Students Get Another Chance with the Power of the I
By Felicia Barnett, Dr. Kipp Rogers, and Angela Seiders – Principals, NNPS
My deadline was when? How many of us have forgotten deadlines and received extensions and second chances from our bosses? When you forgot to turn in something, did your boss call and tell you that you couldn’t do it because it was too late? No, in all likelihood, you had additional time to complete the task. If you forget to pay your electric bill, does the electric company tell you that you can’t pay it and shut off our electricity? No, they grant you an extension, sometimes multiple extensions. So why, as educators, are we so reluctant to give kids a second chance? Give that zero! Shouldn’t our objective be to help students succeed?
Real situation: Middle school student struggles in Spanish class. Mom hires a tutor for the class. Student is doing better. Student is nervous about taking the test. He takes the test. Realizes a few minutes after giving the test to the teacher he thinks he missed a page. He asks teacher if he could have the test back because he thinks he missed a page. Teacher tells student, “No, you did miss the page, and you can’t have it back.” Student gets a D on the test. Mom has to email the teacher about the test. Teacher tells the parent he can’t retake it. Mom calls the assistant principal for help. Luckily, assistant principal decides to let student retake the test. What message did we send to this student? Is all this really necessary? What about the student that has no one to call on his behalf? I guess that student would have failed.
For 21st Century Learners it is so it is easy to take a zero. The student gets out of doing work, and the teacher doesn’t have to grade it. WOW! Getting a zero makes everyone’s life so easy. Is that the message we want to send to our students? If Harvard University and Yale give students the Power of the I- why isn’t it good enough for our students?
Knowing that students who struggle in the classroom and fall behind academically are more likely to drop out of school in the future, many schools are testing a policy in which students would receive an “I” (incomplete) for work that was not turned in or did not meet the standards. The idea is to give students extra time and extra help to improve their achievement.
The success of the Power of the I stems from faculty buy-in. Most schools have teachers pilot the program and then report out the results. The entire faculty would need to understand the rationale and full implementation. Obviously, educators would need administrative support for the change.
Once a student receives an “I” on a report card, they have two weeks from the end of the grading period to be retaught and to redo the work. If the student does not redo the work, the grade defaults to a “D” or an “F”.
Schools that provide a pyramid of interventions to assist its students in meeting standards are most successful with the Power of the I.
Some school wide interventions are as follows:
•Teachers post missing assignments in the classroom or on www.engrade.com so students will know what they need to complete. The assignments are posted by student ID number, rather than by name, to ensure anonymity.
•Schools provide an after- school tutoring program. The schedule is posted online for students and parents will know when and where help is available.
•School leaders and teachers talk individually with students who are falling behind. Students seriously at risk in failing must meet with an audit team consisting of the principal, the guidance counselor, and a teacher. Team members use an intervention tracking sheet to guide the discussion and to formulate a plan of action for the student.
The effectiveness of the Power of the I policy obviously increases student performance if implemented correctly. The importance of the Power of the I grading policy is in helping students meet standards and not allowing students to settle for a zero or an F. The whole purpose is to help students learn and to hold them accountable for their own learning. At the end of the day, isn’t that why we all became educators?
May 7th, 2009 at 6:57 am
I understand the rationale behind the Power of I however, how many second and multiple choices should we give the students? If they are repeat offenders, every 9 weeks, are we really doing the students any good?
May 7th, 2009 at 7:04 am
What happens at the end of the year? Will this require that teachers work an extra two weeks to facilitate the ‘I’? There are deadlines with penalties in real life. The work is not done on time…you are fired. You do not pay a bill on time or your taxes on time…there is a penalty with extra charges. Learning is happening when students are accountable. Special cases will always pop up and will need to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.
May 7th, 2009 at 7:18 am
The “Power of I” is just another wonderful step implementing our understanding that we all learn at different paces and need different supports. True, there are times when the question must be called and deadlines must be final. These situations are in reality very few and far between. Restesting, trying again, coming at it another way, NOT GIVING UP are valuable human characteristics. Of course educators need to model and exemplify this kind of grace in our everyday operations!
