Comments on A Teacher Litmus Test

• Posted by Cassandra on October 15, 2009 at 5:15am EDT

• After reading this hypothetical case, I was reminded of the student who was ill for 2 weeks before a midterm. She e-mailed to ask if she had to take it. I told her she had a choice: she either took it with everyone else or she could take it later. She never replied back.

  She arrived [late, of course] the next day for the exam, sat down in her regular spot, took an exam, proceeded to sift through it, page by page, for 15 minutes until she finally called me over and told me she wasn't ready for the exam. I was stunned and then I was livid. I kept my cool, but did snap something at her like "If you weren't ready, then why are you here looking through the exam?" She then tried to have a long conversation with me about her undocumented health crisis, in the room full of her classmates trying to take the exam. I told her to leave and e-mail me about her options later that day.

  Note: I gave her the option by e-mail not to take the exam on the same day as everyone else. She showed up, took a copy of the exam, and looked through it. That meant I couldn't possibly even give her the same exam; that wouldn't be fair to everyone else who didn't get a look at the questions beforehand. Thus, she was creating more work for me since I was now forced to create a completely different exam just for her. I also didn't like the fact that she apparently would have taken the exam if she thought it was easy enough. [Which, btw, it was. It covered the basics we had covered in the first half of the semester, all covered extensively in the textbook, online notes, and assignments she should have been doing all along--except she hadn't.]

  My solution: I had no final exam scheduled for the course, so I made her take one. 75% of the material was based on the material from the midterm and 25% was material from the last 1/3 of the semester. Instead of short-answer and multiple choice, it was ALL ESSAY--10 questions worth 10 points each that required 1-2 paragraphs of definition, explanation, and analysis. Same content, different format, different time. AND, she had an extra month or so to prepare! This seemed the fairest solution (even though she probably deserved a zero for effectively trying to cheat by getting a look at the exam before she was going to take it).

  Her score on that 100-point final exam: 25. Questions covering material we covered for 2-3 weeks at a stretch were left blank. She knew very little about what the course covered or any of the basics covered before her mystery illness. Heck, she didn't even know the stuff from AFTER her illness. In fact, I don't even think she turned in a final project worth 25% of the total grade. I think she ended up with a D- or F for the course.

  Sometimes going to extremes to help out a flailing student just isn't worth it, either for the instructor or the student. Sometimes they just need to fail in order to learn.

• no brainer
• Posted by Andy , associate professor of physics at Hamline University on October 15, 2009 at 7:30am EDT

• I think the solution to this hypothetical case is made clear by the instructions given on the original prompt. You don't accept the essay because you said no late work would be accepted. As a chair I have conversations with students often about the apparent unfair policies of my colleagues. I ask if the policy was made clear either in the syllabus or in the documents about the assignment. If the answer is yes (even if it's through tears) I tell them there's nothing I will do. Note that I didn't say "There's nothing I can do" because that's not true.

• Posted by Thomas on October 15, 2009 at 11:45am EDT

• You don't say "there's nothing I can do". Instead, say "I'm sorry, that's not possible." This phrase works well in so many student negotiations.

  However, my opinion is that all students should have the opportunity to redo work and fix their mistakes. That's how the learning process works best. I would never do it only for one guy, though.

• Posted by goodenoughcook , adjunct, English at UIUC on October 15, 2009 at 2:45pm EDT

• There's no way you can waive the fine print for one student and still be fair to the others who followed the rules. That said, the student probably missed out on important learning to be gained from writing the essay and getting the instructor's feedback. I usually try to build in some kind of fall-back option for students who totally tank an assignment--not a do-over exactly, but another opportunity to learn the material and show that they have done so. (People with a C or below, say, get to rewrite the paper, and their final grade is the average of the two.) If such an option were being extended to the class as a whole, then there's no reason why the student in question couldn't make use of it. He gets another opportunity to learn the material, but chances are his grade will still be poor enough that he'll get the message that it's important to read the fine print.

• Posted by WTF on October 15, 2009 at 4:15pm EDT

• He’s shy, impeccably polite, and mildly embarrassed: He’s “forgotten” to write and turn in a take-home essay, worth 20% of the midterm total.

  “Is there any way I can still do it?” he asks. Tears (his) are a real possibility.

  He, like 70 of his classmates, is a first-time freshman at a very large state school. He’s Hispanic, and going by what he says, he's probably the first in his family to attend college. His score for the in-class portion of the test was a mere 50 out of a possible 80.
  I'm shocked no one commented on this aspect yet...
  None of the details bold-faced above should matter. To consider them is to discriminate against the other 198 students (whose personal descriptors might match some or all of those descriptors). If a prof has a no-lateness policy for an assignment, it should be for a good reason--even if just to teach students to meet deadlines! (Heaven forbid!) No one should start changing policies willy-nilly or playing favorites.

  That is NOT education as social justice, which is what lots of well-meaning (usually white) profs like to claim when the poor, ignorant rube minority kid comes a-weeping. To believe that is insulting, not only to the student who failed, but even more so to the the large number of first-generation, freshmen, minority, emotionally immature, shy, polite, embarrassed, and/or forgot-to-study students who can succeed on a level playing field.

