Homework & News

The last day that I will accept any late assignments, or any other work, will be Wednesday November 12. I cannot accept any marks after this date in order for me to be able to mark the work and enter it to show up on the first report card. Please remember that you are able to redo any assignments or work. However, I ask that you try to do this within a week of the day I hand back your original work. This way it ensures that you are getting it done and it also allows me to be more accurate in the assessment.

Please note that this deadline is only for the classes that I teach, 7-1 Smath, 7-2 Humanities, Video Production 7/8, and Web Design 7/8, since other teachers may have a different date. If you are unsure of any of the assignments that you are missing or if I have made any mistakes on your marks please come talk to me.

7-2

• Please bring pumpkin carving supplies to class on Thursday October 30 as we will be carving pumpkins with our little buddies. They will be supplying the pumpkins and some supplies but last year we did not have enough. Please only bring the pumpkin carving saw type tools. No knives or scissors as we had a little incident last year. Actually I should clarify, I had a little incident last year, when I was trying to help with a pair of scissors, that ended in a nasty scar on my hand.
• Our Home & Native Land Canada Quiz will be on Wednesday October 29. Make sure to study the notes you took during the province presentations.

I have now updated all of the marks so please take a look at your marks on the marks section of the website. There will be a few more items updated during this next week as there are a number of assignments that are do for most of my classes and there is still some work that I have not yet marked that I will be doing by mid week.

I think that for many of the Grade 7 students the first report card will be a big shock as things have changed since Grade 6. I teach roughly 110 different students and as such I cannot constantly remind students to do their work and to hand it in. I try my best but part of middle school and the Grade 7 experience is the idea/theory of accountability. As a result, I suggest that you look at your marks to see if I have made any mistakes in entering them in. Also, if you do not agree with something then you need to talk to your teachers about the concern so that it can get figured out or explained.

Cheers,
Mr. Lang

As a way of trying to decrease the number of students leaving the classroom unnecessarily, and to make the students accountable when they do need to leave the room, I have been requiring the students to take the appropriate hall pass, “Mens” or “Ladies,” and to sign out.

I just tabulated that data from September 22 to October 20, roughly one month, and was somewhat surprised by the results. They are as follows:

• 70% of the students left the class at least once during this time
• 59% of the students left on a day 1,3,5 whereas 41% of the students left on a day 2,4,6 (Days 1,3,5 & 2,4,6 have the same daily schedule)
• The greatest number of times left the classroom was 9 and the least was 0
• The average number of times students left the classroom, including all students, was 2.75. When only the students that left the room are considered the average number of times was 3.95.

There are other things that I think I will look at also including during what time the students tend to leave as they are required to put the time of the day and as such I should be able to determine during what periods they are leaving the most.

I find this information interesting because on average students should not need to leave more than three times per month. This relates to roughly one time per six day cycle. I understand that some will need to leave a little bit more and others not at all but nine students left the class seven times or more which means that they are leaving on average once every three days or twice a week which I think is too much.

Not surprisingly, many of the students who left the classroom the most number of times are also those that are struggling academically in the class. It is hard to determine why the students are leaving though I imagine for some of them it is simply an avoidance behaviour.

At the grade seven level students see four different teachers a day; Smath, Humanities, Option, and PE. Therefore, there is a good chance that some of these students are leaving up to four times a day. Many teachers now require hall passes for the students to leave but it is difficult for the teachers to track how many times each student is leaving classes each day.

I see the act of leaving the classroom to be somewhat of an issue because students often miss instructional time and thus have difficulty completing assignments. If it is avoidance behaviour that is having the students leave the classroom then the student is falling further behind and will continue to struggle. Furthermore, students that leave the classroom often tend to cause some type of distraction or interruption within their classroom and when they are in the halls some of the students feel the need to distract or interrupt students in other classes as well.

I plan to talk to the students that are leaving the class to many times to try and determine why this is occuring and how we can change this behaviour. I will also do my best to put some new procedures into place that will help with this issue.

This information may not seem important to many of you but since I had that information I felt that I might as well share it.

Please note that since I cannot monitor the students to ensure that they are signing out that the numbers may be on the low side. Furthermore, there is a chance that some students are signing out using others names and as such the information will not be a true representation. Regardless, it is still an issue. I apologize for any typing mistakes or awkward phrasings since it is currently 12:17 am as I am working to try and get all of the marking completed by tomorrow evening, which has now turned into this evening.