We also need to apply this grace in regards to behavior problems – which are also errors in learning.
May 7th, 2009 at 7:18 am
I use the power of the “I” in my classroom and it works great. The students know that if they receive an “I” on their report card that they did not meet my expectations. It isn’t all about missing work it also about the quality of the work. The “I” really raises the bar. It also gets parents more involved in their students school work. If a student gets a “D” or a “F” on their report card the parents see it as a final grade and the only thing they can do at that point is tell their child to do better or blame the teacher for giving the child a bad grade. If a parent see’s an “I” on the report card they get upset with the student and ask the student why they did not turn in all of their work. Teachers are often concerned about a student not doing any work all quarter and then on the very last posible day turning in every assignment. That just simply does not happen. Students use the “I” to get a project completed or redo an assignment that they could have done better on during the marking period. As far as holding students accountable this is reality. I have missed deadlines and have had to redo work for my boss. We are all only human and we can all benefit from the power of the “I”
May 7th, 2009 at 7:31 am
The I has no “Power”. Students who are going to make up missing work or redo a test or assignment will already have done so. The students with poor grades and attitudes are not swayed because you gave them and I instead of an F. They will also be the adults who bounce from job to job and blame someone else.because they keep getting fired or passed over for promotions and raises. One of the biggest problems in education is no consequences for actions. Ignore deadlines and the rules and get a thousand and one chances so we do not harm their self esteem. We are creating another generation of gimme, gimme, gimme citizens. Where does it stop? When do you have to accept consequences for your actions? When do we expect more from students than just being there? I realize this sounds very pessimistic, but I have 20 years of experience at a variety of locations. This is just wrong except for special circumstances. You are violating the policies of NNPS (all makeup work is due within 5 days of an absence).
May 7th, 2009 at 7:38 am
If we continue to grant students extensions, they will get farther and farther behind and become complacent in getting assignments completed. Comparing college students to middle schoolers is a little farfetched due to the difference in maturity levels and work loads. Most middle schoolers lack the organizational and study skills to go back and make up missed work, especially since we are forced into semester like classes for science and social studies that move very rapidly and pacing guides in all subjects that give limited time to teach each topic. If a student misses class or the assignment, we are off to the next topic and the missing work is quickly forgotten. We all have to be accountable and that includes the students and their parents. So many of our students come with an attitude of entitlement and that carries into the classroom. As educators, we shouldn’t encourage entitlement but rather responsibility. One’s actions come with consequences.
May 7th, 2009 at 7:51 am
I think it’s true that actions come with consequences. If you don’t do your work in my classroom, you don’t get off with just a 0 or an F. At the elementary level at least, teachers have a little more leeway because we have the kids all day long. Didn’t do your homework? You can do it during silent lunch. Or maybe you should miss out on math centers until it’s done (the worst thing in the world for my kids is to miss out on math centers). Maybe you don’t get to play with the Clickers today while the rest of us do, or maybe you don’t get to work on the sculpture project with the rest of your team. If you aren’t going to do the mundane stuff at home, or if you’re not going to do your work correctly the first time around, you ARE going to redo it, and you ARE going to msis out on more fun things.
I rarely have students who don’t get their work done after the first time or two they are excluded from doing the fun activities we have in the classroom.
May 7th, 2009 at 7:53 am
FINALLY! Some of our educators are ‘getting it right’. Still too many are out for the “gotcha moment” rather than the teachable moment. I do see it changing, even with regards to teaching behavior. I hear folks talk about the way the ‘real world’ works when in reality most educators do not fully know how the ‘real world’ does work because we have not been in the real word for a long time. No, you do not ‘get fired’ because you did not do something right once or twice. Your boss works with you to correct the mistake. The real cost of firing someone for making a mistake is too costly. Of course there is and always will be that definitive moment but this is the only time in the life of a person when he/she is expected to learn at the same pace as another. Recently I became a member of Facebook and have received contacts from 179 former students. At least half of these “kids” did not take school seriously. They were typical teenagers; fooled around often and frequently had grades far below expectations. Well, to a person, they are now very successful in their chosen careers. They are doctors, lawyers, magazine editors, airline pilots, moms and dads…the list goes on.
