Did you know that you can set reasonable deadlines for submissions and assessment retakes in your classroom? Granite School District has a Student Bill of Rights and Responsibilities. One of the responsibilities is, “honor your teachers’ deadlines for submissions and reassessments and to take advantage of reassessment opportunities." For so long it has felt that teachers should give students umpteen chances and the deadline of the end of the term to get things done.
It is reasonable to have set deadlines, and to follow them. Deadlines happen in life and students need to learn how to navigate them. Having deadlines helps students to manage their time as they work: almost like a training mechanism for the brain as they set up time lines and work flows. Self esteem can be improved with deadlines because when students manage their time well their grades will be better than if they had not. With good grades often comes specific praise for doing what is expected. Structure and praise help our students to produce more of what is necessary to be successful in class.
As educators know the mad dash at the end of a grading term can be frustrating as it seems students turn in work willy nilly to try to “bring up their grades.” Many teachers feel compelled to spend up until the last possible minute grading these assignments. Deadlines will ensure there is less scrambling at the end of the grading period in turn giving educators a more manageable workload. The work will be more meaningful to both students and teachers ensuring more learning will take place in your classrooms as deadlines become common place.
Deadlines for reassessment must be reasonable, clearly communicated, and have some way in which a student can prepare for reassessment. For example, you could let students know that after they have received feedback from you, they have x number of days to complete some relearning activities. Relearning can include, but is not limited to completing missing assignments, test corrections, redoing low scoring assignments, small group reteach, etc. Once evidence of relearning has taken place then a reassessment should be given within a certain timeframe.
Please keep in mind that your professional judgement as an educator is important in determining proficiency of a standard. Our gradebook can calculate proficiency, but grading is both art and science, so please keep this formula handy when determining proficiency under PBL: MODE + RECENCY + PROFESSIONAL JUDGEMENT. (See the District’s February 2021 PBL Points newsletter for more information).