Today is dd's first day of ps

[Storm Bay]

In a few minutes she'll be going to her 4th & last class (they're long and only 4 per semester). I haven't heard anything yet, so hopefully no news is good news. What is interestng is that I emailed her 4 teachers (suggested by her counsellor) to mention that I wanted to be involved & asking them to let me know if she doesn't turn in her homework, & the honours math teacher said that she only has them turn in their homework on occasion because the dc in honours math should want to learn. On one hand, she's correct but how can she see how they're doing before a test? Plus, it's supposed to count for 5 percent of their grade.

[Tammyla]

:grouphug:I hope she has a good day. Be sure to update us.

[Storm Bay]

:grouphug:I hope she has a good day. Be sure to update us.

 

Thanks. Now I'm going to try to figure out how it is that 5/4 of people don't understand fractions ;) (from your sig line--I don't think I'd ever looked at it as closely before)

[AngieW in Texas]

My 17yo is taking physics at the cc. The teacher has them hand in homework assignments in bulk. They are due on the same day as the test over the material. I really don't like that system because you have no way of knowing whether you actually know what you're doing or just think you know what you're doing. If you got it wrong on the homework, you're very likely to get it wrong on the test as well.

[Teachin'Mine]

I hope she had a good day too Karin. :)

 

The fraction makes more sense if you convert it to a decimal.

 

125% of the people don't understand decimals. See - much better. :D

[regentrude]

My 17yo is taking physics at the cc. The teacher has them hand in homework assignments in bulk. They are due on the same day as the test over the material. I really don't like that system because you have no way of knowing whether you actually know what you're doing or just think you know what you're doing. If you got it wrong on the homework, you're very likely to get it wrong on the test as well.

 

That is completely pointless. (Plus, the teacher must be a glutton fro punishment... as if grading the exams was not enough.)

It should be obvious that feedback is necessary for assignments before an exam.

[regentrude]

the honours math teacher said that she only has them turn in their homework on occasion because the dc in honours math should want to learn. On one hand, she's correct but how can she see how they're doing before a test? Plus, it's supposed to count for 5 percent of their grade.

 

There are ways to make that work. The teacher could post homework solutions and have the students check their work independently if the assignment is not collected, or the solutions could be discussed in class. The 5% of the points could be awarded to the assignments that are collected. (We do this for large classes where it is just not feasible to grade all assignments for 400 students)

[rlugbill]

I am a former ps teacher. Public school teachers feel it is their job to teach the classes, but the students have the responsibility to learn and study. If the student drops the ball or doesn't understand it, it's not the public school teachers job to hold the hands of 100 or 150 students or however many they have to teach every day. There isn't time for it.

 

So, if you are concerned, you can have someone tutor your daughter once/week to ensure things are going ok. You can do it yourself if you can teach the subject matter, but if not, you can hire a tutor.

 

Because it is easy to fall through the cracks in a public school. Most of the children do fall through the cracks in public school, but your child might be different because she was homeschooled. Many homeschooled kids are the eager beavers when they start school later on because they are still curious and interested, whereas the kids who have been in school all their lives are mostly burnt-out and are just trying to survive.

 

Anyway, that's my 2 cents. If you are worried, just get a tutor to ensure your child doesn't get left behind, because no one at the school is looking out for her.

[AmyinMD]

Does your school do online grading? I love that our district does. I monitor my dd's progress almost daily. My dd is at school because she wasn't doing her work at home without pushing her to do every little thing so I really keep on top of what she is doing at school. At one point she hadn't turned in a bunch of LA homework which I made her get in. Overall it's been good for her accountability. I actually see her keeping on top of her work for the most part. She really dislikes LA and I think she didn't feel like doing some of the work. Most of the undone stuff was related to vocab words that they get each week. Dd is sick of doing them.

 

My dd's math teacher collects homework daily but that seems like such a headache for him. He has 120 students and has to enter it for each student each day but at 7th I think they need the accountability each day. He doesn't actually grade the homework from what I can tell. As long as it is complete dd gets the points even if she has wrong answers. I'm sure he just doesn't have time to check every answer on 120 papers each day with every thing else he has to do.

