High Expectations

How I did it:

During the COVID pandemic alot of changes were made to how schools and expectations functioned. At the beginning of the pandemic, expectations for students dropped drastically, teachers were told to pass students no matter their grade. Thankfully, as time progressed expectations were shifted again to higher order because of effective use of virtual programs such as google classroom. Although we were still generally told to pass every student I found that making a "deal" with a struggling student really helped push them in the right direction. For example, instead of failing the student, have them make up all of the unit lab activities (between 3 an 4) and give them a grade boost based on this. Obviously this would be implemented in a different way if I was teaching in the physical classroom but this experience showed me how to shift expectations based on the environment. Even through the pandemic I did have reasonably high expectations of the kids, the homework required time and effort, especially the projects. I found the majority of them turned at least something in with a-lot of really stand out examples.