As I sit in my classes and get my MacBook out for the day’s instructional periods, I go to the Canvas pages of each class. I look at the assignments for each day and begin working on them, making sure they are meticulously complete to get the full amount of points possible. Alas, when I am finished with my assignments and I see the work I have just completed is worth zero points, I feel defeated and I believe the activities I have done are not worth my time.
Teachers making assignments worth zero points offer no incentive to boost a grade, even if it is only a point or two. Many students, like myself, are motivated by the chance that their grade will increase in value. Students have been strung along on a point system since the day they entered the school system, and without these points to further their validation of the curriculum, students can suffer.
Providing students with busy work – assignments designed and aimed to give students something to do that is semi-related to the content being learned – rather than giving them tools to succeed in class, in my opinion, is detrimental to a student’s education. In the four years I have spent in high school, I have felt that only half the assignments I have been given to further my understanding of certain topics, thus preparing me for upcoming assignments that are a significant portion of my grade.
There are some classes, like math or science, where everything builds on itself, and you need to understand the material to move on. In these subjects there is never an assignment that I felt was created to keep me busy by my teachers. In an English class, topics are still concrete, but the justification for the topic can be argued for the length of a class period, which can result in assignments that seemingly serve little in terms of value. While these assignments can build to larger assignments, it feels like there is confusion between what the curriculum actually is versus what teachers want students to be doing.
Teachers might argue that an assignment worth zero points is optional or that choosing to do it will help students on a test or essay. However, for many students like myself, without points to fall back on, finding the motivation to continue with zero point assignments is difficult. There are students who will do the assignment without the points to motivate them, but a majority will not.
Teachers should assign point values to every activity because it gives students an incentive to do it and allows for students to further their education on topics they struggle with. If teachers are going to assign zero points to an activity, then the activity should be optional because the likelihood students will complete it are diminished.
