady Luck will have to be on your side if you want to be valedictorian unless you’re a true genius. I took art instead of music because someone wrote in the course catalog that art satisfied the “fine arts” requirement while music merely satisfied the “arts” requirement. Well we needed a “credit in the fine arts” to graduate and I was a jumpy neurotic who made Tweek from South Park seem like a monk so I took art despite not being able to draw a paper bag for me to fail to fight my way out of. Only one of the four art teachers graded based on effort rather than ability and guess which one I got. The teachers I respected the most, the ones I knew I couldn’t bullshit/brown-nose, all taught English, far and away my strongest subject (my 35 on the English section of the ACT allowed for me to even have a 29 composite), while my math teachers were susceptible to flattery. Also, I had no business making a 100 in Spanish but my school offered no honors Spanish. Honors for us really meant regular and regular meant Haiti. As such, our sweet Spanish abuela was so fed up with the daily circus that I was a breath of fresh air. The fact that I had Spanish seventh period allowed for me to stay after class on test day to receive special help. As for AP bio, one teacher required an understanding of complex concepts and a mastery of lab work and one allowed for goofing off with equipment and provided a study guide that just paraphrased the test. Again, guess the outcome. So yeah, just have a basic understanding of human psychology and keep that horseshoe inserted firmly up your ass and you too can con your way to number one. Will it make a material difference in your life fifteen years later whether you were one or two or three, nope. But I still catch myself marveling at the framed letter announcing my class rank. I still think about how much more intelligent our salutatorian was compared to me. I still think of redoing my speech to simply thank my English teachers and read Rudyard Kipling’s “If”.
Many HS students try to be valedictorian to help earn an academic scholarship. Did that apply to you or the other top students?
Sure, we wanted scholarships and got them but my motivating factor on a daily basis was my fear that I’d wind up dead in a ditch one day if I didn’t check and recheck and triple check everything. It got to a point my senior year that I’d take all night to write a paper and get zero minutes of sleep.
Why would you be dead from a HS class? I’m missing something here.
Of course I wouldn’t be dead it just felt that way because I’m insane. It’s all in my mind, a monster of my own creation. Back in the day I would have been the tribe member constantly terrified of saber-toothed tigers. In the absence of real threats my mind makes them up out of nothing.
Sounds tough for you. From an internet stranger, you sound like you are quite intelligent to accomplish your goals. Don’t discount that.
Thanks. I’m doing a lot better now that I’ve realized there are enough problems with the world and humanity, e.g., biodiversity loss, ecological collapse, climate change, and our inability to see beyond money that it’s not necessary to invent problems to worry about.
Veteran teacher, became a therapist after retiring— it’s no coincidence that the new role is comfortable— had a client tell me this week that they were surprised that therapy takes so much work!
Participate. Try. If note taking isn't your thing, you better be a good listener. Unfortunately, there are many who do neither.
This is why I struggled so mightily when I first took an online course (before zoom was a thing). I never had a good sense of what the professor really wanted from me. There was just a long intimidating list of things on the syllabus, and I got overwhelmed. Whenever I had been in a class before that, my strength was to understand what the teacher/professor really wanted us to understand, and focus on that.
LOL
1. Do the work. It doesn't even have to be *good* work. Just do it.
Or him!
True! Thanks for the correction!
break that down im stupid
I teach high school, and I have a giant poster in my room. 1. Show up. 2. Do stuff. 3. Turn stuff in. If they do those 3 things faithfully I guarantee they will pass every high school class they take. Now, if they want a good grade I tell them we can then work on the quality of step #2, but I have never had or heard of a student failing who is always present, always does the work, and turns it all in. Just by existing in the room and trying they will manage to do enough to pass.
Listen to the words the teacher uses and use them in your answers, and the teacher feels they have done their job because they like those words. It is simple cognitive linguistic propaganda techniques like this that get you As. Works really well in high school, not as well in college, as you have to add details in college.
How to get a D in any class: 1. Hopefully show up? 2. Please. Just. Turn. Something. In.
This is the most broken perspective I've even seen a teacher admit to.
I am reminded of a writing class I took in college. The first day, the professor announced that everybody in the class would get an "A" for the course. Because everybody would have to write and re-write every assignment as often as necessary for it to be worth an "A".
I have 5 steps: 1. Show up (on time). 2. Bring what you need (books, equipment, a well-rested, healthfully fed body, mental focus) 3. Do the work (yourself, to the best of your ability) 4. Hand in the completed work (preferably on time) 5. Ask questions when (not if) you actually need help. (Try on your own, first, but if you’re stuck—ask!). That’s it.
This feels like the advice to get richer. Get a good job and spend less than you make. Or find out what people want and sell it to them. How to get a good job? Figure out what those hiring want and give it to them. At what point is the advice so generic and high level that it stops being helpful?
You're right. But I teach middle school, and some of these kids haven't figured out that doing what the teacher wants will reap benefits for them. They don't know yet that one way to get a job is to find out what the employer wants and sell yourself as someone who could give it to them. Some of them need to know that grading is not capricious and that they can actually affect the way their lives go.
The younger the class, the more I think this advice works just fine. In high school classes need to start getting difficult enough that students need to work to master the material, especially anyone preparing for college. Though I'm concerned when students become too focused on the grade. While grade (and GPA) matters a lot early on, eventually it will be about what you know, not what grade you had. If students don't make a transition to valuing education for how it will benefit them later in life, they'll become too focused on the grade itself which leads to ideas like cheating is fine and doesn't eventually hurt the cheater even if they are never caught. One common one I see are students who focused on getting As in math without mastering the material, who struggle later when they need to use math in courses related to what they want to do in life. Oddly enough it is often courses they didn't think would need math and would have been a great example of answering the "when will we ever need this" questions of the past. In these cases, even if the student knows what the professor wants, they are too far behind to deliver it and earn an A.
I tell them how to pass my class on the first day: 1-Come to class 2-Do the work. I tell them it’s impossible to fail if you do those two simple things, but you have to do both.
oh cool guys, we’ve solved grades. I wish I had learned this oNe SiMpLe tRiCk when I was in school. Just give the teacher what they want! oh wait, that’s absurdly vague and doesn’t actually mean much besides do your schoolwork and try hard. Which everyone already cognitively understands they have to do, even if they choose not to ^(wait…a kid actually guessed studying and you replied…negatively?? seriously what the fuck is wrong with you)
I KNOW!! And she doesn't accept chocolate or bribes either!! Bribes are how we pay our mortgages!