What have teams found to be most effective in promoting excellence in academics and preventing grade loss among students participating in FIRST? I have spent some time researching and reading threads and asking advice. I’d now like to get some feedback through this new thread. I will have limited Internet access for the next couple weeks, but I would appreciate any discussions/contributions regarding the subject.
We have something of a policy on my team, that if students have an important test, or project due the day after a certain build session, the students are allowed to either leave early or miss one day of build, with prior notice. This flexibility helps many of our students, I believe, and doesn’t tend to result in much abuse. Our schools run on block schedules, also, so many of us on the team have study halls at least twice or three times in a given week. Much of the time, we can study or finish work both before build sessions, and during school. For my school, at least, build season falls between the end of midterms and the beginning of many final projects and AP tests. It is, luckily, something of a schoolwork lull. It’s still tough, but we manage.
When it comes to physics, though, there is always help available from the three physics teachers on our team. They are usually willing to help those of us in their classes, with any problems we may have. Them, and a chemistry teacher, really help many of us keep up academically, and focus more on building robots.
Generally,
We feel that is the students’ responsibilities to keep up with their grades and academics. If a student cannot attend a meeting due to academic commitment, it is fine.
If a student in question has below a “C” in any of their classes, they are not allowed to attend meeting until that grade is brought up. That is not only a club rule, but a school rule.
Our mentor is also a teacher at the high school, se he makes sure that every student and parent in MORT knows that schoolwork is always the first priority. We don’t congratulate for academic excellence or anything; however, we will start offering a $500 scholarship for next year though. That is quite enough incentive for grades to improve/be maintained.
On our team it seemed the people who just accepted the fact that it was going to be hard to do robotics and schoolwork, but buckled down and did it, did okay. It was the people who didn’t manage their time that got caught with the slipping grades. I juggled school, varsity basketball, and robotics. So it can be done. It just takes a lot of sacrifice
We have a star chart used to measure students progress during the build season from meeting attendance to grade. But we don’t just measure thier grades but they cannot have negative comments on their report card such as “talks to much in class” or “doesn’t turn in assignments”.
It can be quite a steep and sudden descent into a robotics season for new members. Students and parents may need to have an adjustment period regarding the student’s study time at home the first season and maybe re-assess the participation and demands before the 2nd season begins. If the information is provided up front along with what the expectations are, such as the examples given thus far, that is very beneficial to the members. They know what is expected of them and can adjust accordingly.
Our team has been working on developing a study group of sorts. As we implement it and work with it this season, I’ll let anyone who is interested know how it goes. We’ve also been discussing that there are informal groups that form in LASA, helping each other out in different subjects. One of our Sci-tech/Physics teachers has offered his classroom for study space as needed. I hope to have a flyer available for distribution at our Back-To-School Night when we recruit new members. It will list the help opportunities that are available, including the study group that is in the works.
Our teacher makes it very clear that academics come first and if students aren’t passing all of their classes, they can not travel. If they miss an opportunity to travel to a competition once, they usually don’t make that mistake twice. This, in itself, can be a good life lesson in that it shows how the team can be impacted by the actions of one and that there are consequences in everything. That’s how we look at it.
Good thread topic.
Jane
When I was a college student mentoring a team we used grade checks every friday like many sports teams do. This was done from the day of the teams formation in 2006
We also used a method of study group similar to what Jane said. It was not uncommon to see students spend the first hour of the meeting doing homework. It was not uncommon also to see an adviser give instructions for a project then go and sit down to do their homework either.
I found that the best way for us was to lead by example. If I was taking the night of before a big exam it encouraged some of the students to do the same thing before their big exams.
If you make good grades the standard it is much easier to maintain them verse if you suddenly need to deal with it.
My team checks, ocassonally, for grades. If a member has any grade lower than a C the student spends their time at meetings doing homework instead of working. If the student’s average grade is a c or lower than the same applys.
Our team is from a smaller magnet school only 60 students in a graduating class, and we only have 6 teachers in the building, two help mentor the team. (well one now 
) So, there is always some one to help with homework. We usually have 2 or 3 students in another room working on homework at some point during a meeting, the option is always there if a student needs it.
