r/ScienceTeachers • u/Longjumping-Cry-1863 • 3d ago
Makeup work for absent students
This is for 7th grade. I’ve redone my lesson plans this year and most days my students will be doing a hands on activity of some sort that would be hard to replicate outside of class. (We don’t have a text book.) After the activity, they will have questions to answer in their binders. I will grade the binders weekly. I’m not sure how to handle makeup work for kids who are absent. I‘d rather not have to come up with whole other lessons every day that can be done at home or outside of class, but I may have to. Any ideas? How do you handle this in your classroom?
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u/Curious_Instance_971 2d ago
There is a huge issue with absenteeism and I don’t go overboard to help them make
Up work. The most I would do would be to find a video of something similar and post it to our LMS.
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u/RanOutOfThingsToDo 2d ago
Agree. I had to take a hard line after our district removed the Failure through Absenses causing our kids to think they can go in once a week to ‘collect their work’ and still pass. There were some of my colleagues would fuel this belief by giving take-home packets and admin too until the district got on their back for passing kids with As and Bs who had been absent 60 days a semester. I have 5 preps this year and refuse to make that 10 preps, with in person and at home lessons, so I exempt the work if was an excused absence and make most of my in person lab work participation and a zero if you had an unexcused absence. Question sets they can be made up at home and use ai to help you if you want. Mainly though, 50% of their grade is now unit tests, and those kids that weren’t here definitely have the disadvantage there. If you weren’t here half the time but study and pass the tests you should get and d or c and that’s fair in my book.
One last thing. I’m not a complete asshole, so if a kid is really in a pickle, of course I make exceptions and help them out, but this is my default deterrent position.
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u/Fabulous_Swimming208 3d ago
Can you record the hands on and have them analyze it?
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u/Longjumping-Cry-1863 3d ago
Possibly. That was one thought I had. I really really hate being on camera
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u/urbantiller 3d ago
A woodworking teacher I know just films their hands pointing out what to do and how to use the tools.
If it is allowed, you could have a volunteer group of students film their hands-on activity on a school device that is not connected to the internet, and the student who was away watches it when they return.
The simplest would be to just give them written instructions and sample data and observations, and they use it to answer the questions.
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u/ScienceSeuss 3d ago
Option 1) Some guided notes, vocab practice, Blooket, Edpuzzle, simulation (phet, gizmo, etc...). Most of those have premade lessons, and many can be done independently. You can also check TPT. I purchased a package of interactive doodle notes that cover every standard I teach, and they seem to be working out well.
Option 2) Science article summary, "science" video fact check, CER paragraph about some data or phenomena, or any other critical thinking and writing response.
WARNING! Be vigilant in your AI screening! Handwritten often means they just copied the CheatGPT slop into paper. You know what to look for. Always compare the makeup work to their in-class writing.
Good luck.
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u/PunchSukkaa 3d ago
I usually ask students to come in during lunch to make up hands-on activities or set it up again after school. Appointment only, of course.
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u/Sweet3DIrish 2d ago
I would spend time this year filming each of the activities, that way in the future you will only have to film the activity that are new for that year and you have a whole catalog of the videos of the activities.
The nice part about filming them is you can really show the parts you want them to be paying attention to, which can be easier for absent students to get the knowledge from the activity. It’s also helpful to have on hand in case any of the activities go awry and you need to have the kids redo their questions.
If your high school is nearby and if those kids need some service hours, see if you can get a few of the high school kids to come by once a week and do the activities and record them for service hours (obviously make sure their parents sign off saying it’s okay to film them first). Then you don’t have to film them yourself (just direct the older kids) and it won’t be the kids peers on camera for them to make fun of for whatever petty reason they choose that day.
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u/k_795 Science | Secondary | UK 2d ago
Make-up work?! What's that lol 😂
I don't offer make-up work. If a kid is absent, they can ask a friend to copy their notes so they can catch up. They are also welcome to ask me any questions they have on the topic anytime. I also provide summary notes and a checklist of key topics to revise for each end-of-topic test, which is also an opportunity for them to spot anything they may have missed and catch up.
If they don't, it's their loss if they then struggle on that part of the test.
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u/NoCryingInBaseball14 1d ago
If it’s a lab that they have to collect data, sometimes I just give them the data and have them analyze the questions associated with it on their own.
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u/day-gardener 3d ago
I usually assign a simulation activity to do that covers the topic.