The Carrot and the Stick
What we do in this class is obviously more complicated than this, but if you needed to whittle it down to one thing, that thing would be how you spend the class period.
This works because the assignments and texts and feedback are all designed to reward investment. The more time you spend on our work, the better. There is no busywork here, precisely because we can change the work to be more authentic if it is busywork. We can tailor the work to be more meaningful and helpful for the individual. So the work is always worth doing.
That said, you don’t need an understanding of the material or an inherent investment in learning to understand that you have to work during class. To understand that, you just need access to a copy of the assessment profiles. And if we want to make it even simpler, and we do, you only need to look at that hyperlinked poster, which is now hanging in our classroom.
And then, if we want to simplify it even further, you only need to consider four words:
- basic requirements
- required assignments
Those phrases appear in the profile language that corresponds to a 70 and 90, respectively, in Infinite Campus.
Focus on the fundamental similarities between “requirements” and “assignments.” Assignments usually are more formal, and are usually posted to Google Classroom; they include, however, any assigned task, such as the one indicated by this instructional post. It’s not semantic.You must meet the basic requirement of the course, and if you do not meet it, you must accept the repercussions.
The most basic requirement is that you work from the time the bell rings until the time it rings again. That’s your persistent, unchanging assignment. If you do that, you are overwhelmingly likely to keep up with formal assignments and writing responses and test prep and so on, simply because you’re going to have to find things to occupy your time. You’re also overwhelmingly likely to get the feedback you need for an upper-tier profile, simply because you’re going to need to ask for direction and help as you work to fill the class time.
That’s the built-in circuit: To meet that basic requirement, you’ve got to fill the time, and filling the time means being productive.
In other words, if you commit yourself to being productive for 40+ minutes a day, you’ll find that your productivity can’t help but move you along in the right ways. You’ll have to read and annotate and re-read the interstitial instruction, if you hope to fill that time. You’ll need to flag down the teacher for help and guidance, if you hope to fill that time. You’ll have to collaborate with your peers, write reflections, or read a book.
Because if you don’t find something to fill that time, you are no longer meeting the most basic requirement of the course. You are no longer completing all required assignments. You can, therefore, no longer say that you fit the profile of a 7 or higher, which means you are at best looking at an 85 for the assessment period. You must also entertain the serious possibility that you fit the profile of a 4, which means you might see a 70 for the assessment period — and it probably is even lower than that.
That’s due to the nature of feedback in a makerspace like ours. The first time you stop working during the class period, it might be an honest mistake, even with the clear language of the profiles and the extraordinary amount of front-loaded instruction in the course. The second time you stop working during the class period, it might be another honest mistake — but it’s a mistake that indicates a lack of self-awareness, a lack of internalization, and a lack of assiduousness. It suggests a lack of amenability, too.
The third time you stop working during the class period? That’s a deliberate failure to follow instructions. It’s a conscious decision to ignore posts like this, face-to-face feedback, redirection during the period, speeches at the start of class, etc. You can’t not know that the single most basic requirement of the course is to work diligently and consistently during the class period.
And that drops a profile into the lowest tiers, where it is certainly possible to see scores of 60 or 50 every three weeks.
Just the Carrot
This system has been built to be modular and responsive, which is a way of saying that it adapts to your needs and has a lot of combinable elements. If you do nothing but invest in the class time we have, you’re going to unlock something you want to do, either for the final grade or because you see the value in it. Your motivations are far less important, especially early on.
I invite you to think about what you could do with what we have in Room 210. Ask questions here about how to fill the time. Ask about how to individualize the work. Ask about how to navigate exhaustion and distraction and that panicky feeling when you have a History outline due next period. I’ll help you to do this.