asking students who have flexible deadlines accommodations to work ahead?

[Caracal]

What you are describing about yourself, as a k-12 student, can be greatly ameliorated by parental unit actually looking at the plan book, looking to see to it that materials are there, and then that work is done, and then put in backpack and taken to school.   PU can of course expect classroom teachers to see to it that planbooks are used, assignments written down in them, and required materials taken home.  But there are many more kids for teacher to worry about.

Perhaps? But I really resented that kind of thing and it's a pretty short term solution. At least for me, the thing that really helps focus me is intrinsic motivation. I don't lose my students' exam books because I really don't want to deal with that, so I'm very careful to make sure to put them all in my bag in a stack and when I get home I put that stack on my desk and it doesn't go anywhere. If you looked in my bag, you wouldn't readily identify this as any kind of organization at all, but if you compare it to how I put other stuff in my bag, I'm actually being quite careful. Non exam materials are a bunch of crumpled papers that end up at the bottom along with bits of trash.

Any organizational system that works for me is going to be like this.
1. Absurdly simple
2. Motivated by my own belief that this is an important thing to keep track of.

My issues with were probably less severe than what Hegemony is describing with his son. I was in no danger of failing high school, but I was a much better student in college because with sufficient time, space and autonomy I could figure out how to manage things.

[kaysixteen]

Ok, thanks to all.   This is a very good thread and has been motivating me to be doin' some cogitatin'.  I have some further points, again as always in no particular order of importance:

1) I get that it is probably very difficult to be the parent of a hs student who has such issues, but it is what it is.   The teacher cannot be held responsible to do many things that the parent needs to do himself.  It would be better if the teacher always had the assignment written on the board prior to class, but it is not always going to be possible, especially if the class progresses and the teacher realizes that the assignment he had planned to give is no longer appropriate.  But what certainly is both impossible and unfair, to expect teacher to do, is to do  something like walk around and verify that each kid has written down the assignment.   A class may well have 30+ kids in it, and if the teacher were expected to do this, it would blow away half the class period.  If a kid, by the time he gets to hs, is incapable of being trusted to write the assignment down off of the board, serious consideration needs to be made as to whether he really is capable of being in a normal class, but rather should be assigned to some sort of special-needs class.   And in most classes, 'read pp, 44-52 in the textbook' is a perfectly accceptable assignment.   The math class almost certainly, for instance, has but one text, helpfully labeled 'algebra', say, on the cover.   As to the teacher having to update his class www at home, remember that he is not actually being paid to work at home, and may have better things to do.  Heck, he may not have the skills to set up his own class www site, and the school may not give him the tech assistance he would need to do so. 

2) Another issue coming to mind would be the issues surrounding teachers contacting parents.   We would like to think that it is a no-brainer that he should do so, but this is not 1957 with Miss Landers sending home a note to Ward and June telling them that the Beav had failed to turn in his hw.  Put simply, nowadays, many American parents just do not treat teachers respectfully, or even decently, and teachers may well become gunshy about initiating such contacts, and dreadful about responding to contacts initiated by mom and dad.   And many (often essentially worthless) k12 school admins, well...  College professors have a very different job in this respect-- it is not just the fact that k12 teachers teach more kids, for more hours, and without TAs, but it dawned on me that another key difference is FERPA.  College professors must not deal with parental requests for info, and tell them that FERPA mandates such refusal, unless the kid provides prof with a signed waiver, which the school (or the parent) cannot compel kid to provide.   I actually had a woman email me at an adjunct job, very miffed, about her son, who was failing the class (it was early May by then)-- I had thought he was a freshman but he was actually a 20yo sophomore already on academic probation, and the F he was going to earn in my class (I think mine was not the only one, further), was going to cause  him to flunk out.  He was very smart, and interested in languages, regularly making knowledgeable but irrelevant remarks in class... but he also would not study, do homework, come to office hours, etc.  He was clearly on the spectrum (mom probably was too), and he probably had many accommodations in hs, accommodations which the school could force  him to use, and mom could insist that they do that.   The kid clearly would have qualified for such accommodations in college as well, but no one could force him to get, let alone use, any such, and he did not.   Mom also emailed chair, who clearly wanted me to respond, but even she knew, when I reminded her, that FERPA prevented my doing so (chair came from a Far Eastern country where I suspect no such FERPA-style requirements would exist, professors would be expected to respond to parent emails, etc.,.... but where, ahem, parent behavior would be very different from anything seen here).  OTOH, hs teachers are not only permitted to respond to parent requests, but are explicitly expected to do so... and those parents, ahem, do not act like East Asians, in their interactions with teachers.

