Week 2, now GO Animate!!!

I really can't stop laughing...well I mean I can, it's just...never mind.

This is exactly what I hear at the end of every card marking, at that point when the student knows, "Crap, I'm in trouble..."

I think it is so easy to get frustrated and even mad at students, when they try to cruise by with the bare minimum in effort and then complain that YOU GAVE them a bad grade.  Really I started to try and think like my students so that I could better understand exactly were they were coming from.  Was the work to difficult, did I not teach it correctly?  Where they embarrassed to say something or did I not make enough effort to help as the project went on?

Since missing a week of school, I knew that getting into my class was imperative to making sure the students were having successful experiences in my class.  After doing almost 2 weeks of prep work, making tutorial videos, and giving out my email to communicate after school hours, I really thought I had all my bases covered.

Fearing that my day would follow the above video's script, I made one announcement today:

"Folks, we have almost 4 weeks left in this class, and I know the desire to relax and take it easy is weighing everyone down.  I ask you all to go back to that same drive you had the very first week of class and finish your projects that have already been discussed, outlined, and demonstrated for you and make wise decisions with how you spend your time completing them.  I know that it is easy to get lost in a YouTube video or tweet about someones sandwich, but the ownership is on your shoulders.  There will not be a sympathetic ear to listen to anyone's excuses as to why your assignment is not complete.
I trust you all and know that you will not let yourselves down on this aspect.  Good luck.  Now lets get started."

Now I'm not 100% sure exactly what types of results I will get, however I did avoid running into the above conversations with any of my students.  However, I can only imagine that time will tell.

Hopefully it doesn't go like this...(my attempt at a GoAnimate cartoon.)
Where did I put that agenda... by jpappas on GoAnimate

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