Many of these students were former athletes, football players in fact. They went to practice every day to improve…some days they did and some days they did not. Some games they won and some they lost. They were always given another chance to get better. Sometimes in fact they did get better but still lost…the bottom line is they always continued to try to learn because they were given the chance to do so…they knew they got an I and could work more for a “chance to get better”.
At the end of the day our objective needs to be TEACHING AND LEARNING. If giving a student an I is the solution to a child getting an extra chance or opportunity to learn and achieve I believe then and only then can we call ourselves true teachers.
May 7th, 2009 at 7:58 am
While I know many of us accept change reluctantly, this concept allows us to truly grade for learning. Our goal, as educators, should be to ensure that we teach our students and assess what they have learned. We do support students in developing work habits, but their grades should reflect learning. At the Virginia ASCD conference last fall, I attended a session presented by representatives from a middle school that decided to implement a “grade for learning” policy. I was truly impressed with the progress their students made after they adopted this “student first” position.
May 7th, 2009 at 8:01 am
Wow,
I read some of thes additional posts when writing my own and I feel for you. Working some extra time so a child can learn; heaven forbid! Entitlement! Excuse me but most kids do not even know what this means…Please never make a mistake or mis understand something or live in a house where things may be so chaotic you could not do homework even if you wanted to…or watch your parents go through a divorce, or see a parent die or get carted off to jail… just teach, test, grade and go home. I’m sure things will change for our profession
May 7th, 2009 at 8:21 am
Does the power of “I” work? Since we are such great data collectors why are we not compiling the data on the “power” of “I”? I have my data and i would love to share. The first 9 weeks i gave out 21 I’s. I got 16 students to make up the work they were missing. 2nd 9 weeks i had 11 I’s, 4 students made up that work. The 3rd 9weeks i had 11 I’s…not one student has made up that work. WHat happened to the students that didn’t do the work?…nothing…The thing that bothers me is that the same students who received an i for the 2nd 9 weeks did not learn their lesson and are still following the same path…what exactly are they learning? The guidelines for I’s need to be set in stone and followed by all. The following questions should be asked and decided opon by each school…
1. What constitutes an “I”? low grades? missing work? absence?
2. How many I’s can you get a year? how many chances?
3. Should I’s be given on interims?
4. Where should make up work be done?
5. Should we require that parents sign a contract informing them of the “I” and what their role should be?
6. should make up work be the actual missed work or an extension activity…most stuff missed is way over due and doing it does not really serve a purpose…
7. how are we grading? Why are these students failing, should a student be able to fail if they did not do any homework? not according to NNPS…
8. Should 8th graders have fewer chances than a 6th grader? Remember there is no power of “I” in high school.
8. What role do we want the “I ” to have?
Just sending an email to teachers telling the to not put D’s or F’s is not the way to get people on board…
Teachers are not dumb, we are in the class with these students everyday, we know what students know and what they do not. How can we keep giving chances to pass the class when they haven’t shown any motivation all year. For example I have 4 students that have not passed an SOL EVER! They finished last year with all D’s and F’s…They have received an I every marking period and I have busted my bust off during lunch and during my planning to ensure that their grade is up…who is working hard? Me or them? They still do not get it but they have completed enough work to pull their grade up to a 73.5…they feel safe and think they are fine, only to quickly dip back down into the D range and to start the process over again…
The power of “I” could work but right now it is just tires spinning on wet concrete…nobody is happy about the I’s the way they are…implement the I? Sure but we must have a set in stone process.
