From: alice <rainbomarshmello@yahoo.com>
To: Teacher2Teacher Public Discussion
Date: 2005072613:23:29
Subject: high school math =D

Hi! I'm a high school student, 16 years old, so I'll understand if
some of you don't take me seriously. However, my "dream-job" has
always been teaching math at a high school/middle school level. Don't
be too shocked because this is coming from a student, but I love math,
and just want to share a couple grading policies my teachers have used
that I consider extremely effective (and yes, I suppose, I may be
biased, being a student and all..)

I am going into my junior year, and I will be entering honors
Pre-calculus. I've always been on the honors track in math, so the
students in my classes are generally interesting in learning, etc. In
my Algebra2/trig class (which I just took and loved), my teacher's
homework policy was the "effort" one. However, all of the homework was
 from the book...and my teacher only assigned odds, becuase the answers
were in the back of the book, and we students could check the answers
as we went along, which would give us immediate feedback for if we
were understanding the material. I found this method to be great; but
consider that this was an honors class, so I can confidentaly say that
the vast majority of the students did the homework. My teacher would
check for completion and the homework would consist of 15% of our
quarter grades. This way, it doesn't matter if a student "cheated" on
homework, becuase tests are worth around 50% of our grades (our grades
were based on points, so 50% is a rough estimate becuase tests
consisted of around 400 points for each quarter, but homework was only
50 points for each quarter). In other words, if you don't understand
the material, even if you managed to "cheat" on homework, you still
wouldn't achieve a good grade unless you really understanded and
performed well on the tests. Participation was not a grade, becuase my
teacher had a spinner, and whoever's number it landed on would have to
answer the class question. This way, grades were very fair, as they
were based on mostly test scores and quiz scores (which were roughly
25%)

I would loove feedback, comments, and advice becuase I want to be a
future math teacher, I would really appreciate an e-mail if any of you
hard-working teachers have an extra 10 minutes to spare
rainbomarshmello@yahoo.com

Thanks so much
-Alice

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