Discipline & Grading

[bina1357]

Hi everyone,

I have a 2 part issue. I'm kinda embarrassed to be asking for advice on these as I have 7 years under my belt. I'm looking to revamp somethings in my class & would love some tips.

Part 1 is discipline: My principal is discouraging us from using discipline plans that require steps (or moving cards, etc) she also doesn't feel that Make Your Day is quite the best either. We also do not have a school wide discipline plan. Only infractions such as fighting, damaging property, etc should be sent up to the office. I'm looking for a program, or tips on what to do w/kids who don't do HW, talk during class, call kids names, etc without having to give up my lunch hours (I do have lunch duty) and without having "warnings". Oh, we are adopting the Love & Logic approach.

Part 2 is grading: I am finishing my 7th year yet I still spend hours each week grading. I work til 5 or 6 & still take grading home at night & weekends. I'm so tired of it. My principal said there must be something wrong in the assignemnts I give. For Spelling it is the regular 3 x each, sentences, worksheets, then tests. In Reading it is graphic organizers, worksheets, questions, and tests. In Science it is mostly worksheets, experiments, tests. Social studies it is graphic org., worksheets, quizzes, questions, tests. In Writing it is essays. Math it is pages from the book, worksheets, quizzes, tests.

My principal suggested doing more project based assignments. But those take forever to grade too. She also said that I should use more rubric based projects. But my experience w/rubrics is that grades come out way lower than what would be expected.

Anyhow, if you have any advice to give about these topics I'd love to hear about it.

[javamomma]

part #1: Why does your principal want to do away with the cards or other systems? Does he/she feel that they interfere with Love and Logic? I am a L&L teacher in a L&L school and we each use some sort of accountability system with our students. It also helps us to keep behavior grades fair.
Check out http://www.loveandlogicforum.com/
I do reward groups of students daily/weekly with dollars. The table with the most at the end of the day gets a small treat and the end of the week gets a bigger one. They can also lose bucks when they dont have homework, need a replacement spelling list or fluency passage.


Part # 2: grading
Many times with spelling 3x's each or other type practice, I put a star or stamp showing I have looked at the work but it does not have a physical grade attatched. With math and reading worksheets, we do a lot of student self grading (if it is not going to be a grade in the gradebook). I do several "Teaches" on how to grade a paper. I take them up and look at them and then they are filed in the student's mailboxes to go home. Your math practice from the book should be graded by the students as well. They can see how they did before moving on to the actual graded practice.
HOw many grades do you take a week? We are required to take 2 a week per subject.


Hope this helps some!

[nancyosu]

I teach 5th grade and we don't have a reward system. We have a home communication page that we fill out with good and bad comments. Parents sign this weekly so that they are aware if something minor happened at school that week.
We do love and logic at our school. I know in our younger grades like K-2 they have fake money that they give for good behavior and is taken away for not following rules of school or class. At the end of the week, the teacher opens her little store and they can buy things, or they save there money till the end of the year and have a big sale from things donated or collected throughout the year.
We have started grading things in class. We feel it helps the kids to know immediately what they got wrong as well as giving you a teaching opportunity to reinforce what you taught the day before. They grade their own paper and return once they put how many missed. We (teachers) put a number grade to it and then return it to the child's mailbox. Hope this helps!