[Hegemony]

1) I get that it is probably very difficult to be the parent of a hs student who has such issues, but it is what it is.   The teacher cannot be held responsible to do many things that the parent needs to do himself.  It would be better if the teacher always had the assignment written on the board prior to class, but it is not always going to be possible, especially if the class progresses and the teacher realizes that the assignment he had planned to give is no longer appropriate.  But what certainly is both impossible and unfair, to expect teacher to do, is to do  something like walk around and verify that each kid has written down the assignment.   A class may well have 30+ kids in it, and if the teacher were expected to do this, it would blow away half the class period.  If a kid, by the time he gets to hs, is incapable of being trusted to write the assignment down off of the board, serious consideration needs to be made as to whether he really is capable of being in a normal class, but rather should be assigned to some sort of special-needs class.   And in most classes, 'read pp, 44-52 in the textbook' is a perfectly accceptable assignment.   The math class almost certainly, for instance, has but one text, helpfully labeled 'algebra', say, on the cover.   As to the teacher having to update his class www at home, remember that he is not actually being paid to work at home, and may have better things to do.  Heck, he may not have the skills to set up his own class www site, and the school may not give him the tech assistance he would need to do so. 

I'm surprised that you say that high school teachers should not be expected to post the assignment details online. (And they don't have to do it from home. Better that they do it from school, or even before the day in question.) My son attended three different high schools over the years, in two states and one foreign country, and all of them required teachers to post assignments online. In the one he graduated from, they obviously did not do it in any kind of sensible way. By contrast, in his high school in Europe, they had all assignments posted from the beginning of the term, easily findable from the school website. He did indescribably better that year than in his "home" high school years. I think the idea that teachers "shouldn't have to" make assignments accessible to all in an organized fashion is bollocks — and will make some students' journey incalculably harder, as experience shows. In my university, too, all assignments are required to be posted online. (The document that spells these out is called a "syllabus," and I don't think that's such a novel idea either.) I am rather aghast at the idea that, in this day and age, such organization and accessibility should be regarded as a luxury and a frivolity.

[kaysixteen]

I get that a syllabus can be posted online (I never actually worked at a k12 school with a school website, but my last k12 job was 10 years ago), but here's the issue-- recall that I said that sometimes the classroom teacher will need to decide that the preplanned hw assignment is no longer an option.   IOW, syllabi work much better in college than in hs ,esp with things like foreign lang classes.   My approach is mastery, and I cannot hold to such an approach by prewriting a syllabus that would say we will be reading pp. 44-52 and doing the questions there in Oct. 23, with a test two days later, etc.   If I did this, many students would just not learn appropriately.   I need to be able to assess each class's progress and deal with reteaching, additional practice work opportunities, etc., reassessments as needed.  Heck, even as an undergrad at Dear Alma Mater Elite Slac, classical language classes operated like this, really only giving half-page syllabi listing dates for tests and papers.  I get that students with difficulties such as your son's will need some extra structure to see to it that they will be on top of assignments, what is going to be done when, etc., and this can be provided, though it is much easier to do so with a private school-sized class, than a 30+ kid pub school one, but in any case, I ain't gonna change my teaching strategy.   It would actually be easier for me to write a strict syllabus pre-class and just plow on through it, but it would not be in the interest of most kids, especially those like your son.

I would also be most interested in your response to my paragraph on the treatment of teachers by American parents...

[Caracal]

I get that a syllabus can be posted online (I never actually worked at a k12 school with a school website, but my last k12 job was 10 years ago), but here's the issue-- recall that I said that sometimes the classroom teacher will need to decide that the preplanned hw assignment is no longer an option.   IOW, syllabi work much better in college than in hs ,esp with things like foreign lang classes.   My approach is mastery, and I cannot hold to such an approach by prewriting a syllabus that would say we will be reading pp. 44-52 and doing the questions there in Oct. 23, with a test two days later, etc.   If I did this, many students would just not learn appropriately.   I need to be able to assess each class's progress and deal with reteaching, additional practice work opportunities, etc., reassessments as needed.  Heck, even as an undergrad at Dear Alma Mater Elite Slac, classical language classes operated like this, really only giving half-page syllabi listing dates for tests and papers.  I get that students with difficulties such as your son's will need some extra structure to see to it that they will be on top of assignments, what is going to be done when, etc., and this can be provided, though it is much easier to do so with a private school-sized class, than a 30+ kid pub school one, but in any case, I ain't gonna change my teaching strategy.   It would actually be easier for me to write a strict syllabus pre-class and just plow on through it, but it would not be in the interest of most kids, especially those like your son.

I would also be most interested in your response to my paragraph on the treatment of teachers by American parents...

This is one of those things where the technology can help. You could do exactly what you're describing very easily on the CMS. In the simplest form you can just type text under the appropriate due date header in class as you tell the students what the assignment is. Then the assignment is there, students who find it helpful to write it down somewhere can do so, but it isn't necessary and as an additional bonus, anyone who missed class also knows where to look for the assignment.

