Honors Geometry Class Guidelines

Class Guidelines
Honors Geometry

E-mail address: usefulmath@aol.com
Website: usefulmath.blogspot.com

In order to have a successful, challenging, and exciting class certain guidelines must be set. This sheet contains most of the basic guidelines. As with most things in life there may be changes, deletions, and additions as the year progresses. If there are ever any concerns about these procedures please bring them to my attention so that I may address them.

I. Classroom Etiquette

A. Students are expected to be respectful to each other, all property, and myself at all times. This includes being quiet while someone else is speaking.

B. Students are to bring all of their supplies to class everyday. This includes their textbook, notebook (three-ring binder), notes, homework, pencils, and a calculator.

C. Students will be issued two hall passes every quarter to use as the need arises. It is the students’ responsibility to keep track of their passes since they will not be replaced if lost. Any unused passes can be turned in at the end of the quarter for extra credit.

D. Students are reminded not to leave anything on my desk. Papers just placed on top of my desk may be lost. Please give them to me directly so that I can immediately put them away.

II. Daily Routine

A. Students will pick up any homework, quizzes, or warm-ups from the front of the room as they come into class.

B. Any homework to be collected should be pass to the front as students enter the room. The assignment I am collecting will be posted on the side chalkboard.

C. Warm-ups will be posted on the overhead. These will be graded at times.

D. Any students' questions pertaining to last night's homework will be answered in a reasonable amount of time. It is suggested that you are prepared with these questions so that this time is not wasted.

E. The day’s lesson will be presented complete with examples and practice problems. Notes will be given daily and are necessary to do well on all examinations.

F. Homework will be assigned almost nightly.

G. Friday is quiz day. A short quiz will be given at the beginning of class. This quiz will usually cover that week's worth of vocabulary. Studying for this quiz is essential, the whole reason for the quiz is to get the students to learn the vocabulary in a timely fashion. Without a clear understanding of the terms we will be using, students will find it impossible to do any of the other problems.

III. Grades will be assigned based on a point system. This will consist of homework, quizzes, tests, and any projects or group work.

A. Grades will be assigned based on a point system. This will consist of warm-ups, homework, quizzes, tests, participation, and any projects or group work.

B. Homework will be collected though out the year. However, since I expect homework to be done consistently and on time I will not announce in advance when I plan to collect it. I will not collect homework the day after it is assigned since you have not had the time to ask any questions you may have. Homework may be collected on the second day after it was assigned. (If it was assigned on Monday, it may be collected on Wednesday.) When it is collected I will check seven problems. The point value for each assignment collected is twenty-eight points. One point is given if the original problem written down properly. The other three points per problem go to completeness and accuracy of the response. Since this is an academic class, no homework will be accepted late, with the exception of an excused absence.

C. There will be a five-minute quiz each Friday. This quiz will usually be on vocabulary. The material being covered at the time will determine point value of each quiz. Any student who misses a quiz due to an excused absence is exempt from the quiz. That is, that quiz will not affect their grade at all and they do not have to make it up. These quizzes are too short to fairly grade any student absent the original day of testing.

D. Students will periodically be given the responsibility to assess their participation, effort, and work ethic in this class. This is a graded assignment and will affect students’ grades.

E. I plan, within a couple of weeks, to post current grades on the side board every Monday. This will allow the student to see his progress. Students will be assigned random numbers to identify their scores. If at any time a question arises as to the way grades are posted please bring it to my attention as soon as possible.

HINT: To be highly successful in this course, get and use notecards! Vocabulary is a huge part of your grade, if you know your vocabulary, everything else will be easy.