Projects. Final exams. Assignments. Due dates. Grades. Amidst all this, approaching the end of the school year, seniors run into the inevitable—senioritis. This phenomenon has been a hindrance to high school seniors’ productivity and performance at Jefferson. Teachers attempt to lighten the load on our hardworking students and motivate them to succeed even at the end of their high school careers.
Mobile and Web Applications senior research lab director Dan Tra experienced difficulties trying to combat senioritis and has tried several different approaches.
“I tried bribing them with points. I tried threatening them with points. I create early due dates. I create late due dates. I give extensions. I try to guilt them. I try to buddy up with them. I try to cry. I try to laugh,” Tra said.
Unfortunately, the students did not have significantly increased performance with these strategies, though some strategies were more successful than others.
“The most helpful was guilt tripping, actually, and bribing with food was the least helpful,” Tra said.
Katherine Phillips, a Geosystems teacher, has had some better luck with her methods. She utilizes different types of assignments to increase the variety of the class and keep students interested.
“One thing that we do in Geosystems is allow students to choose more of their activities in the fourth quarter to allow them to focus on topics that they are interested in,” Phillips said.
In addition, she has also been mindful of the stress that students are under with various exams going on during this time of year, especially in senior year.
“One of the most helpful strategies is to use alternative assessments instead of traditional paper and pencil exams in fourth quarter, as we know that students have difficulty focusing on studying for unit exams due to fatigue and the additional [Advanced Placement] exams they are taking,” Phillips said.
She has also been trying to make the class as engaging as possible by incorporating more variety.
“We try to have as many hands-on activities as possible, like investigating ocean chemistry and going outside to take weather measurements,” Phillips said.
