Making The Grade

Making a Grade takes historiographic and sociological perspectives developed to understand large-scale scientific and technical systems and uses them to highlight the standardization that went into standardized testing.

Filled with practical strategies for today's student, Making the Grade is an insightful, easy-to-use guide that will help readers develop the skills they need to excel at the university level. Classroom-tested and authored by an international team of experts, this text has been thoroughly updated to reflect the changing reality of the Canadian classroom. Suitable for students in any discipline, this current and comprehensive resource is essential reading for students at the start of theiruniversity careers and beyond.

The ideal companion for students taking the Bahamas GCSE English language examination. Provide expert guidance on how to master the skills necessary in the examination with this companion which has been written in conjunction with the Ministry of Education, Youth, Sports and Culture. - Build and consolidate knowledge with an opening chapter summarising current grammar and sentence construction, correct spelling, word choice and punctuation. - Prepare students for the exam with chapters providing guidance on Continuous Writing (Paper 1), Listening Skills (Paper 2) and Comprehension and Directed Writing (Papers 3and 4). - Send students into the exam with confidence with activities to test skills, 'exam-type' exercises, student answers and comments from examiners, as well as practice examination papers and answers.

Based on three years of detailed anthropological observation, this account of undergraduate culture portrays students' academic relations to faculty and administration as one of subjection. With rare intervals in crisis moments, student life has always been dominated by grades and grade point averages. The authors of Making the Grade maintain that, though it has taken different forms from tune to time, the emphasis on grades has persisted in academic life. From this premise they argue that the social organization giving rise to this emphasis has remained remarkably stable throughout the century. Becker, Geer, and Hughes discuss various aspects of college life and examine the degree of autonomy students have over each facet of their lives. Students negotiate with authorities the conditions of campus political and organizational life--the student government, independent student organizations, and the student newspaper--and preserve substantial areas of autonomous action for themselves. Those same authorities leave them to run such aspects of their private lives as friendships and dating as they wish. But, when it comes to academic matters, students are subject to the decisions of college faculties and administrators. Becker deals with this continuing lack of autonomy in student life in his new introduction. He also examines new phenomena, such as the impact of -grade inflation- and how the world of real adult work has increasingly made professional and technical expertise, in addition to high grades, the necessary condition for success. Making the Grade continues to be an unparalleled contribution to the studies of academics, students, and college life. It will be of interest to university administrators, professors, students, and sociologists.

Achievement behaviour in schools can best be understood in terms of attempts by students to maintain a positive self-image. For many students, trying hard is frightening because a combination of effort and failure implies low ability, which is often equated with worthlessness. Thus many students described as unmotivated are in actuality highly motivated - not to learn, but to avoid failure. Students have a variety of techniques for avoiding failure, ranging from cheating to setting low goals which are easily achieved. In Making the Grade, Martin Covington extracts powerful educational implications from self-worth theory and other contemporary views of motivation that will be useful for everyone concerned with the educational dilemmas we face. He provides a comprehensive, insightful review of research and theory, both contemporary and historical, on the topic of achievement motivation, and arranges this knowledge in ways that lead to imminently practical recommendations for restructuring schools.

This book provides a guide for a long-overdue public dialogue about why and how we need to reinvent our nation's schools. How has the world changed for our children; what do all students need to know in light of these changes; how do we hold students and schools accountable for results; what do good schools look like; and what must leaders do to create more of these schools? These are some of the questions that drive this book. The answers emerging to these questions may surprise many. The most successful public schools of the 21st century look a lot more like our 19th century village schools than our current factory model of schooling. This book describes these "new village schools" that have been created in the last decade and suggests that they are a prototype for the schools of the future.

You must decide whether or not to tell your parents about your bad report card.

For music teachers and substitute music teachers of grades 3-6. Lesson plans specifically target each of the nine MENC National Standards for Music Education. Each standard is represented by a unit of creative lesson plans that incorporate folk, classical, and original music -- 55 lessons in all! Every lesson clearly details the materials needed, introduces the activity, explains concepts, and builds and reinforces students' musical skills. Reproducible student worksheets are included, saving preparation time for the teacher while encouraging student thinking skills as well as musical skills.