I've taught no new material in my statistics classes this month. I've devoted the month mostly to review, with a lot of emphasis on doing statistics on an advanced calculator. The days of using tables are over for my students, and this month they've honed their skills on the ancient-but-still-useful TI-83 (yes, I'd prefer 84's, but at over $100 apiece...).
Today was the TI-83 Quiz, the last graded exercise prior to the final exam. It was the last chance my students had prior to the final exam to test their knowledge under exam conditions. One student said to me that this quiz was the most important quiz of his high school career. Why, you might ask?
I excuse from taking the final those students who have 97% or above going into the final. This student had 97.3% going into this quiz. This quiz was the decider.
He will not be taking the final exam :-)
wow...I thought I was the only one that had that rule in place. 97% or higher no final. Some of the other math teacher look at me like I am crazy. Are you the only one doing this or is it like an unwritten rule?
ReplyDeleteMy kid took his last graded math test about two weeks ago. School doesn't end for another two weeks. I'm still shaking my head at that one.
ReplyDeleteI think it's because seniors do a three-week project before graduation and pretty much disappear from campus for the last month, and the class is designed for both 11th and 12 grade. His school also believes that finals are too high pressure. Shaking my head hard at that one.
It's too bad too, since he bombed one test and could use one more grade to pull it back up.
A great motivator! I never heard of that happening in any HS (60s) but it wasn’t uncommon in college. Taking one less final was huge!
ReplyDeleteI'm the only teacher I know of who does that.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, my classes are known for rigor. A student who scores 97+% has done an *exceptional* job.