May 7th, 2009 at 8:25 am
Sorry for being a realist when it comes to my profession (which I love Mike). I have lived through all of what you listed before I was 18, some before I was 10. I am not saying we should not help our students achieve academically, socially, or even in the future professionally. You are correct in your statement that the majority of our students will become successful later in life. I too have students who have come back into my life to show what they have become (most teachers have). How did that occur if our system of accountability is so messed up? The “Power of I” is just one more way to water down responsibility. How about we grade on a 5 point scale with no 0 or even give every assignment at least a 50 (again with no 0). I know, lets only record grades aa a 64 (an F is an F right). Now I can pass a class by completing 1 assignment above that. Be real
May 7th, 2009 at 8:58 am
Several years ago, the staff at a middle school in which I was working decided that kids needed to have second chances to redo tests and make up assignments. The most immediate result of that policy was that students did little or no preparation or studying for tests. Nearly all failed their first attempts, because they waited to see what was on the test and just studied that material. The teachers were then obligated to create another version of each test. A large percentage of the students failed that test, too, knowing they could retest again. Teachers were also obligated to reteach the material to be tested. After just a few rounds of this, the teachers realized that no one was really benefitting. We were just teaching the kids to be procrastinators. Now, working in a high school, I see masses of kids who have no appreciation of deadlines. Unfortunately, many have missed out on scholarships or college opportunities because they assumed every deadline was only a suggestion. We work much harder than most of them do, reminding, prodding, urging them to finish things and submit them. We’ve done them no favors encouraging inattentiveness and dawdling.
May 7th, 2009 at 8:59 am
While this strategy has greater relevance for secondary students, we face similar challenges at the elementary level. Unfortunately, we tend to use retention rather than intervention for those students whose delays or difficulties do not meet eligibility requirements for special services. In addition, at the primary level, we have many who lack the social maturity skills to meet grade level expectations for attention and focus. The “power of i” intervention, like all interventions, requires teacher management and focus on individual student data. Reteaching deprives successful/on-benchmark students of instructional time. A solution to the dilemma of equitable distribuion of instructional resources (i.e., time) is management of group size (i.e., reduced class sizes). This is ultimately a state-level budget issue.
May 7th, 2009 at 9:20 am
In the early days of my career I used F’s and zeroes quite liberally. If work was done poorly or not at all, I felt I was justified in posting those grades.
Later on, I began keeping an assignment log on a bulletin board. It was here that I noted each day’s assignment(s) for my students who might have been absent. All a student had to do was look at the log and ask me for any worksheets or directions.
Toward the end of my career I copied a colleague’s idea and used an absentee notebook. Each day I would take roll for each class, write down the names of those who were absent, and summarize the lesson for the day. If worksheets or handouts were given, I’d even write the student’s name on them and place them in the notebook. It was up to the student to check the notebook following his/her return to school and then touch base with me for a due date. At the end of the 9 weeks the notebook was purged and started all over again. This was a great tool when parents came in to discuss grades. I had evidence of the student’s absence as well as all the work that had never been completed.
The result: Diligent students followed through, but most did not. I put a lot of work into a system that didn’t yield the results I had intended. What more would you have me do? As far as I was concerned, the students who failed to complete work did not deserve an “I”. They made the choice not to care about the work they had missed, even after I made it as easy as possible to keep up.
Sorry, but the “Power of I” doesn’t fly with me.
May 7th, 2009 at 10:51 am
There is no ‘easy solution’ or one size fits all in teaching and learning. This is the most difficult job in America. The “I” provides opportunity. Of course at that point it is up to the child to take advantage of the opportunity with the instructor’s assistance. We have a 25 minute “INTERACT” period, 4 days per week when all our classes stop and students can go see any theacher they have for ‘extra help’. We also have extra help sessions every Tues-Fri after school for 45 minutes. We advertise this to students and their parents and provide this opportunity for learning, make up work, etc because we understand that there are numerous reasons to do so …The BEAUTIFUL thing is NOT ONE STUDENT AND NOT ONE PARENT (since we instituted this 4 years ago)EVER CLAIMS THAT WE DO NOT PROVIDE A TIME, A PLACE, OR A PERSON TO FACILITATE TEACHING AND LEARNING FOR THEIR CHILD TO BE SUCCESSFUL. ALSO, NO ONE ARGUES WITH A POOR GRADE. Everyone realizes this is a partnership and learning for some takes a little extra time and or effort. We do not have to worry about giving “I” too often because of this. WE PROVIDE A CHILD A CHOICE AND WE ‘HONOR THAT CHOICE’. We document who comes to the daily help sessions and also who we invite to these sessions should they not voluteer to do so. Give it a try!
