FIRST and grades

[mathking]

Our students have the same rules as any other extra curricular participant, which in the case of our district means a minimum 2.0 GPA, no failures. We certainly have students who become more serious about school because of FRC, and as a result their grades improve. And we have students who spend too much time during build season. In the past this was a bigger problem, and as a result we changed our build season by cutting down on build time.

We meet two days a week after school from 3:00 - 5:00, two evenings a week from 6:30 - 8:30 (sometimes 9:00) and Saturdays from 9:00 - 4:00. At the end of build season we will sometimes throw in a Friday or an extended Saturday. We also have some outreach events during build season (though we try to do these more outside of build). We used to spend more time. And there were years when we worked 6:00 - 10:00 every evening for the final three weeks. I realized this was not healthy more family, and that realization made me focus on the fact that it was not good for the kids either. Most kids are not there every evening. We had about 45 kids who worked on the robot this year (plus more who mainly did outreach stuff or were learning programming or other tasks) so we have different component teams meet when it is best for those teams. I think this has largely mitigated the negative effect on grades for most students. (I also think that the attention to the process of building the robot our downshift in time necessitated has allowed us to make better robots.)

We are in the middle of a project to collect data to try to examine the effect of FIRST participation on grades and other achievement measures.

[SarahBeth]

We are in the middle of a project to collect data to try to examine the effect of FIRST participation on grades and other achievement measures.

I'd be interested in seeing this data.

[Taylor]

As others have said - team rules dictate that if students don't have at least a C- in every course, they don't travel. Concessions have been made on an individual basis with teachers who have requested that students travel even though they don't meet the grade requirement - teachers recognize the experience of 2 days at event would have a greater impact on the student than 2 days in class. Usually there's extra classwork for these kids.

[treffk]

I really like the no grades below a C thing. For our school ineligibilty is determined based on if you have 1 or more F's or 2 or more D's.

[dcarr]

Originally Posted by Joe Ross

When I was a student, my grades were always higher in the spring then in the fall. FIRST gave me extra motivation to work efficiently.

I agree with this, as unintuitive as it sounds at first.

[SIIENGINEER]

My son is on 1986. This is his 3rd year on the team. I know his GPA has gone up each year. They have a rule: Before anyone can go into the shop or start any working pertaining to the robot or current season they must complete their homework. A couple of the mentors and one of the coaches are at the buildsite daily which is nice because they offer support to those students with any ??? they can answer for them. This year the team average GPA is 3.7. And like many others have posted if someone is struggling with grades they are not allowed to miss school to travel with the team.

[ezygmont708]

Team 708 has a minimum grade of a C in all classes. We also offer students an opportunity to receive team credit (hours calculated towards traveling) for either working on Homework, or tutoring another student on the team. There are few exceptions to this policy on our team. We also run a custom eligibility report with our criteria three times a week.

Most student's grades are never affected by the build season. We only have problems with exams and tests that fall on competition weeks ;-)

[ttldomination]

It's an interesting point you bring up. The results, in my experience, vary based on the type of student.

Take, for example, your above average student. This student (he or she) is going to be valedictorian or salutatorian or some soft of -torian . This student has to fight to power past anything and everything. I have seen student(s) like this go sleep less nights during the season, but their grades never move an inch (especially not down).

Take, for example, your still above average student, but this student is already enlightened to the ways of FIRST. This student found out, a long time ago, that school is easy and it's simply sufficient to pay attention and do the work. For these students grades slip. They may slip from A+ to A-, or from a solid A to a B+, but they will slip. The mind can only be pulled in so many directions.

Last, but not least, take for example a FIRST student who did not his or her options. To go from days spent at the skate park to days developing a machine, it gives a student some perspective. These student often see a rise in their grades. I personally have seen such students go from shaky A/B/C to solid A+/B students with an additional increase in rigor.

FIRST does what it does, but if you choose to take grades as a metric, you must also force some perspective.

- Sunny G.

[AcesJames]

It seems like this thread has a lot of responses from teachers and adult mentors, rather than high school students themselves.

I'm going to offer the prospective of a first year college mentor instead.


FRC in High School -
I'll be the first to admit that in high school, I really, really, really didn't care about grades because unlike most, I only saw them as a number or a letter. However, I cared deeply about learning. As such, I went to every class, on time, every day. I didn't take notes because I found it much more interesting to actually listen to what teachers had to say. I also didn't study for tests or quizzes, because I simply didn't feel like it. I always did my homework though, because as I said, I enjoyed learning. I ended high school with Honors and a 3.25 GPA. I was satisfied, because I knew I had a good grasp of everything I learned, and if I had really cared about getting a 4.0, I could have done it. As I said, I was more concerned with actually learning than just getting good grades. Because of this mentality I had, FIRST had no impact on my grades. Because I spent no time studying, FRC occupied my free time, and didn't interfere with anything else.


FRC in College -
Currently I'm finishing up my freshman year at Clarkson University. I must admit, college is very different from high school. I've found out that college level classes are difficult, and I actually have to study if I want to pass. Homework is difficult, exams are terrifying, and lectures are boring. It's not a good combination, but I'm doing just as well as I was in high school, because I've learned to adapt. However, learning how to adjust to mentoring an FRC team while learning how to adjust to college was an extreme curve for me. It was hard, but it was worth it. Of course, because of the fact that I now have to study, FRC is actually beginning to interfere with school. Regional and championship travel, coupled with long nights in the shop have strained myself and many of 229's other mentors. There are evenings where we frequently skip team meetings altogether because we have exams at the same time. It isn't easy.