Listen to Your Students
Listen to them, and take their ideas into consideration. Don't just ignore requests and tell them, "It's my way, deal with it." This is a paraphrase of what happened yesterday:
(Note: S# stands for student)
S1: "Okay, so I have a proposition."
Me: "Go ahead."
S1: "OK, so...you know how tests are cumulative but we forget things? How about you do cumulative quizzes every week instead, and make the test just for that chapter or section."
S2: "No, because what if we fail the quizzes?"
Me: "Well, I always go over them, you know that."
S1: "And it wouldn't matter since it would come up more often, and we'd get more grades. So the one failure wouldn't even count."
Me: "That wouldn't mean you wouldn't have quizzes on the material we're learning."
S1: "No, I know. But I still think it would help us."
Me: "We'll try it in January."
S2: "OK, trial. But if it doesn't work, can it stop?"
Me: "We'll start this in January, but I do think it's a good idea."
And I do think it's a good idea - for all my classes!
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