In my first year of teaching, our principal would plead with the teachers to raise their passing rates. I, like many new teachers, had a traditional approach to education: give the assignment; then give a zero if they don't do the work. My failure rates approached 25% at times, and the principal would have a conference with me to discuss what I was doing to lower my failure rates. Eventually I succeeded. Here is what I did/do.
1. I walk around and make sure everyone is doing what they are supposed to be doing. From a distance, I can see which students have a pencil in their hand and which students are looking at what they are supposed to be doing. Watch their eyes! Watch their hands! Basically, do not let them decide whether or not they do the assignment. Goal: Everyone does the assignment every day. So for the most part, everyone gets a 100 every day whether they like it or not.
2. Now that I know they are doing their work, I often times give everyone a 100 if they were present and a zero if they weren't. When a student returns the next day, I will give them the assignment or some extra credit. This makes it easy on you, as well. At the beginning of the year, grade everything so students don't catch on.
3. Call home if a student isn't showing up to class. Parents need to know.
4. Make sure students don't copy off of other students. If they do, they will fail their finals and make you look bad.
5. Make sure your assignments are meaningful. Working out of a textbook in many classes doesn't work because textbook companies don't make good questions. All students do is skim like it's a scavenger hunt. They learn almost nothing. If you use a textbook, design the questions to what you want them to learn. Design the assignments yourself so you can cater them to your testing standards.
6. Tell the students about every other week what assignments they need to turn in. They will not come to you the day after they are absent to ask you what they missed. Unfortunately, you will have to seek them out and tell them what they need to do. I don't reccommend giving them their average if they are passing. If they have an 85 average and you tell them, they won't do anything to make it up.
7. Have a make up day on the last day of the grading period for them to do an assignment that they failed to do. This really helps.
8. I don't take off for late work. As long as I know that they did it themselves, I will give them full credit. After all, if the assignment was meaningful, then it was worth doing. If they did it and learned, they deserve full credit. If you take off too many points for late work, the student may not do it at all. They will learn more if they do the assignment than if they don't do the assignment. Plain and simple.
9. Consider not assigning homework. If you don't teach AP and you don't teach math, then you are setting them up to fail. They won't do it. If you have a way of getting inner city kids to do homework in a non-AP class then please comment.
In a non-advanced classroom, the only kids failing should be the few that don't show up at all. In most cases, if a kid shows up almost every day, they should be passing.