[Kareni]

Thanks. Now I'm going to try to figure out how it is that 5/4 of people don't understand fractions ;) (from your sig line--I don't think I'd ever looked at it as closely before)

 

Perhaps a visual will help. See the t-shirt here.

 

The fraction makes more sense if you convert it to a decimal.

 

125% of the people don't understand decimals. See - much better. :D

 

Very cute!

 

But' date=' wait. The problem may be worse than we thought. See other t-shirt.

 

Regards,

Kareni

[Teachin'Mine]

:lol:

[Storm Bay]

I hope she had a good day too Karin. :)

 

The fraction makes more sense if you convert it to a decimal.

 

125% of the people don't understand decimals. See - much better. :D

:lol::lol::lol:

[Storm Bay]

Does your school do online grading? I love that our district does. I monitor my dd's progress almost daily. My dd is at school because she wasn't doing her work at home without pushing her to do every little thing so I really keep on top of what she is doing at school. At one point she hadn't turned in a bunch of LA homework which I made her get in. Overall it's been good for her accountability. .

 

 

I don't think so. They don't post homework assignments online yet, either.

[Storm Bay]

I am a former ps teacher. Public school teachers feel it is their job to teach the classes, but the students have the responsibility to learn and study. If the student drops the ball or doesn't understand it, it's not the public school teachers job to hold the hands of 100 or 150 students or however many they have to teach every day. There isn't time for it.

 

.

:iagree: A this school, though, at teacher has about 80-90 students. They teach 3 classes & have the 4th for prep. I don't think that they can hold everyone's hand, of course, but when discussing the reasons dd's enrollment mid semester and my concerns with the guidance counsellor she suggested emailing the teachers to get some kind of input during the transition.

 

However, I do have problems with assigning so much homework that a teacher can't look at most of it or at least go over it and/or have it graded in class. I remember teachers who had people trade some of the quizzes & homework while she gave the answers.Your classmates did the grading. Others would grade some work while we were working in class (I have no problem with that if they've taught us first and it isn't every day, which it wasn't.)

[Storm Bay]

Dd had a good day for her first day. She said math was fun & the rest was easy. It was the first day of the second block of the semester, so she only got homework in math, which she did. However, I had her study Biology since she needs to build her study skills

 

It will take time to see how well this works overall, but she did have to write something in one of her classes today & hand it in. She actually did it, and I'm hoping this will be the norm in class.

[Kathy in Richmond]

Glad to hear that she had a smooth first day, Karin. Hoping the rest of her transition is just as easy.

 

~Kathy

[TechWife]

Public school teachers feel it is their job to teach the classes, but the students have the responsibility to learn and study.

I'm a homeschool teacher and this is my belief as well. I can't force my student to ask questions when he doesn't understand or make him give 100% to every assignment. I can put in my 100% as his teacher/facilitator, but it is up to him to do his part. It's the old "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink." scenario.

 

Does that make me a bad homeschool teacher? I sure hope not, 'cause realizing this is the only way that I stay sane!

[Teachin'Mine]

It sounds like it was a very good first day. I hope it's a good school year for her. :)

[Storm Bay]

I'm a homeschool teacher and this is my belief as well. I can't force my student to ask questions when he doesn't understand or make him give 100% to every assignment. I can put in my 100% as his teacher/facilitator, but it is up to him to do his part. It's the old "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink." scenario.

 

Does that make me a bad homeschool teacher? I sure hope not, 'cause realizing this is the only way that I stay sane!

Right. And I don't expect teachers to grade everything considered homework. In the school manual that includes studying, reading for assignments, researching for research projects.

 

I don't hold my hands with my dc, either, but I do check to see that they've done their work, which is what I expect teachers to do based on my years in high school. ETA But, as has come up later, they need to know if they've done their work correctly.

 

So, if a teacher has 150+ students, there needs to be some kind of help here so that s/he isn't overburdened. This is where grading as a class, or reviewing the answers, even quickly, could help (for homework).