Our team has study time for every mandatory meeting (about 3 times a week) so school gets out at 2:30, study time starts officially at 3:30 but we can stay after school and do homework for the hour before study time if we want. Study time ends at 4:30 then we start doing whatever we are supposed to work on. We also have progress reports filled out every week or two. If grades are lower than a C- the student is put into “academic lock down” (all they can do for the whole meeting is homework or study) until there grades are higher. If there is a big concern about a test or project a student can ask to be put in academic lock down or they can choose to take one of their three personal days. Also, when we are at competitions, for everyday we miss school we are required to do 2 hours of study time. I think that study time is very helpful because you can get help from people who took the class before or who are in the class if you need help.
Our team offers to all of its members, free tutoring to those that require it. Many of the experienced team members have taken most of the core courses are school offers and assist those new members that are finding it difficult to manage time between Robotics and their schoolwork. However, we feel that it is really difficult and unecessary to divert resources into monitoring members’ academic progress. Therefore, it is upto those members of the team to ask for help and is usually provided with it.
Although we do have an attendance policy in place, it is not so strict, that a member of the team would not be able to work on a project or study. The students that participate in the team, are all fully aware that they must use their own time management, and to the new members of the team, we are usually lenient.
Some thoughts:
- In the past, our team has required 60% attendance throughout the season to go to the regional competition we choose to attend, and 70% attendance to go to the Championship if we attend.
This allows enough leeway that you can take some days off for other commitments, and to make sure you can get your schoolwork done, but makes sure you’re around for enough of the time that you’re not feeling behind or left out.
With a lenient attendance policy like this, consider having certain days that most people are expected to attend, or mandatory meetings to “debrief” what’s been going on and keep everyone on the same page.
- Our team has decided to take the road where we do not want to get directly involved with the students’ grades.
As a high school student, you should be responsible for managing your own time, your schoolwork, and your grades. This is between you and your parents, but since different students learn and work in different ways, we don’t do anything like the mandatory study halls I’ve heard about.
Also, we don’t ask about students’ grades to make sure that they have a __% average. We’ve decided that it’s not the business of the team leaders to know about the students’ grades. The school has a grade policy where if you have an average grade below a certain percent, you are not allowed to participate in school activities. Beyond that, we leave it up to families to come up with whatever works for them.
- I’ve observed that being a part of a team with such a demanding time schedule often lends itself to helping students develop time management skills.
While students with their whole evening free might put off their homework for longer and longer, knowing that you have robotics during a certain time block pushes a lot of people to get organized and finish all their homework before that.
- Often, the people who spend the most time with the team end up being the most organized and have the best grades.
Obviously there will be exceptions from time to time, but it seems that the students who are able to dedicate themselves to a team have their homework under control already, which is how they can put the time into the team (related to my thought #3).
Another thought:
Our team has the policy “school comes first”. It has been made clear to all students and their families that we want to make sure that school always does come first, and this seems to help whenever students have conflicts. It’s really good to hear that you are thinking about and are concerned with students’ academics, so consider implementing and publicizing a similar policy, where you make sure everyone knows that “school always comes first”.
Our team thought about that, because human nature makes people competitive, and we thought it would be a good motivation to get people to work hard both in and out of the shop. It never got implemented, for reasons I don’t recall.
Thank you to all of you who responded to my post. I have learned a lot from you and from the rest of the CD website. I am grateful to have access to such an amazing resource. I have tried to summarize what I have learned about the various strategies that teams are using to support academics.
I’m passing this on as my way of saying thank you. As always, I would welcome any responses/additions.
Summary of policies and practices that support academics on FIRST Robotics teams
The following represent a summary of the ideas that were presented on the Chief Delphi website.
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Promoting the policy that academics comes first and insuring that students and parents understand this. (Explicit statements by mentors, inclusion in team handbook).
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Attendance policy is flexible enough to allow for missed sessions due to academic commitments and nonattendance for academic reasons is understood and supported.
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Minimum GPA may be required for admission to team. Minimum GPA and minimum grade in each class may be required to attend sessions. Otherwise student may be required to do homework at robotics sessions or not attend at all until grades are corrected.
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Grades are monitored by mentors and drop in grades is addressed with student. Grades are reviewed weekly and/or recorded on a star chart along with attendance.
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Students are encouraged to bring homework to sessions. Space is provided for doing homework. A one to two-hour period of homework is required before session starts.
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Teachers, mentors, and/or peers are available for tutoring.
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Minimum GPA and minimum grade in each class may be required for traveling. Teacher permission for each class may be required for traveling. Hours dedicated to homework may be required while traveling.
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Formal and informal study groups are formed.
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Time management, although identified as a problem, appears to have been left in the hands of individual students. Training in time management appears to remain a possibility to be explored.