[mamselle]

I can very easily adjust foreign language learning for a slower class while keeping up to page numbers for readings overall.

I might reduce the number of translations per page one day so they can catch up, or omit some of the enrichment elements if we need to focus on pronunciation and reflexive replies that day, but if you let the wheels get very far out of true, the whole one-hoss shay is going to grind to a halt.

And I'm picky--but not heavy-handed--about oral, written, aural, and literacy skills, because they reinforce each other, and contextualize each other, along the way.

I don't see the problem.

M.

[kaysixteen]

It would be interesting to see how things would work in a school environment where I actually had access to such a CMS set-up-- even at the unis I adjuncted at in the later teens none such existed, or, if they did, no one bothered to let this adjunct know of em.

Now, mamselle, we will just have to agree to disagree.   What you said below acknowledges that you, if you see the need, edit down the work assignments in classes, in order to (apparently) accommodate the needs of slower-achieving students.  In other words, you are giving these students, who presumably would need more reinforcement, practice, etc., less of these, in order not to change up your preset syllabus agenda.   I am trying to be charitable, but fail to see exactly how this accomplishes the mastery agenda I am talking about.

[mamselle]

I probably don't have the same over-glorified definition of "mastery" you appear to have, for starters.

In a French I class, I get students who are in French called "fausses debutantes," (false beginners) because they have pretty-good pronunciation and reading skills, but lag at aural interpretation and missed out on some grammar rules along the way. Others never saw a French phrase in their life. Some started to do, say, an elementary class in French long ago, but have forgotten it all.

So, we start with reinforcement of basics, we work towards improvements in all the required areas, and we try to have some fun along the way: folk songs that use polite forms of address ("Monsieur," "Madame, ""Mademoiselle," in "La Bastringue," for example), are also pronunciation and grammar exercises, since we use them that way in class as well.

My goals are that,

A. They all improve,
B. The false beginners work out the wrinkles in their understanding of things,
C. The complete beginners get an ear for pronunciation and comprehension, and
D. I interface with the French II class' starting place in the book so the students who continue have a smooth articulation with their new instructors (with whom I check in 2-3 times a term).

I teach French differently than I learned Latin, in the main--and I enjoyed that, too, and placed 6th in the state tests that year in Ohio--but while I'd say our HS Latin and French teachers were miles apart in pedagogical styles, they both had strong standards (the French teacher used Middlebury 's immersion approach, which I do incline more towards, myself)--but it was always still on the student to do the work.

This was, obviously, decades before CMS, but I had it and used it when teaching French, although most students preferred to copy it from the whiteboard--I did one of those "Date, Class Activities, Next Assignment" boxes on the top left of the board each class on entering, so they knew to look there as well as on the CMS--we didn't then have a memory board, but they'd bring their phones up and take a picture before or after class, so, same idea.

If they didn't come to class or turn in their work, they weren't ever going to master anything: if they showed up, took all quizzes and exams, did the correction work (that netted a couple extra points or their homework--they had to re-write it correctly, and cite the grammar/spelling/other rule they'd missed (a Jedi trick from the old forum), and showed improvement in their dialogues and series (solo recitations of a poem or series of phrases), they usually did pretty decently.

If not, they didn't--that was on them.

"Mastery" doesn't mean no-one fails and everyone's perfect...at least, not to me, for high-schoolers.

M.

[jerseyjay]

My approach is mastery, and I cannot hold to such an approach by prewriting a syllabus that would say we will be reading pp. 44-52 and doing the questions there in Oct. 23, with a test two days later, etc.   If I did this, many students would just not learn appropriately.   I need to be able to assess each class's progress and deal with reteaching, additional practice work opportunities, etc., reassessments as needed.

Some thoughts about the quoted section:
1. I am not sure what language classes you are teaching, but I have never gained "mastery" over a foreign-language from a classroom. I don't actually think it is possible to gain mastery without actually having to live a language. To be honest, I am not sure it is ever really possible, after a certain age, to gain mastery over a foreign language. I studied Spanish from middle school through university (with varying degrees of seriousness), and did not really become fluent until I lived in Latin America for several years. Even after living in Latin America, taking various upper-level Spanish classes, marrying a Spanish monolingual speaker, traveling widely through the Hispanic world, and living in a Spanish-speaking community, I still don't think I have "mastery" over Spanish, although I know enough to use it in my personal and professional life as needed. To be honest, there are days when I feel the English language has mastery over me, and not vice versa.