Edited November 9, 2010 by Karin

[regentrude]

I'm a homeschool teacher and this is my belief as well. I can't force my student to ask questions when he doesn't understand or make him give 100% to every assignment. I can put in my 100% as his teacher/facilitator, but it is up to him to do his part. It's the old "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink." scenario.

 

Does that make me a bad homeschool teacher? I sure hope not, 'cause realizing this is the only way that I stay sane!

 

I agree that it is the student's responsibility to work, learn, study- but the original comment was about giving feedback on assignments which I do NOT consider hand holding. It is definitely up to the student to work the assignment, but he needs to be given some sort of tool to verify that his understanding of the material is correct; otherwise the homework is a huge waste of time and completely ineffective.

This feedback can take different shapes. For my students, I conduct a homework study session each week where they can work on the problems and have a chance to ask for assistance, I grade the homework, and I make solutions available to the student for self-check. I think the minimum should be to give at lest one kind of feedback - it makes no sense if a diligent student has been working hard to do the homework incorrectly for weeks and then fails the exam.

[Teachin'Mine]

I agree that it is the student's responsibility to work, learn, study- but the original comment was about giving feedback on assignments which I do NOT consider hand holding. It is definitely up to the student to work the assignment, but he needs to be given some sort of tool to verify that his understanding of the material is correct; otherwise the homework is a huge waste of time and completely ineffective.

This feedback can take different shapes. For my students, I conduct a homework study session each week where they can work on the problems and have a chance to ask for assistance, I grade the homework, and I make solutions available to the student for self-check. I think the minimum should be to give at lest one kind of feedback - it makes no sense if a diligent student has been working hard to do the homework incorrectly for weeks and then fails the exam.

 

I agree. I remember my algebra class well because it was the first time math was systematically taught, it was easy to follow, and it was fun. Our teacher collected homework the beginning of every class, and handed back our corrected homework from the previous day. We got immediate feedback and knew whether we understood or not. The text we used was Saxon - and the only way I know that is because of the distinctive cover design with the letters of algebra all over. The teacher was also available every day at the end of school if anyone needed help.

[Nan in Mass]

In my honours math classes in high school, we were assigned the odds, which had the answers in the back of the book. We were give a few minutes at the end of class to begin working the problems. At that point, if you hadn't understood the lecture, you could go up to the teacher and she would help. When we came in to class the next day, we were given a few minutes to check our answers with our friends and help each other figure things out. Then the teacher went over a few problems she thought might be tricky and asked which problems we hadn't gotten. By then, most of us had gotten all the problems figured out. If some people still hadn't figured it out (in other words, if we hadn't managed to show each other), she would solve the problem on the board. In some classes, we turned the problems in at that point; in some we didn't. I assume the teacher spot-checked our work to make sure we were showing our work properly and didn't seem to have any logic problems. If it involved proofs, we passed it in. I usually had them all because my father did any with me that I was unable to get. I wasn't the only one in my class doing this, either. GRIN Math was definately a group effort. We all learned it, though. I don't remember losing anybody from year to year unless they moved.

-Nan

[Beth in SW WA]

Ds's grades and every upcoming assignment, test, project, etc. is listed weekly on Engrade. I check a couple times/week and am in communication with teachers often via Engrade. I don't understand why more families at ds's school don't use it. There is no chance of a student falling behind if the parent stays involved and looks at Engrade often.

 

Karin,

How was the first day?

[Storm Bay]

I agree that it is the student's responsibility to work, learn, study- but the original comment was about giving feedback on assignments which I do NOT consider hand holding. It is definitely up to the student to work the assignment, but he needs to be given some sort of tool to verify that his understanding of the material is correct; otherwise the homework is a huge waste of time and completely ineffective.

This feedback can take different shapes. For my students, I conduct a homework study session each week where they can work on the problems and have a chance to ask for assistance, I grade the homework, and I make solutions available to the student for self-check. I think the minimum should be to give at lest one kind of feedback - it makes no sense if a diligent student has been working hard to do the homework incorrectly for weeks and then fails the exam.

