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Inevitably, we all struggle now and again with academic progress. Perhaps there's something significant going on in our personal lives, or a health issue, or maybe school has always been a challenge, or any number of other possibilities. No matter the reason, there's nearly always a way to improve the situation. On this page, I offer you some support and guidance around improving your grades. Please read through it carefully before beginning work on the Grade Improvement Worksheet, but you might find it useful to keep the worksheet open while you do.
The Grade Improvement Worksheet is a tool I created for you to help you organize your plan for passing your course. You are not required to complete it in order for me to help you (come to office hours and we can talk in real time, we can go through it together!) but I will always strongly encourage you to do it -- it helps you identify everything that's holding you back, as well as a possible solutions and a plan you create for remediation. This is your grade and its your job to improve it, so use the tools I provide in order to help!
Before you can address the problem, you need to know what it is! On the Grade Improvement Worksheet you are asked to look at the issues that are standing in your way. Be honest -- this document is to help us work together to help you, so it's no use if you don't include everything. Some common issues are:
Family/work time pressures (not enough time in the day)
Study skill issues (not knowing how to study according to your learning style)
Learning differences (ADHD, processing disorders, so on)
Distractions (difficulty getting off your phone/Instagram/YouTube/TikTok, so on)
Time management issues (not being able to plan for how long a task will take)
Lack of appropriate study space (quiet, adequate physical space)
Too many classes
Lack of interest in the subject matter
Internet connectivity issues or computer problems
Housing or food instability
Physical or mental health issues
Substance abuse issues
Recent loss of a loved one
Transition to civilian life for recently separated veterans and their families
ESL challenges
Embarrassment around getting help
There are many more possible sources of difficulty for struggling students; every situation is unique, so you might have only one from the list above, many, or none as your issue isn't listed. Think deeply about what's preventing you from doing well in this class, and write it down in enough detail so I can understand it and help you work through it.
You can't possibly improve your grade if you don't understand it! This is where the "Grades" link will help you. It's best to look at this on a computer if you can, so you can see more of it at once. This is the best way to get a good overview of your grades (as opposed to the "table" type view, which is much more challenging).
In order to understand what on your Grades page you can change and what you cannot, it's useful to remember the following policies:
Assignments are generally open for submission in two batches -- you can turn in late work from the first half of the class until the midterm, and after that those assignments lock. The work from the second half of the class is available until last day of finals.
Quizzes and exams (including feedback surveys) for the most part lock on their due date and unless there is an extenuating circumstance, they won't be unlocked. I will sometimes unlock these but never if there are still unlocked assignments you can do!
Discussions also for the most part lock on their due date (again, for Module 0 the discussion is available all semester). That said, depending on the discussion, you may be able to submit an "initial post" to me for partial credit (please ask me before you do this, because this isn't always possible, and I almost always tell people to work on assignments first before turning to sending in discussion posts after they've locked). Discussion replies are never accepted after the discussion due date, no exceptions.
Extra credit is rarely available because it poses an equity issue, but when it is, it can never be submitted late, no exceptions for any reason. My suggestions is to always do the extra credit when its available -- you never know when it will make a difference at the end of the semester!
Based on the policies discussed above, I hope it's clear you will need to focus your attention going forward on:
Completing exams, quizzes, and discussions on time (because you can't go back and turn these in late),
Completing (or revising and resubmitting) previous assignments for points/more points, and
Keeping up with the current and future coursework. If you're getting poor grades on -- or continuing to miss -- current assignments, you're not going to be able to do well even if you make up past work. This is especially true because generally my classes are "back loaded" where there is a major project or other item due before or during Finals that is worth a (relatively) large number of points; this means that the end of the semester has a greater impact on your grade than the beginning. Make sure that whatever plan you create doesn't just address what needs to be fixed from the past, but also includes strategies for keeping up.
The late work policy exists the way it does to encourage you to keep up with the reading (quizzes/exams) to respect the time of your classmates (Discussions) and to provide some breathing room for your other life commitments (assignments). It is not intended for you to be able to put off work because you don't feel like it -- do not make the mistake of thinking you can just leave your late assignments to the end of the semester to submit. This never works out, because the end of the semester is so intensely busy, and because works submitted that way almost always is rushed and of poor quality, so you won't get full credit. So don't wait!
Go back into the Grade Improvement Worksheet and make a list of assignments you should go back and do, in order of importance. Hints for determining importance:
Focus first on items with a higher number of points!
Understand what's connected. Some assignments build on others (for example, in Social Work, the According to Need assignment is necessary for several more that come after it, and in General Psychology, the same is true for Organization, Time Management, and Focus) so there are some assignments you really should put at the top of your list for timely completion even if they aren't worth the most points. Ask me for advice on this for your specific class if needed!
Before you do anything else to create a plan, think back on a time when you were successful in school (if you never had any successful times, you wouldn't be here because you wouldn't have finished high school/gotten your GED/be taking college classes -- give yourself some credit!). What was working for you then? What about that situation facilitated your success? What's different now? Is there something you can do to "recreate the magic?"
Now that you have identified the issue, thought through what you can do based on the policies of the class, prioritized your tasks in the Grade Improvement Worksheet, and considered some ideas about how you might succeed based on your past experiences, it's time to create a plan!
I highly recommend you create your plan with close attention to what's going on in your life an other classes! If you have created a due date for yourself for all your back assignments on the same day your brother is getting married, you'll have a hard time succeeding; likewise, if you plan to "have everything in by the last day of finals" but forgot that you have three other classes all with major final projects and exams, you're not going to have the time. Don't forget to plan around your life in a realistic way!
There are so many ways to get academic and other help at CCSF and Solano. In Canvas, in the same menu as the Grades link discussed above, is a link titled "Tutoring," where you can get excellent academic support. This is a great resource, but not the only one! Explore the resources for each school -- there is more available than you think!
Several times in every semester, students with perhaps a 30% in the class will tell me they will "try harder" and "get caught up." The majority of the time, they fail to formulate a workable plan to get caught up and stay caught up, and if the semester is half or more over when we start discussing it I have actually never seen one of these students get caught up (that's not to say it'll never happen, but it seems pretty unlikely). The moral of the story isn't "give up" -- far from it! The moral is, "get help early," and "be realistic." It's on you to reach out to me if you are struggling in order to get help. If you don't have a realistic chance of getting caught up in the class, I will often encourage you to take the W and return in a future semester to start fresh; this isn't giving up as long as you come back, it's learning from your experience, getting organized, and setting yourself up for future success -- and a W is much better than an F!
I am here to support you, and there are many resources designed to help you succeed academically and in other areas of your life. If you are struggling with this class, please complete the worksheet, come talk to me during office hours or send me a message, and lets find a way to help you be successful, whatever that might look like in your circumstance.
Go to the Grade Improvement Worksheet
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