As you can see by the title of this post, the eighth graders are not the only students taking a Unit 3 Test this week. The seventh graders are also testing now So far, their scores for this test are not as polarized as the eighth graders'. Some of the eighth graders earn perfect scores while others must retake the test to get a barely passing score. But most of the seventh graders get B's and C's today Unfortunately, the Wi-Fi fails during the first period, preventing the eighth graders from finishing their tests today. The Wi-Fi is fixed in time for seventh graders to test during third period.
Today is the first of several meetings that I have in the next few days. For this first meeting, the entire math department meets with the principal and assistant principal to discuss our future goals. Apparently, the teachers will be evaluated on how well they meet their main stated goal -- reducing the number of students with D's or F's for the second quarter. The principal reassures me that only the regular teacher will be officially evaluated, not me. The other meetings coming up in the next few days involve certain special ed students.
Oh, and speaking of grades, the grading window has just opened for progress reports. Thus this week marks the end of the third quaver. Of course, the lion's share of the students' grades thus far is this week's Unit 3 Test. Meanwhile, I'm paying special attention to the marks for the eighth graders, due to the strange grade weighting in Canvas. One student has already turned one of her Edpuzzle assignments. It is automatically graded -- she earned 6/7, and so 85.7% appears in her grade -- under "Assignments." Thus, these Edpuzzles will make up the only part of the "Assignments" weighted category.
So this raises the question, should I include Edpuzzle in the third quaver progress reports? This is tricky, especially considering that the due date isn't until Monday. I'm leaning towards excluding Edpuzzle, since it's a Unit 4 introductory assignment (so that the third quaver corresponds directly to Unit 3). But one student has already submitted it, and it's already included in her grade. Fortunately, I think her grade will be a B with or without Edpuzzle, so it doesn't make much difference for her in particular.
The students who barely pass the Unit 3 Test might be hoping that I include Edpuzzle, since this could raise their grades. On the other hand, the students who ace the Unit 3 Test but forget to submit Edpuzzle will prefer that I not include the extra assignment. I don't like the fact that an assignment with a huge 30% swing in the grades (40% in fourth period!) is being given so close to progress report time -- and once again, I don't like how grade weighting works in Canvas and other programs. Here's my decision -- I will do the progress reports over the weekend, before Edpuzzle is due. If a few students do it early, hopefully it won't affect those students' grades too much.
Today I finally purchase some pies for third Pi Day -- some Moon Pies, on impulse. (I often consider November 10th to be third Pi Day, even in years such as this one when it is actually on the ninth.)
Tomorrow is Veteran's Day, and so there is no school and no post. And Thursday/Friday are my days for tweeting rather than blogging. So I'm done with the blog for the week -- I'll see you on Monday.
No comments:
Post a Comment