:iagree: And this is waht I want. As I mentioned, I remember sometimes grading each other's quizzes, etc, in class & then turning them in. This would have saved the teacher time & didn't take that much time out of class.

 

Even going over the answers to homework in class would help students see where they were wrong, even if not everything is graded. Also, not all instructions are clear to all dc, and this could be clarified by going over answers.

[Storm Bay]

In my honours math classes in high school, we were assigned the odds, which had the answers in the back of the book. We were give a few minutes at the end of class to begin working the problems. At that point, if you hadn't understood the lecture, you could go up to the teacher and she would help. When we came in to class the next day, we were given a few minutes to check our answers with our friends and help each other figure things out. Then the teacher went over a few problems she thought might be tricky and asked which problems we hadn't gotten. By then, most of us had gotten all the problems figured out. If some people still hadn't figured it out (in other words, if we hadn't managed to show each other), she would solve the problem on the board. In some classes, we turned the problems in at that point; in some we didn't. I assume the teacher spot-checked our work to make sure we were showing our work properly and didn't seem to have any logic problems. If it involved proofs, we passed it in. I usually had them all because my father did any with me that I was unable to get. I wasn't the only one in my class doing this, either. GRIN Math was definately a group effort. We all learned it, though. I don't remember losing anybody from year to year unless they moved.

-Nan

 

:iagree: (lots of agreeing here) Having the answers to the odds also helps as long as the answers are correct :). Once in a while they're not, & it's helpful if the teacher knows that, although I can see that they don't always. My db has seen this in some of the Physics texts he as his students use in university.

[Sunshine State Sue]

My 17yo is taking physics at the cc. The teacher has them hand in homework assignments in bulk. They are due on the same day as the test over the material. I really don't like that system because you have no way of knowing whether you actually know what you're doing or just think you know what you're doing. If you got it wrong on the homework, you're very likely to get it wrong on the test as well.

I took a Statistics class last summer at the CC. Our 3 HW assignments were due on the 3 test days. The teacher made it very clear that we could drop by his office during office hours and look at the solution manual. He published the ISBN for the solution manual as well. The answers to the odds were in the back of the book. I always checked the evens with his solution manual.

 

You make a very good point.

[Storm Bay]

Update: it turns out that the teacher reviews the even answers of homework in class and that the odds are in the book. At least dd can see if she made any mistakes & figure out why. I'm still not sure how this is going to count for 5 % of her grade, though.

[74Heaven]

What is interestng is that I emailed her 4 teachers (suggested by her counsellor) to mention that I wanted to be involved & asking them to let me know if she doesn't turn in her homework, & the honours math teacher said that she only has them turn in their homework on occasion because the dc in honours math should want to learn. On one hand, she's correct but how can she see how they're doing before a test? Plus, it's supposed to count for 5 percent of their grade.

 

FIrst, most higher math texts have answers in the back so they can check their own odds or something.

 

Second, this is good preparation for college!

 

Thirdly, my daughter is in 11th grade and in her first year of traditional schooling - she is at a Christian school. SHe is finding out every teacher is different. She is having a hard time keeping it all straight. I take part of the blame, when hsing, I asked for HW and stuff daily/weekly, etc. at home and they didn't have any fun til they turned it in. Daughter is having a hard time keeping track of 6 subjects and 6 policies but it is good for her!!!

 

I have one at college who never mastered this skill despite *my* best homeschooling efforts and cc classes and once-a-week co op classes. Now she is struggling (I knew she would) at college to keep it all straight!

 

Lisaj

[Caroline]

:iagree: And this is waht I want. As I mentioned, I remember sometimes grading each other's quizzes, etc, in class & then turning them in. This would have saved the teacher time & didn't take that much time out of class.

 

Even going over the answers to homework in class would help students see where they were wrong, even if not everything is graded. Also, not all instructions are clear to all dc, and this could be clarified by going over answers.

 

Many schools will not allow students to grade each others' work because of privacy issues.

[Storm Bay]

Many schools will not allow students to grade each others' work because of privacy issues.

Times have changed, and I didn't think about that.