As the end of the marking period gets closer and closer, teachers begin to hear a plethora of similar questions:
- Is there anything I can do to bring up my grade?
- Can I do some make-up work?
- Do you have any extra credit I can complete?
- What can “Johnny” do to pass your class?
As an educator, you are guaranteed to hear some form of this type of question from a percentage of your students and their parents. I must admit that I get a kick out of hearing the grading schemes that some teachers come up with. The amount of thought and effort that teachers use to assign point values or percentages is hysterical, yet we also sit around complaining about how much we hate that kids care more about their grade than what they learn in class. Ironic? Just as amusing is the way in which some go about “extra credit”.
Much debate goes into the whole “extra credit” mechanism and whether or not it is beneficial for students to have this opportunity. The problem with this debate, as with most debates in education, is that all “extra credit” gets lumped into one category and people automatically make assumptions as to whether or not the topic is good or bad rather than the assignment itself.
There is good extra credit and bad extra credit the same as any other assignments in schools. Students that complete extra credit and earn a higher grade simply because they are completing more worksheets or rewriting an essay are being cheated of their education and taught that it is important to earn high grades rather than academic achievement. Nor is it quality extra credit for a student to be asked to make-up previously missed assignments.
The extra credit assignment is a by-product of an entire marking period of academics and must be treated as such. Quality extra credit forces students to draw on the skills and content that they have utilized throughout the course of the marking period to create a product that is exemplary and shows higher-level thinking and cognitive development. Extra credit is also not a one-size-fits-all grade. Essentially, saying that “anyone who does the assignment gets ten extra credit points” teaches students that it doesn’t matter how much time and effort they put into the product so long as they finish it.
I know a lot of teachers who are huge fans of extra credit. I, for one, am not and rarely offer it to students for a variety of reasons. When I do, the assignment is challenging and provides an extension of what they have learned throughout the course of the year thus far. As the marking period comes to a close, I urge you to reconsider your extra credit assignments and how you assess them. Keep in mind that there is a reason why students complete extra credit, and “raising a grade” shouldn’t be one of them.
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I assign an extra credit assignment each week via my class newsletter, and it’s always germane to our learning (the students, in fact, often help me craft the assignment the week before).
For my class it’s pretty important that I offer extra credit since I don’t take any assignments late, at all, for any credit. While this seems harsh, guess what? Students get the work done. They don’t sit home and “work an angle” of how late they’ll turn in the assignment, based upon how many points they’ll lose.
The extra credit is the bone that I throw to both the students and their parents who will invariably ask, “But isn’t there a time when even the best student completes homework and then forgets it?” Yup, so do the extra credit and you’ll have that little bit extra for such a rainy day.
I would caution people to not eliminate extra credit all together. There are plenty of instances where something is happening outside of class that students can learn from and an assignment about it fits more in the extra credit genre.
I’d say extra credit should always be offered to ALL and not to just one or two failing students as a way out.
One great example coming up in my history class is the State of the Union address. It is always extra credit to take notes and write a summary in cornell format. The next day (as part of the extra credit) students have to stand before the class and share what they learned. Much better than having me just tell them about it. (did a similar thing with the many debates in 2008, 9/11 on the history channel each year, etc.)
David,
Thanks for your thoughts. Even though I do not usually offer extra credit there are instances, much like you describe above, where the extra credit is useful and necessary. My problem is when students are not required to complete assignments that are thought-provoking and require in-depth analysis. As teachers, we do have to meet the circumstances and needs of individual learners, which you have addressed. I just think that we need to rid ourselves of arbitrary extra credit and pressure from students and parents to offer extra credit at the end of a marking period simply because students want to raise their grade.
Extra credit must be viewed as a conscious process by the teacher (see Keith’s comment above) and not as a feeble attempt to justify a higher grade.
Thanks again for your thoughts!
Daivid said:
Why put the focus on scores, grades and the grade book? If there’s something worth learning about, why not just learn about it?
I’d much rather work on a culture of learning instead of a “this is worth learning, so do it for some points” mentality.
The whole idea of “extra credit” put the focus on points instead of learning.
Keith said:
If you assign them something, you have said that it is worth learning. If you don’t accept it after the date you have said it should be done, you’ve said the opposite: “if it’s not learned by the time I say it should be learned, it’s not worth learning.”
Possibly more details are needed to fully understand your system, but as it stands it puts points > learning.
You’re right, in your system extra credit is needed. But it’s a cyclical system. You’re just plugging the hole you’ve created by not accepting late work.
I hate dealing with extra credit. I rarely assign it either, and when I have this past semester my students put in less work than I did designing the assignment. Did not leave a good taste.
I would rather the student put the time and effort into actually catching up and preparing for the rest of the course. This might be more of a mathematics perspective, though, where cumulative knowledge tends to be more important than subjects which can be taught as discrete units.
Final exams tend to be worth a lot, so why shouldn’t the student just put the time into learning what the teacher intended to teach (which presumably the teacher thinks is important) and attempt to make it up there? I would rather negotiate a small change in how the overall average is weighted (eg make the final exam worth more if a student requests, make a major assignment worth more if requested) because this achieves the same goal as extra credit, but by recognizing the parts of the course that an individual student has done well on. Some may lack the discipline to keep up with assignments, but if they ace every test then it’s clear they’ve learned something. Similarly, the students whom I know work very hard to participate in class, complete every assignment on time but maybe are weaker testers can still receive credit for their strengths.
Were I still teaching, I’d probably introduce a sliding scale of weighted averages. The final exam must be worth at least 25% but no more than 50% of the final grade, for example. And, I’d let the students negotiate their specific weights with me, reevaluating and updating it as they learn about how they perform in my class. But again, as part of a math class, this would actually be quite an appropriate, ongoing exercise.
As a grade hater, I hate extra credit even more, especially the type that falls into the questions you ask above.
Here’s a corollary that I think applies here – what about giving more GPA points for taking advanced or AP courses? As a student I loved them. Once I graduated from HS and the extra points disappeared in college, I came to see them as just another byproduct of a screwed up system of rewards.