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    #222639 09/21/15 04:12 PM
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    mom2one Offline OP
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    I have been thinking off and on about this, even though my child is only in elementary school. How are grades decided ? Is in-class work graded at high school ? Or, does only doing the homework count ?
    What about middle school ? And elementary school ?

    One of the challenges I am having is that my child will not complete the work in class completely. I have asked him many times -- he says that the work is very boring. Occasionally, I think the way school is, is in direct conflict with the way he learns. He does not act out; he simply continues to work on whatever is fascinating to him at the moment (even if it does mean that work is not completed at school). I am really concerned that he will under-perform, and not care about school when he is older.

    Any advice or suggestions ?

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    All of the above. Depends heavily on the teacher.

    I have a learner like that as well and it is challenging. But kids mature a lot over the years, so don't worry about middle school or high school yet. I'd suggest just focusing on keeping him on track in elementary.

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    It really depends on your school district. Some use standards based grading that relies completely on in-class performance.

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    There isn't one answer to this question. It depends a lot on district, school, teacher, and grade.

    In general what I have found is the more advanced the class the less weight they put on homework seatwork and the more emphasis they put on tests/essays.

    My DS who is a junior in H.S. is in two AP classes for math & science. In those classes most of the grade is based on tests/quizzes/labs and only 10% is based on homework/seat-work. Tests are more about 70% of the grade. His AP Bio class is as close to a college class as the teacher can make it. (Excellent teacher.) In math at DS's level homework is only graded on if you tried every problem. In comparison when my DD took the easiest Algebra II class her junior year more than 40% of her grade was based on homework but it was graded by the teacher. And for DS in 8th grade science (no honors available) homework/seatwork was 35% of the grade, tests 35% of the grade, 40% of the grade were "projects".

    For English our H.S. requires that at least 60% of the grade is based on writing, some of it formal other informal in class work. This rest is broken up between homework, classwork, and tests. (Test don't count much at all.) At DS's H.S. finals can't be more than 15% of the grade. Students don't take finals until H.S. except for those in a H.S. math class in junior high. Grades in junior high didn't really matter EXCEPT without good grades you couldn't get rec's into honors classes in high school.

    I have the same challenge with my DS in getting classwork finished completely. This was a BIG issue in 8th grade science and why I can still pull up his EXACT grades for that class. What I did wrong that year was I didn't bring this up with his counselor or vice-principal till the end of the year and it was time for class recs. for High School. He didn't get a 504 till the beginning of last year. At that time I tried get an accommodation on his 504 to get his science teacher to weight homework less... he was put in non-honors class. The honors class weighted the tests more and the non-honors class weighted homework at 25%. (At the time I tried DS has turned in zero homework 1/4 way through the first semester (~6% of the grade) for a class should have gotten an A. He did eventually get a B+ that semester and an A in the spring. In last years science class it was a case of a disorganized teacher and that didn't work well with a EF challenged & bored student. We did a contract with this teacher which helped enormously.

    Last edited by bluemagic; 09/21/15 05:50 PM.
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    As school went on, there was an opportunity to get your homework done in class if you had completed the seat work already. That is a great incentive.

    I have seen a teacher not grade homework, but give out classroom infractions for not turning it in. So that way is kindof punative.

    Another class I have seen the teacher expect homework to be turned in, and then assigning an actual grade to one random homework assignment per week.

    Especially in middle school, each teacher has a different style. And then there are district wide policies that may come into play as well.

    The work also is more interesting in middle school, so that should help some, too.

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    Kai Offline
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    Depends on the teacher what they grade, how difficult the assignments are, and how lenient they are when they grade it. It is so teacher dependent that I can't believe colleges even consider grades when making admissions decisions.

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    Originally Posted by Kai
    Depends on the teacher what they grade, how difficult the assignments are, and how lenient they are when they grade it. It is so teacher dependent that I can't believe colleges even consider grades when making admissions decisions.
    I'd have to find the research but from what I understand grades are a better indication of college success than doing well on standardized tests. While there is a huge variation in what a grade means even within one school and certainly with others. I'm not quite sure why but I assume it based on kids who get good grades usually have good study habits.

    Yes this doesn't really seem fair and it's why there are things like AP tests & standardized tests as well. It frustrating because for example the pass rates for AP varies at lot between schools. I know many a kid at DS's school got a B for classes they got 5's on the AP test. And I've heard students from other schools complain that that while they got A's in the class they barely passed (got a 3) on the AP's. Clearly these classes aren't the same class nor graded on the same scale.

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    This year, in Elementary private school they use the following formula for grading: Tests - 55%, Classwork - 30%, /homework - 10%, Participation in class discussion - 5%.
    I am sure that the formula was different last year. So, I think that it is totally different for each grade and dependent on school policy.

