Preventing Student Failure By MEAEC-it-Happen Part 2!

Part 2: Practical Failure Prevention Grading Strategy Example: MEAEC-It-Happen! Ensuring ALL Student Work IS Essential

In my first post on the topic of using MEAEC-It-Happen as a failure prevention strategy aligned with the SI²TE Model , I highlighted the important reasons teachers must ensure that all student work must allow them to collect essential and critical evidence of student learning—not ever fluff work simply for students to complete. This is especially vital when students are in a make-up or failure prevention situation.

MEAEC stands for:

M-Missing

E-Essential

A-Assignments / Assessments

E-Extended

C-Chance

The key word is ESSENTIAL—where any & ALL student work (especially make-up or missed assignments, tasks, etc.) is aligned to what their current learning needs are—not simply tasks previously assigned by the teacher.

Putting ZAPs on Steroids

Many middle & high schools have implemented ZAP (zeros aren’t permitted) practices. The basic concept of a ZAP is to prevent students from simply not completing required work & taking a zero in the grade book. The intent of schools executing ZAP practices is to ensure student do not get so far behind in learning (& grading) early in a marking period or semester–& thus is a worthwhile invest of time and energy. Schools implementing ZAPs often designate a specific time during the school day or after school & location for students to complete missing work. Even a few zeros often ensure the likelihood that student may fail a course (Nagel, 2015, p. 110). Many school make creative use of their schedule & utilize lunch-periods, study halls, etc. to provide students time to have a forced choice to complete missing work before the mountain gets to big.

Huge Effort-But Often Low Pay Off

Many school do not realize that all of their effort in tracking down students, nagging them at times to them complete missing work / tasks—etc., could prove to be futile & even detrimental to learning. This happens when students are asked to complete work simply for the sake for it being ‘checked’ off (so points or marks can be added into the grade-book). If this happens and students don’t receive any feedback, they will often do their very best to do the very least to complete the work with quality. This perpetuates poor work habits, leads to them applying less effort on future tasks, and actually inhibits prevents learning because of a lack of deliberate practice. These are all student habits teachers despise the most. In addition, if students are asked to complete missing work from previous units (perhaps 2-3 weeks prior), when they have moved onto to new learning, it actually pulls them away from being engaged with current content.

IMPORTANT FOOTNOTE—The averaging of grades and use of zeros should be avoided completely. This is not in anyway advocating that practice. In an upcoming post I will address the need to eradicate the average once and for all as a means to decrease failure and increase the quantity & quality of standards –referenced grading.

MEAEC: Filter for Teacher Decision Making

The 2^nd “E”—in the acronym stands for ESSENTIAL. Teachers must ensure any work or tasks they assign are directly aligned to students’ next learning step(s). This is especially important in a make-up/missing work situation. Far too ZAPs focus on having students simply complete recently missed homework tasks–whether from night before or three weeks previous. Using MEAEC as a filter for determining what tasks are essential for their students to complete, still helps PLCs & individual teachers in preventing their students from getting too far behind in learning and progress towards expected objectives. It’s a different spin on a common sentiment: The penalty for not doing the work—is DOING the RIGHT work….

Middle School Science Example

Mrs. Flynn, an 8^th science grade teacher at South-Middle School noticed that James had several missing assignments / tasks in her grade book which was lowering his current grade. When she examined which tasks were missing it was clear to her that none of them were relevant to James’ current learning needs. The class had moved on to new topics and James was doing fairly well in their current unit on weather, but certainly could use some additional practice in determining air temperature at different elevations. Mrs. Flynn knew that having James complete missing work from topics and content completely unrelated to their weather unit would not only pull him away from learning the new content, he would likely be indifferent and completely haphazardly just to get it done. The following week, Mrs. Flynn and her fellow science teachers were planning an Amnesty Day for students to get caught up in their learning. Instead of having James complete work from the period table & rock cycle units, she provided him specific tasks to practice solving weather problems that were aligned to his current learning needs. (See figure 1)

Figure 1:

MEAECs Actually Do Teach Responsibility

Some worry when students are allowed to make up tasks this doesn’t prepare them for the real world. That is far from the truth. Credit card bills don’t go away if we choose not to pay them. (Wouldn’t it be nice if the IRS didn’t accept ‘work’ from taxpayers after their April 15^th deadline?)

MEAECs teach students the valuable life lesson that work / tasks do not go away by just ignoring them. Yes, sometimes (and perhaps more than sometimes), middle & high school students are far from exemplars in time management (just like their adult counterparts!) However, many students simply need additional time and support to grasp the necessary concepts and complete work. When MEAECs allow or insist that students reattempt essential assignments that were either too difficult because of content or too big to squeeze in because of other obligations, students have a better chance to develop perseverance and prioritization (Nagel, 2015, p.113)

Summary

Schools can get a bigger bang for their buck from their ZAP practices when teachers & teams ensure all work and tasks students are asked to complete is essential. Student learning is maximized when the focus is on the quality of student work—not the quality.

Nagel, D. (2015). Effective Grading Practices for Secondary Schools: Practical

Actions to Decrease Failure, Recover Credits, & Increase Standards Based / Referenced Grading. Corwin Press, Thousand Oaks, CA.