Parents and Guardians,
This page is to best help you help your student. Below, I've collated a quick parent cheat-sheet of information - the most common information that parents request/ask me during the school year. While you can always contact me (email is best: jcross@guhsd.net), most of the time you will be able to immediately find the answers you need in the information below.
With our ever evolving community health considerations, the 2022-2023 school year could still present some unique challenges. However, we can overcome these challenges and still provide a solid learning experience if we all work together.
The first order of business is to understand how your student can get help if they ever feel they are struggling with what we are doing in class. Here's a quick summary:
Ask questions during class.
When we are not in class, all questions or comments should be posted via the Question Parking Lot. Quick responses are posted to the spreadsheet (found on the home page of our class website). When warranted, more detailed answers are are occasionally posted in the Daily Class Announcements so all students can benefit from the question and answer. Before posting a question to the QPL, students should check the spreadsheet to see if the question has already been asked (and answered). It will save them the time of going through the process of asking the question.
I am generally available for extra help during period 7, or after school. HOWEVER, students need to make an appointment with me ahead of time if they are coming in for extra help. If I'm not expecting anyone it is unlikely that you will find me in my classroom.
As the name implies, these are updated daily. A link to the Daily Class Announcements (DCA) is on the home page of this site. Here are the key points:
Announcements should be posted no later than 8:00 a.m. each school day.
Students will read the DCA each school day as part of the daily warm-up.
The announcements detail what students should be doing for class each day. It is also a great way for you to know what your student is doing (or is supposed to be doing) for class.
Students should expect about 6-8 hours of total work for this class each week (which includes our regular class time). Although, that could increase if students don't use their class time wisely (more on that below).
Students will need a traditional spiral notebook for this class. Generally, speaking students should be adding material to their notebook nearly every school day. As a parent, you should be able to check Daily Announcements and check your student's notebook to see if they are staying up with the course material.
Check out the Materials page for more information about additional class materials.
Grading in this class is different than most classes. We have a different grading scale, different categories, and different assessments. Here are the highlights:
Infinite Campus is the grade of record. Do not look at any grades that might be posted anywhere else. Only look at what is in Infinite Campus. It is the only grade that matters.
Most of the daily work that we do in this course, and some of what goes into the gradebook does not directly affect your student's grade. We don't do lots and lots of little 10 point assignments. We do, however, do lots of practice work to get ready for our assessments.
Don't let your bias with traditional grading scales (90% = A, 80% = B, etc.) influence how you interpret your student's current percent in the class. Due to our "rubric" grading, these traditional scales don't work. We have to use a different scale for our letter grades.
The Grades page has all the details.
Below are the FOUR MOST COMMON reasons why students struggle. Making sure your student corrects these behaviors will give your student the best chance to be successful in this class.
As stated above, class announcements are posted daily. There is a strong correlation between the fidelity in which a student reads the daily announcements AND that student's overall course grade. Those who read the announcements (with fidelity) almost always earn an A. They are in the loop and always know what they are supposed to be working on and when things are due. Those that repeatedly fail to read the announcements struggle to pass the class. It's really that simple.
If your student is struggling, make sure they are carefully reading (and understanding) the daily announcements.
Students should really need to dedicate no more than 1-2 hours per school day to this course (about 6-8 hours per week). If they are spending more time than this, they are probably not using their time appropriately.
Most students don't realize how much time they waste checking the most recent text that pops up or selecting their music playlist while they are working. If you have a 30-minute assignment and every two minutes you are interrupted - and each of those interruptions last for a couple of minutes, or more - what was originally a 30-minute assignment could easily turn in to a 1 hour assignment pretty quickly. If you extrapolate that over the course of the week, your student's 6-8 hours of time quickly turns into 12-16.
Using time efficiently is a must. This is true during our class sessions as well as outside of class.
For struggling students, these are the two big problems I see most:
most students think they can complete their work faster than they usually can . . . and with less effort than is usually required.
most students think they are good at multitasking.
When we don't give ourselves enough time for our work, we either submit incomplete work, late work, or the work doesn't come in at all.
When we multitask, we usually don't do a good job in either of those tasks. Or, one task gets the most attention (text from friends, choosing music, etc.) and the other task (school work) gets relegated to the background.
While at home, I strongly encourage you help your student create a dedicated working space for "school." An advantage to a device like a Chromebook is that is allows you to work from anywhere. A disadvantage is also that it allows you to work from anywhere. Some locations better help your student (like having a dedicated working space at a table/desk free from as many distractions as possible) and other locations tend to introduce more distractions (like trying to work from the sofa while the TV is on).
Encourage your student to silence their phone while they are working (or leave it in another room). Just like at school, separate school time from personal time. If they develop good habits, they will find that they spend less time on school each day and they will have more free time to enjoy their personal activities.
When time starts to become an issue, many students start to look at the EXPLORE assignments and question why they should put in work time on something that isn't even going to be graded. Help them to see that's the wrong way to view these assignments. These assignments are their chance to learn, grow, and even fail (with no grade consequence). They should be learning a little bit from each of these assignments and refining their skills and knowledge. All these assignments are designed in such a way to best prepare students for the assessments.
The assessments are not meant to be difficult - especially for a student who is well prepared. However, they will likely seem very difficult to a student who is ill-prepared.
Assessments are meant for students to showcase what they have learned - and they will be best able to showcase their knowledge and skills if they learn from the practice material.
The best advocate for your student should be your student (not you).
Some students are very good at this. For others, it is a skill they need to practice in order to become better at it. Please, as their parent or guardian, do not rush in to rescue them when they appear to be struggling. Instead, help guide them and teach them some skills so that they can advocate for themselves. Here are some suggestions:
Help teach them to ask questions - both during class and via the Question Parking Lot.
Encourage them to seek extra help outside of class. I can usually be available M-Th from 2:45 - 4:30. Students must make prior arrangements if they plan to meet. This is not a drop-in session. If I'm not expecting any students, they will be unlikely to find me in my classroom.
It is important to clear up any questions/confusion as quickly as possible so that things don't snowball into bigger and bigger problems.
[NOTE: As I get the time, I'll post additional resources here]