  On a related note: Whatever happened to the days when profs gave assignments and students either did them or took their lumps? Now we have give extra exams so the lowest can be dropped, assign mandatory paper drafts because students won't proofread or edit (or sometimes even follow directions), give weekly quizzes to make sure most of the students actually do the reading, etc. Does no one else see that the new, all-but-required pedagogy of second chances really says something not-so-good about our students and their lack of ability?

• Posted by Thomas on October 15, 2009 at 5:30pm EDT

• "Whatever happened to the days when profs gave assignments and students either did them or took their lumps? ... Does no one else see that the new, all-but-required pedagogy of second chances really says something not-so-good about our students and their lack of ability?"

  When I was your age, we walked three miles to school, in the snow, in our bare feet, and we liked it! My dear colleague, giving students every possible chance to fix their mistakes may seem like coddling their immaturity and lack of self-discipline, and perhaps that's true in some implementations. But it will also improve your learning outcomes. Try it and see.

   

• Posted by schoolhouseink , Asst. Prof. Education at Marywood University on October 16, 2009 at 11:45am EDT

• In such a large class it is easier to tow the line on the deadlines set out for an assignment. The professor is distanced from the students and I give the student credit for approaching the professor and not the TA's-what would the TA have said? Would they have passed this up to the Prof. if the student came to them first? (I see the Prof was also grading, too, though)

  "Only one other student "forgot" to turn in an essay, but at least she remembered to e-mail with extenuating circumstances a few hours after it was due."
  The student who emailed took an easier route-she was faceless in her consideration of her failure to complete the assignment and she may or may not have been truthful, just wanting to make sure she covered herself-What was done with her circumstances?

  Regarding the young man, he took a more honorable route-possibly-cultural considerations forced him to decide to approach the Professor-which is bold and forthright. Here comes the double edge- Being interested in what the student actually knows/thinks and understands about the material is of absolute importance in my consideration of what to do-although I understand the ultimate importance of deadlines too- I would penalize the student because they missed the deadline-but accept their essay-I, the prof. would read it and provide feedback-taking it down one full letter grade from the start-and impressing upon the student this is a one time option.

  I teach in a small university-after having been a TA in large lecture courses during my pre-PhD days-I have to be considerate of the chemistry in a 20 person class than in a larger course.

• School Is For Lessons
• Posted by Noah Gorz , University of Minnesota Student at University of Minnesota on October 17, 2009 at 8:00am EDT

• I did something similar to this a couple of weeks ago. Except that I actually wrote the paper. The paper was due at the beginning of class. I forgot what time my class was ( I thought it started when it ended) and I spent the hour before I thought the class started (when it was actually in progress) standing outside the building listening to my ipod on what turned out to be Minneapolis' last beautiful day until June 2010. I walked into the lecture hall what I thought was 10 minutes early (there was actually only 10 minutes left in class). When class was dismissed, I explained myself to the professor. He offered to give it to the TA so he could leave comments for me, but I would not receive a grade for the assignment. I was so mad at myself for working so hard on the paper and threw it away by making a silly mistake, but the rules were explained before I made the mistake. I may not have gotten a grade, but I learned my lesson and I make sure to double check when and where my classes are when assignments are due.

  I say this kid needs the hard sell, especially since he's a freshman. University isn't high school and I don't think it's right to let explicitly stated directions go ignored. If you choose to accept his paper, which I do not think you should, you should only offer him half of the points he would have gotten. It may be an F but it's a whole lot nicer than a zero.

  Also, today I'm going with Paul.

• Posted by M. , T.A. on October 24, 2009 at 12:15pm EDT

• Thomas- "But it will also improve your learning outcomes. Try it and see."

  Improving "learning outcomes" are easy when you give the student multiple chances to get it right. Lets say that a student turns in a term paper and gets a bad grade, a grade that just destroys his/her average in the class (which wasn't great to begin with). So, you give the student comments on the paper and allow him/her to revise it for a better grade. Now, if they bring in the revise paper is it the result of the student learning to be a better writer, or does it just merely demonstrate that they can implement your suggestions? Does the student make the paper better, or does the professor? Did the student learn anything in the process? If the student does better on their paper how would you know that they learned anything? I think Thomas might be confusing "learning outcomes" with grades. I agree that first-year freshman need a little extra patience, but where is the dividing line between being patience and being a crutch. There is absolutely nothing wrong with saying to a student who failed to turn in an assignment (an assignment that he knew about for weeks no less) that there is nothing you will do for them.

  And since when did it become "old school" to hold students to a standard? Where else in life do they get second chances after second chances(certainly not the job market, or graduate school applications)? One learning outcome from this process: the student learns that there will always be a net, someone will always be there to understand a give them another chance. And that's not a good outcome for our classes. Considering that freshmen come to college already thinking this, it seems to be part of our job to get them to the point where they are self-sufficient in their work. Sometimes the best motivation is for the student to know that they have one shot to get it right.

• Posted by Witty Moniker on October 26, 2009 at 5:15am EDT

• Even though it would be more work for me, I would assign the student an "extra credit" assignment worth maybe 1/2 the points of the original essay, and I would make that assignment as hard, or harder than the original. If the student wanted to recoup some of his/her loss, s/he could, but I wouldn't be too surprised if I never heard from that student again. I don't like to give students an easy out when they screw up, but, on the other hand, everyone makes mistakes sometimes, and if you offer the student a harder assignment for far fewer points, and s/he does it in good faith, then I think there's more value in that then just saying, "nope, sorry, take your F and learn to man up."