Does extra credit hurt learning?

Yes
Sharon S. Sweet:
Extra credit undercuts standards

Who doesn't remember asking a teacher for extra credit? I, too, have reaped the benefits from teachers who granted me a last-minute reprieve. So, why, as a teacher myself, do I refuse to give extra credit? It's because extra credit work that is granted to replace original assignments is the antithesis of the message teachers should be sending.

The reason behind the extra-credit request is, of course, relevant. Many times, however, the request is a result of a procrastinating teenager or one who is overwhelmed by the race we all run when we have too much work to do in too little time. To look into the eyes of a young person and say no to this request is difficult but necessary. We're not only talking learning content here but also learning a very important lesson about life.

Think about it. Remember the time you were involved in a group project and missed the due date because someone in the group "just didn't get around" to completing his or her part? It's difficult to work with a procrastinator, isn't it?

Where is this work ethic learned? Not in my classroom!

But let's look from the perspective of the classroom and learning content. Does extra credit hurt learning? You bet! The New York state standards require teachers to be vigilant in setting high standards for themselves. That means every lesson I prepare is well thought out, written to reflect the standards and relevant to the students' lives. This takes an incredible amount of preparation, reflection and revision. Exhaustive--but it's also a model of how I want my students to work because this is how learning occurs.

So, when my charges approach me (or their parents call) with a week left in the quarter for extra credit, can I create an assignment of equal quality and challenge (to assure the content is learned) yet one that is significantly different (to protect the work of those students who did the assignment the first time around)? Impossible! If the content was missed the first time around, an extra-credit assignment isn't the way for learning to occur now.

Students ask for extra credit for the same reasons we did. The learning demands today, however, are much different. Students need to demonstrate to New York state that they are competent learners and they need to compete in a world that demands a superior work ethic. Extra credit isn't the answer.

No
Mary V. Bicouvaris:
It's a powerful tool for learning

Early in my career, I decided that extra credit was a powerful hook to keep a child learning, to allow him some choice, to offer him a different opportunity for success and to bring him closer to where he should be achieving by giving him options.

Reacting to a student asking for extra credit requires an open mind and a wide net for capturing the possibilities, as extra credit can be a more powerful avenue to learning than what we often ask students to do for "regular credit."

As a teacher of civics and government, I encountered students who simply did not care about the subject. One of those students was Ricky, bright but failing, who went to all his classes with a paperback, opened so that his face was hidden from his teachers. He thought that he would pass his senior year reading. While I was searching for a way to lure Ricky out of his apathy, the answer came unexpectedly.

It was early fall and the two candidates vying for Congress in our district had asked me to announce to my students that the campaigns were looking for student volunteers. I explained to them that they could sign up for either candidate and I was offering 100 points of extra credit for 20 hours of documented work in the campaigns and a presentation to the class of what they learned. To me, that type of work was "the lab" for government classes. Suddenly, the paperback came down from Ricky's face. He wanted me to repeat what I had said--he had only caught the part about extra credit. I did, and Ricky signed up to work at the incumbent's campaign.

In a couple of days, the congressman's campaign office called to ask me if I had anymore students like Ricky to send over--he was doing incredible work! At the same time, I began noticing that the paperback was not in front of Ricky's face and, without fanfare, Ricky had joined the class as a valuable member. A few years later, I ran into Ricky on the campus of a great university. He was doing graduate work in political science!

Extra credit is more about seeing possibilities than closing doors. It is more about creativity than forced routine. It is more about a student sensing that he has choices, that he can follow a different path to get to a destination. Extra credit is a powerful tool in the hands of a capable teacher.

American Federation of Teachers, AFL•CIO - 555 New Jersey Avenue, NW - Washington, DC 20001