Communication
This is my first post to the blog in a while, so I want to apologize to the parents I have left in the dark. The students have been transitioning to using notebooks and Google Classroom for keeping track of work. As the students learned these new tools, I did want them learn to use the notebook and Classroom for information. With these tools mastered, and to make sure everyone knows what is going on, I will go back to posting regularly here.
As always if you have any questions for me, please send me an email (gofft@dearbornschools.org).
Grades
As this first card marking ends, students have begun to worry about grades again. It makes me sad that this concern is not more evenly distributed throughout the term, but I guess we have to live with that. On that note, many students are concerned because grades are much lower than they expect or are used to. This drop in scores is due to a few things.
- Chemistry is a cumulative subject, and many students are struggling to remember content from first semester.
- I have begun to expect students to figure out more connections between ideas, and this is extremely difficult at first. I am giving students fewer answers than before and expecting them to come up with more answers on their own.
With these higher expectations in semester 2, grades tend to drop and that is OK. There is still plenty of time to fix this for the semester (this card marking is over, but it does not affect GPAs).
Remember, students can always recover from a bad test or missed work in my class. The only requirement is that they do the work. The longer a student waits to make up work or come in for help, the more difficult it is.