Are you seeing falling grades yet? A natural reaction to this is disappointment and a spike in anxiety with a sprinkle of frustration. We've all been there.
We need to help our struggling students monitor their grades, but catching academic mistakes can feel a lot like catching poor behavior. Cue the hurt feelings and arguing.
This semester, let's approach reviewing grades with less conflict. Wouldn't that be nice?
This time, it's not about discipline, it will be about teamwork.
We can embrace the mistakes and use them to teach some much needed life skills. We don't want to avoid the struggle, after all, that is where the learning happens. We want our kids to learn the benefits of acknowledging mistakes and problem solving the fix. Approaching the grade report using the steps below allows us to role model this.
First off, let’s keep some important truths in mind:
The grade report is not accurate, up to date, nor dependable. Let's face it, the grade report is an ever changing, delayed report of the teacher’s records. We NEED our kids to fill in the missing information, before we truly have the whole picture. To do that, we have to collaborate with them.
The grade report is not a full report of your student’s efforts, progress, or abilities. Grades are certainly not a measure of our student's potential, nor a window to their future. You know this, because you have all the talents and skills they have, that won’t ever be recognized on a grade report.
Any issues on the grade report, are fixable problems, and a rich opportunity for learning some extremely valuable life skills.
Us vs. It… Rather Than…Me vs. You
Possibly the hardest part of this approach is the mindset shift. Here are a few steps you can take to position yourself into the right headspace for a productive conversation.
Shifting your focus towards fact checking the grade report, rather than fact checking your student brings the focus less on what the student did right or wrong, and more on repairing the problem areas.
Remind yourself, this is about building life skills, not discipline. Now your primary objective is to help, not necessarily discipline. Not even motivate (not in this conversation, anyway).
We convert the mistakes into opportunities to position us and our struggling students onto a collaborative team. This collaborative stance opens opportunity to teach some very helpful life skills, such as:
Setting aside time to check for mistakes and make plans. A much. needed life skill for anyone with executive function challenges.
Maintaining a running log, which is essential when life's tasks begin to build and forgotten.
Advocating for ourselves, by being honest about our struggle and needs from others.
Grade Report Meeting Print & Prep
Set a day. This conversation works best, when your student knows it’s coming, and even better if it’s a weekly ritual. Give your student a heads up that you’ll be meeting about grades, every week, on that certain day. You will get push back. Expect it and move on. There is no need for arguing back or convincing your student, because it wasn’t really a negotiable request in the first place.
Print the entire grade report, every week. The grade report is ever changing, and it becomes really handy to see what changed week to week. You’ll have a running log of which assignments you talked about already, and which items have been a lingering problem for a long time.
Review the printed report, before you meet. This is a good time to allow your initial reaction to happen, away from your struggling student.
While you review the report, keep in mind…
This report is NOT the whole picture.
This is a report of assignments that happened a week (or more) ago.
High points does not mean harder work. A five point assignment might have taken three hours to complete.
“Missing” doesn’t actually mean missing. It may be in the backpack, or even handed in and waiting to be graded.
Highlight anything that looks like a good job. This will help to remind you of the most important first step…to acknowledge the good deeds, before the problem areas.
Mark the problem areas or assignments which you have... um, "questions", with a small dot.
Now you’re ready to have a very different kind of meeting about the grades. I would suggest sweetening the deal with a snack, or even going out for a meal while talking things over.
Don’t forget that very important first step, to point out the good work and positive effort first.
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