2. All that aside, the situation you describe is the same as every other professor: some people know a whole lot about the subject, and some people know nothing. Some people think they know a whole lot and really know nothing. This does not prevent me (or any other professor) from having a schedule of assignments, readings, etc, i.e., a syllabus. It is absolutely true that sometimes it is necessary to deviate from the syllabus--spend more time on a subject, change the date of an exam, etc. But a good professor who is experienced with a particular student body should have a pretty good sense of how a class she has taught before will probably go. If a professor consistently has to change her syllabus each semester, this might be a sign that she needs to reevaluate the way she does a syllabus. When I first started teaching at my current school, I discovered that I was assigning too much reading for my students and not giving them enough time. So in subsequent semesters I revised my syllabus accordingly.

In most classes--secondary and tertiary levels--there is a certain amount of material that one has to cover. In US History, I might have to cover 1492 through 1865. If I only get to the Mexican American War (1846-1848), that's not good. I would assume the same is true of maths class, Spanish class, etc. This is especially true for courses that are part of a sequence and students in level 2 are expected to know everything from level 1.  So the pacing of the course is often a reflection of how much material and the amount of time there is to cover it. Sometimes it is necessary to move on to another subject even though it might be better if we spent another three weeks going over it.

3. If there is a deviation from the syllabus, it is not that hard--and actually, really important--to make an announcement on Blackboard or whatever, as well as announcing it in class. This seems basic. (It also helps me remember what date I changed the midterm to, for example, if it is in an email and announcement.)

4. Part of being a professional educator is learning how to do no. 2 and no. 3. If a new professor had trouble with these I could chalk it up to inexperience. But if somebody who has some time under their belt continues to mess up, I would start thinking it was due to indifference or incompetence. If an experienced educator told me it is impossible to make a plan of the semester, including readings and assignments in advance, I would think they had no sense of how to teach. If my child's grade-school teacher told me that he did not know how much--roughly--the class was going to get through in the year (barring unforeseen circumstances like Covid) I would not be happy.

[kaysixteen]

'Mastery' approach does not mean that I expect anyone to get mastery, and no one obviously does get it, but if one does not shoot for it, one gets what one is shooting for, namely mediocrity.   I have taught history as well-- my classics PhD specializes in ancient history-- and  history is just not properly taught like Latin.   The trite explanation goes something like this: in a history class, one can flunk the Civil War test and still get an A on the WWI test, but if in a Latin class, one does not learn the grammar correctly as one goes along, one will just not learn Latin, and be incompetent at reading it.  If you try to read it without learning all the grammar adequately, it would be like building a brick wall without properly mortaring each layer.   And Latin is even more different from something like history than a modern language is, because 1) we do not speak it, and thus lose the learning abilities coming from speaking and hearing a language, and this is especially important because, unlike what some of the 'spoken Latin' folks think, 2) classical Latin is essentially a literary diglossic register of the language, very different from what the Romans would actually have spoken on a daily basis, even educated ones, and with a much more complex and artificialized grammar.

Now, further, nothing I said should suggest I fail no one, nor think no one ought to be able to fail.   Really, that would be a lame strawman.  But in a full-sized class, if only one or two students are falling behind, I will emphasize to them their need to get extra help, etc., whereas if the bulk of the class is, I have no alternative but to arrest my own progress and go back and fix things.   It is just too important not to let the class go on and thereby build up those unmortared brick layers.   I have inherited Latin classes where semi-competent teachers have used a strict syllabus approach, blasting on through in order to complete x number of chapters per semester, etc., and it just ain't pretty.   No serious classicists teach basic classical language classes this way.

[Ruralguy]

Honestly, I have to teach physics the same way you teach Latin. If I  just skip topic to topic, half the class will be lost and they won't understand anything.

[jerseyjay]

I have taught history as well-- my classics PhD specializes in ancient history-- and  history is just not properly taught like Latin.   The trite explanation goes something like this: in a history class, one can flunk the Civil War test and still get an A on the WWI test, but if in a Latin class, one does not learn the grammar correctly as one goes along, one will just not learn Latin, and be incompetent at reading it. 

While it is perhaps true that some history professors have not taught history well--as no doubt some Latin professors have not done well either--I know from experience that it is very unlikely that a student will fail the WWI test and pass the WWII test. A student who fails the Civil War test is unlikely to do well on the Reconstruction test.

[kaysixteen]

Sure, but if the kid fails the Civil War test, he can go on in the class, especially as the time and issues get further and further removed from the CW.  WWI has essentially nothing to do with the US CW, for instance, and one really need know nothing about the latter in order to understand the former.  Nothing about Latin grammar works that way.

[jerseyjay]

WWI has essentially nothing to do with the US CW, for instance, and one really need know nothing about the latter in order to understand the former.

This is a rather strange view of history. If a student were to assert this in a course, I would probably fail him.

[kaysixteen]

I suppose there might be some correlations, etc.   But really, knowledge of the US CW is unnecessary to learning about WWI.  Really, it just ain't.   I suspect you know this.