May 7th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
I would like to quote a teacher I used to work with who was trying to explain to a parent exactly why her son was failing chemistry. “You can lead a horse to water. You can teach that horse the molecular structure of the water. You can point out the many uses for water. You can purify and chill the water. You can put the water in a gold-plated trough. None of this means you can make the horse drink the water.” We have to ask ourselves as educators, what is it exactly that we want our students to learn? Do we want our students to learn that there are consequences to choices and actions? Do we want our students to learn that not choosing and not acting are, in fact, choices and actions? Do we want our students to learn that responsibility matters? Or would we prefer for our students to learn that the last minute is the only one that matters, deadlines can and must be moved, and that you always get your way if your tantrum is loud and long enough? I recently gave a test where the highest score was a 74%. I told my students (after returning the tests) that they could retake them. I have had 3 students take me up on that offer. The others have until tomorrow. I’m not saying that students never deserve a second chance, but I am saying that we must be aware of what we are really teaching them when there is always a second (third, fourth, fifth) chance.
May 8th, 2009 at 6:06 am
I am all for the Power of I – but I don’t feel like I should put in grades where students haven’t even tried to submit work. I would have allowed the student to have the test back – it doesn’t make sense to me why he couldn’t have it back, unless he looked at his textbook after turning in the test and realized that he’d missed some questions.
I don’t usually put an I into the grade book – I think it’s better for parents to see the “real” current grade and know the implications of where the child is currently headed – also, it allows for some “fire” under the student to get in some owed work.
I know that it’s nearly impossible to get out from under zeros, but I also give lots of opportunities to get in grades – I’ll pretty much accept them at any time. I don’t have a problem with doing that and don’t really see why anyone should – but I respect the fact that some teachers do – and those teachers are always CLEAR with students regarding how late they’ll accept work.
I am also in favor of what one of our Math 8 teachers does – she has students retake the test until they can demonstrate mastery. The kids’ grades obviously come up, and the kid KNOWS that he/she can do the work; even if it takes a couple of times to do so.
JLS
May 8th, 2009 at 9:58 am
No matter how hard we strive to do well in school, sometimes life gets in the way… When I was working on my second masters degree, my brother died very suddenly. I had a major project due the following month that was worth about 60% of my grade. I had a solid “A” up to that point, and had no intention of doing poorly on that project. However, everything changed with the death of my brother, and other concerns took priority. The professor was gracious enough to give me an incomplete instead of a failing grade, and granted an extension. The extra month made all the difference. The “Incomplete” made it possible for me to finish and submit the project, learn the intended content for that course, and keep my “A” in the class. Without the power of that “I,” it is certain that I would have failed the class and put the completion of my degree in jeopardy.
May 14th, 2009 at 8:35 am
I believe the entire problem with our system is it is based on “time”. This time constraint then puts us, teachers and administrators, between a rock and a hard place regarding issuing student grades. The time one spends in a seat has nothing to do with what your brain learns. Student progress will be limited and few problems will be solved should we continue to treat all learning for all children the same. Many children need more time and many need less time to learn. When will we decide to switch to a knowledge based outcome that is not tied into a specific time-frame? We are educating our children in a system created in a different time and for a different purpose yet we now believe we are becoming 21st century educators…REALLY??? We need to teach our children how to access information in order to solve problems. How many of our students drop out because they are bored or just plain not interested in this or that subject matter? If a student can master a curriculum or skill-set in 9 weeks instead of 18 weeks why do we not allow that? Does it truly take all students four years to complete 22 high school credits? On the other hand it can take a student four and a half years to do so; however, then he/she does not count towards a cohort group which the penalizes the school. How ludicrous! How and why do we as educators allow non-educators (politicians) to dictate this type of policy to us? When will we take a stand and simply focus on the individual child and base his/her success on acquiring knowledge even if it takes a little more time. I believe if the ’system’ was changed many educators would have less of a problem issuing any grades, including I’s