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    In our high school (at least in honors/AP classes) the typical breakdown is 70% tests/quizzes, 10% homework/classwork, and 20% final. In a number of classes, homework is a completion (vs. accuracy) grade.

    I know that many gifted kids don't want to do boring or easy work, but my attitude with my gifties was usually, "tough luck, so sad, too bad," and I had the teacher send home anything they didn't complete in school (to be completed at home) because I think realizing that you're going to have to do a lot of things that you don't necessarily love is a good life skill.

    That said, I did make exceptions for things like reading logs (which we, like many, just stopped handing in), or really useless homework (so they'd have to complete the map, but I would be fine if they got a lower grade because they didn't shade it neatly or carefully enough).

    I think doing homework/classwork is often a bone of contention for gifties because it seems so easy and ridiculous, but I have two out of college and one in high school and study habits are actually necessary (if they go to a decent HS/college). In my son's honors chemistry class, they do lots of hands-on work, but the reading is done at home. Some of it isn't covered in class, so no matter how smart you are, you can't just "absorb" it or necessarily reason it out. In lots of the honors/AP English classes, reading was done at home and discussion/analysis in school.

    Maybe I'm lucky, but my kids were never really turned off learning or reading because they were bored... or maybe I just didn't care that they were turned off for a while, because I knew that there would be other opportunities, more interesting classes, new challenges, as they got older, and I felt confident that the spark would always came back. Perhaps it was a bit of "fake it til you make it." Elementary school is actually the worst, but I think it gets better as they get older! All of my kids liked MS better than elementary, HS better than MS, and college even better. If it makes you feel better, the one who told me repeatedly in 4th-7th grades that she just didn't like school, nope, not really any part of it, yeah, she understood she had to do it, but she'd never enjoy it, and she didn't really see the point is now getting her third degree and wishing she could remain a student forever. smile

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    Originally Posted by mom2one
    I have been thinking off and on about this, even though my child is only in elementary school. How are grades decided ? Is in-class work graded at high school ? Or, does only doing the homework count ?
    What about middle school ? And elementary school ?

    Our experience has been that this is completely teacher/course dependent. Teachers even change from year to year in the same course sometimes.

    Quote
    One of the challenges I am having is that my child will not complete the work in class completely. I have asked him many times -- he says that the work is very boring. Occasionally, I think the way school is, is in direct conflict with the way he learns. He does not act out; he simply continues to work on whatever is fascinating to him at the moment (even if it does mean that work is not completed at school). I am really concerned that he will under-perform, and not care about school when he is older.

    My first advice is, it's too early to think about what might happen when he's older and to try to second-guess how his teachers will grade in high school. It *is* really important, however, to understand what's happening right now and try to resolve an issue such as not completing work in class.

    It's really easy to see a gifted child not completing work in class, have that child say it's boring, and determine that yep, he's not finishing it because it's boring. The first thing I'd recommend doing is determine - is that *really* what's up? Your ds had a low processing speed and low visual motor integration scores on testing (I looked them up just to be sure I remembered it correctly) - these are both indications that he might have a challenge that's making it difficult to actually complete the work. Not an intellectual challenge but a different type of challenge - maybe it's visual processing, maybe it's fine motor - but his test results point to *something* going on, and it might be something that's unrelated to his Asperger's diagnosis.

    It's also possible it's some other type of challenge. For instance, different situation but just as an example - my ds is extremely organizationally challenged. He had difficulties for years getting his completed homework actually turned in. I didn't realize until he told me last year (in 9th grade) that he simply had no idea that if he didn't turn it in, his teacher would never see it.

    How can you know if it's a challenge vs just not being interested in doing the work? Over the next few weeks, pay attention to when it happens and what types of assignments. If it's a challenge, you'll most likely see some kind of pattern.

    If you determine that it's truly not a challenge other than being bored, then you need to help him understand that it's important to complete his work. It might be boring, but if it's assigned it needs to be completed, and it's important to stay on task with what's going on in the classroom.

    Best wishes,

    polarbear

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    Originally Posted by mom2one
    I have been thinking off and on about this, even though my child is only in elementary school. How are grades decided ? Is in-class work graded at high school ? Or, does only doing the homework count ?
    What about middle school ? And elementary school ?

    One of the challenges I am having is that my child will not complete the work in class completely. I have asked him many times -- he says that the work is very boring. Occasionally, I think the way school is, is in direct conflict with the way he learns. He does not act out; he simply continues to work on whatever is fascinating to him at the moment (even if it does mean that work is not completed at school). I am really concerned that he will under-perform, and not care about school when he is older.

    Any advice or suggestions ?

    You need to ask parents who have children in the middle school/high school where you are for those sub-questions.


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