Extra Credit

Generally, I am not a believer in extra credit. I feel the grade a student receives is the grade he/she earned and that is how I am going to run my classroom. Students get what they put into my class and they know where they stand with their grades. However, I recently graded a few tests and quizzes from my 8th grade and after looking at the scores and review the difficulty, I decided that what I was asking of them for these two assessments was a little too much. I had given them two rather difficult assessments, not taking into account the difference in their ability and mine.

In order to fix this, I decided to give them the option of correcting their mistakes on the one quiz and give it back to me 4 days later for half credit. I figured this would be a great way for them to learn what they did wrong and also get a few points back. I also decided to actually give them extra credit. If they searched the Internet for powerpoints on the subject and sent them to me, I told them I would give them 5 bonus points.

Surprisingly (or maybe not so surprisingly) the number of students who took advantage of these opportunities was rather low. I would about 25% of the students took advantage of the quiz corrections option and only 3 out of the 20 took advantage of the extra credit option. I was rather shocked because I wasn't actually asking them to create a powerpoint, I just wanted them to find one that was already created and send it to me.

Shockingly, when we had our next quiz, some of the students who did poorly on that one were asking if the could correct their mistakes for half credit. I told them know because not enough people took advantage of my generosity the first time and I see no need to help them out again if they aren't willing to work a little to improve their grade. Give them a little and they want to take a lot. Then they complain when the option is no longer available, the same option they didn't take advantage of in the first place.

I was a little bothered by the participation in these activities.

Aaron