This is my first year of teaching, and I'll be teaching 7th grade social studies. I want to do Bell Ringers (mostly review of the previous day, some "fun" questions, like what they did over the weekend, and some questions that will lead into the next topic.) Bell ringers are quick questions that students answer in the beginning of class. For those of you who do Bell Ringers, how do you go about grading them? (I have almost 160 students). What do you do if people are absent? Do you just "exempt" them from the assignment in the gradebook? My class is based on points and is not weighted. Will parents get mad if one kid has more total points at the end of the semester than another?
I grade them as complete/incomplete. They turn in their bellringers on the last day of the week. I enter them in my gradebook as "Bellringers Week of 9/15 (or whatever)", usually for 25 points (5 points per day). My gradebook calculates everything as percentages anyway, so the point value isn't super important to me. Most students write all their bellringers on one sheet or two stapled together. I scan each page to make sure that they understood the gist of the activity and did it more or less correctly. If they missed a day, I tell them to write "absent" for that day and I won't take off any points. If they just failed to complete a day's bellringer but were otherwise present in class, then they will lose some points. They are very easy to grade this way, maybe 5-10 minutes per class.
My warm-ups (bellringers) were done in a journal. I checked the journal every other week or so and they had to show me a minimum of 4/5s of the warmups we had during that time. To make it easier, most classes I had a para and I had the para stamp the top corner when they were working on the problem. If they could show me the required number of stamps, they got points for the activity.
I basically treat them like extra credit. They do them then they get a 100. If they don't do them it gets recorded as N/A and it doesn't count for them or against them. The vast majority do them. And like Ima_Teacher, the ones who don't do them wouldn't do them even if they had to take a 0.
I grade them based on completeness and accuracy. Each day the students are to write down the question and answer. If they are absent, it's their responsibility to get that day's question & answer from another student. I give a 1/2 point for the question, and a 1/2 point for the answer for each day.
I have students keep all work in their folder and turn them in when they take a test (in about every 2 weeks). Then I grade all classwork for completeness. I monitor the students while they do their warm up, and then we go over them, so even if someone didn't do it, they should have written everything down when we went over. Last year I didn't do a point system, it was just basically an overall grade, judging the amount of work that was done, only for completeness. I never had any problems, I think I got pretty good at giving them a fair grade. I'll continue that again this year. I actually don't have a plan yet for making up warm up due to absences, I guess I can always print out the slide and hand them to returning students.
I used to collect them at the end of the week, and assign 2 points per day. If a student was absent, they had to write a "free choice". Usually they wrote about something that was happening in their lives or the reason why they weren't in school.
I don't grade them. They are a requirement and failure to do them would result in a consequence, just like answering questions in class. I don't give participation grades.
My cooperating teacher did this. He called it the Audit and had students turn in their bell ringers and exit slips (usually just a 1 word answer to a question) along with a few selections from the notes from the unit. Students were expected to keep up with their bell ringers and they never knew which notes would be taken up so they were responsible for all of them. He graded everything as classwork. It seemed to work well. This is what I plan to do.
I do a weekly worksheet that they turn in on Friday. If they were absent I don't count that day against them. I teach foreign language so my warm ups are participation based - either they did it or they didn't. And if they lose the sheet on Friday, that's not my problem.
I have a 5-question "quiz" every day on the information we did the day before. I have the kids grade each other's papers, just so they know if they got it right or wrong. On Friday I randomly select 3 dates for them to turn in. If they were absent, they know to copy the "quiz" from someone else when they get back.
Directly from my Course Information handout: "Bell work (5%): Daily bell ringers consist of five questions or practice exercises based on material recently covered or currently being covered in class. Bell ringers are posted on the board during the five-minute passing period and the first five minutes of class. Students are to date each bell ringer and complete all bell ringers given within the course of one week on a single sheet of filler paper. Students must number and copy each question or exercise and write the answer clearly under the question. The correct answers to bell ringers are neither given nor discussed in class. If a student has a question, he should ask his learning partner or see the teacher during his own time. Absent or tardy students are responsible for getting the missed bell ringer(s) off the teacher’s website and completing it/them. Bell ringers are submitted on the last instructional day of every week and graded for accuracy. Each bell ringer is worth five points. This work will not be accepted late. If a student has an excused absence or tardy the day the bell ringers are due and misses the last bell ringer of the week, he must turn the work in the following day."
^ exactly that. If you do want to grade them just make them part of the day's assignment. Bellringer at the top of the page, collected at the end, graded with the rest.
I collect them every few days If they're absent, they indicate that and I don't factor that one into their grade if it's an excused absence. (Unexcused absences get a zero.) I grade for completion and effort. It's quick and it gives me a sense of who understands and who doesn't understand what's going on.
