<p>I believe that it also depends on school. D. has never had AP Chem. - was not offered at her school. She found herself prepared for college Chem. much better than most kids including those who took AP. In fact, she rarely had below 100+% (with extra credits) in all of her general chem. classes. That led to her getting a job as Supplemental Instructor to chem. prof. She was offered it before she had any chance to apply. I am trying to point out, that the level of class does not depend on “AP” or no “AP”, it depends more on high school and the teacher that HSl hires.</p>
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Two thoughts … First, did the teacher say this average is a C or are you assuming it is because it is in the 70s? Is it possible the teacher is curving grades (very college like)? Second, if my kids have a class thet they LOVE I immediately want to clone the teacher; yes I ignore the grade.</p>
<p>When they enter the grade into the computer it is already curved if the teacher is going to curve. Since the “daily grades” were sort of random (not “daily” at all), I assume that they were the curve, i.e. he put a couple of 100s in so that no one who was trying would fail, etc. and maybe to take the class average to 80 or so instead of 70 or so.</p>
<p>Daughter’s geomotry teacher was like that. It was a pre-AP class and the class average for most tests was failing (the man did not know how to teach math.). He never graded the homework, but every once in a while he’d ask for it and if they had it, they’d get a 100. That kept their averages half way decent.</p>
<p>Maybe I have the wrong opinion, since I’m a high school senior/dual enrollment student in the parents forum.</p>
<p>But when grades start being based on effort or trying? If you study for 3 hours every night, eagerly join discussions in class, do the extra problems in the book, and still do not know the material, whose fault is that? If other students in the class are understanding, it sounds like the student’s fault. That’s why I hate “participation points”, extra credit, and any “grade boosters”. No one should weigh grades on a scale, just tests, midterms, and final exams. in my opinion</p>
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<p>I have one class right now that has 150 points so far this semester. (Started in August, end middle of December). Sure, there’s the attendance/participation grade that he didn’t include at midterm so that’ll help but right now I have a C in that class according to the grades he has actually calculated.</p>
<p>I have another class that has 200 points so far this semester. Two practical exams worth 100 points each. </p>
<p>College classes you don’t have homework on a daily basis for points. I’ve only had a couple of classes that really had short 10-20 point assignments more than a few times. </p>
<p>Heck in my AP American History class junior year of high school and my AP American Problems class senior year, we had very few assignments other than tests and term papers. Those classes consisted of lecture, lecture, lecture. One I liked, the other I hated.</p>
<p>My observation is that there are some teachers who have idiosyncratic ideas about how to grade, and they they often do a disservice to their students. In the interest of being rigorous, or of providing a college-like experience, they grade harshly, or give very few grades, with the result that their students end up with diminished GPAs compared to other students taking the exact same course from a different teacher. When this is happening, I think it’s a failure of the head of the department and/or the principal to insist on consistency.
Even if they are able to learn material appropriate to a college level, high school students are not college students, and they need more feedback to understand if they are mastering the material. This is even more important in English, where there are subjective elements to a teacher’s expectations.</p>
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<p>Perhaps even more important, they continue to need feedback at this age in order to make sure that they are mastering the organizational, analytical and critical thinking skills that are needed not just in college but in order to be productive members of society. IMO, this should be one of the primary roles of our schools, and this aspect of schooling seems to get lost when the sole focus becomes testing and GPAs.</p>
<p>My observation is that there are some teachers who have idiosyncratic ideas about how to grade, and they they often do a disservice to their students. In the interest of being rigorous, or of providing a college-like experience, they grade harshly, or give very few grades, with the result that their students end up with diminished GPAs compared to other students taking the exact same course from a different teacher.</p>
<p>Every school has some of those. This year there are two pre-AP Algebra II teachers and one gives partial credit for answers and the other doesn’t. The kids with teacher B are all very aware that they’d have higher grades if they had teacher A. (Particulary hard for Daughter to handle since she agreed to move from teacher A’s class to teacher B’s to even out class sizes.) I guess you just hope that karma wortks and for every superhard grader your kid has, they get a coach who gives them an A if they show up and stay quiet.</p>
<p>What drives me nuts is when super-competitive kids in a magnet program class are told, “B is a good grade.” What planet are some of these teachers living on?</p>
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<p>Because there is a big difference between a senior in high school and a freshman in college??? Quit taking the kid by the hand and walking them through life.</p>
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<p>I believe that is uncalled for and an insult to some of the BEST teachers there are.</p>
<p>Since kids are preparing for college in high school, I think it is more beneficial for them to have more assignments checked and grades. That way they are less likely to get too far from the mark without being told. There are kids who don’t need this in high school, true, but it won’t hurt them. There are kids who do need this and not to have it can hurt them.</p>
<p>Sorry about the coach comment. I guess that of the coaches my kids have had, there was one coach who was a fabulous geomtry teacher. Last year, Daughter had the incredibly hard grading geometry teacher which was balanced out by the (coach) biology teacher who gave high grades for little work.</p>
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I have noted that people tend to increase in maturity as they get older, and that the transition from high school to college is a pretty big one. So, yes. High school students need more feedback, especially when it comes to their writing.</p>