Erin Kilroy

Wiked Contributions

New Topic: Grade Retention

For my Wiked project, I researched retention. This is a heated topic in many education circles. Teachers often think that if a student is failing, then that student will benefit from being given another year to learn the material. Almost all the research I found goes completely against this idea. Students should not be simply be promoted for social reasons, but holding the students back, hinders them in more ways than it helps them. Schools need to find a way to pass these students on while having some sort of a program in place to assist these students the next year. The research shows that students are more likely to drop out of school if they are held back. I know that many teachers still believe this is the only answer for struggling students, but I believe that teachers and administration need to work together to come up with a plan for these students as they move through their school careers. Link to Grade Retention.

Wiked Contributions:

I contributed to many of the wiked sites. I mainly added personal testimonies because I learned a lot from what I read about how other teacher applied different practices in their classrooms, and I wanted to contribute my thoughts and ideas as well. I think it is important for teachers to share what they know so that we can all continue developing as educators and learning from each other. Link to my contributions.