In a comment about the Wellesley, Massachusetts FL program, Nathaniel Hardt reports that they weigh grades in the following way:
Term 1: 10%
Term 2: 18%
Term 3: 25%
Term 4: 31%
(Final Exam: 16%)
I find this brilliant. It helps in two ways:
1. It gives kids time to figure out this brand new way of being in a classroom, this new way of learning that involves a completely different part of their brains from what they are used to.
2. It keeps the momentum focused through the year and gives us much more instructional power in the spring, when we need it. It protects teachers. Twice in my last building, Abraham Lincoln High School, I awarded A grades to students at the semester, and the grades were richly deserved. But these were seniors who had figured out that all they needed to do was get their scholarships in the spring and then, once that was done, they both stopped coming to class entirely. My only recourse with counseling was to give them the F for the second semester and they walked with a C. This idea would stop that kind of April fall off in general.