I provide lots of chances for students to pass my classes. I’m very flexible about make-up work, sympathetic to your strep throat or your roommate’s meltdown, and willing to accept your late work. Within reason. When you don’t come to the last two classes, respond to e-mails, or turn in all of your assignments, you really leave me with no alternative. Now you’ll call or e-mail to berate me, as if I were unreasonable or took pleasure in your failure. Sigh.
You are not going along with my image of professors chortling with glee over flunking someone. I’m disappointed.
You flunked them so that when they contact you in a state of outrage, you’ll have stories to tell on this message board, didn’t you? Because you wish to hold them up to ridicule, you heartless creature!!
Please begin.
and I’m not joking
You did not do this. Your students flunked themselves.
No, OP, you did not flunk anybody. You graded the work the students did…or didn’t do. Their problem, not yours.
Like Sigene said.
Use this as a learning tool. In my first day of classes, I always made sure everyone knew who was responsible for their grades.
You should take your post (without the title that appears to assign you the responsibility) memorize it; and repeat it to your students on the first day. Put it in the syllabus, post it on your door.
Once everyone realizes who really is responsible for academic success it takes a lot of worry off of you.
Sigene–nah, I’m an old fart. My syllabi are nice an clear and I don’t agonize too much, but I do get bewildered and distressed when students can’t manage to write an e-mail that says “Hey dr s cn i have an extesion kthxbi.”
Students who “write” like that deserve no response.
True, but at least it would demonstrate an intention to communicate.
Funny, one of my professors told a story in class last week about her daughter (who’s currently a university student).
Apparently my professor’s daughter was hugely stressed about a ton of term papers that were all due at the same time. My professor suggested to her daughter that she contact her instructor to ask for an extension. The daughter thought that wouldn’t work, since it was just because she was disorganized and procrastinated, and no one died or anything. My prof reassured her that it couldn’t hurt to ask, and if you’re honest with your instructor and explain what happened and how you’ve learned from the experience, they might give you an extension anyways. So the daughter did ask, and she got her extension!
Also, it was pretty obvious that my prof told our class this story to let us know that we could do that same thing. Most prof’s I’ve ever had can be pretty understanding, provided you communicate openly with them ahead of time [sub](don’t call a week after the due date and you’ve already failed)[/sub] and are honest about what happened [sub](don’t make up bullshit stories)[/sub].
Man, I wish I had professors like you. My E&M professor has never responded to any of my emails, and seems to revel in dumping shit on the TA (I work with him). In addition, he assigns homework that’s due during dead week (supposedly not supposed to happen) and assures us that there will be a curve on the tests, but refuses to tell us what they might be. I have no way of knowing how I’m going to do in that class.
I have to admit, I used to be that student. That’s why I eventually gave up on college about 15 years ago. I’d get behind, or sick or whatever, and then I’d start panicking and put off talking to the teacher and skip class again to avoid her and then it would be even harder to talk to her and then suddenly it’d be the end of the semester and I’d have thoroughly hosed myself.
Myself. I did it to me. I get that.
Feeling more mature, I went back to college last year, determined not to let that happen again. Made it through one semester okay, but then I started to do the same thing this semester. I was getting 100% in Algebra up until the midterm, which, being sick and confused, I got an 84% on. That really rattled me and I started avoiding my homework. Took two more tests, got a 100% on each, so I still had a strong A. Then we got into the unit on logarithms and rational exponents and inequalities and functions all together and I got lost. Did the homework (though not as many repetitions as I should have) and the stuff will just not stick into my head. Started avoiding class. Missed the test on that unit entirely.
I realized what I was doing, and made myself go to her office on Tuesday. Literally dragged my feet, bile in my throat, heart pounding. Turned around and walked away three times, including making it all the way downstairs and halfway to the front door once. Finally made it in, told her I was a screw up and I was so sorry and…
…she reminded me that she drops the lowest test score before calculating the final grade. I didn’t have to take the test at all, and I can still pull off an A! I do have to learn the material, because the final is mostly that unit that puts everything together, but I have another week to work on it.
What a fucking relief. And what a lot of nonsense I put myself through for nothing!
I think that’s unacceptable.
I think a teacher has an obligation to answer student emails, and i always made clear to my students that i would respond within a reasonable time period. Now, this doesn’t mean that i check my email every hour to see whether there’s an email from a student, and i hate students who expect an immediate reply, or who end their emails with “Please get back to me as soon as possible.” But i do think that communicating with students is part of the job.
I really don’t understand this rule.
Last semester i was teaching a class, and about 6 weeks before the end of class i handed out the assignment sheet for the main assignment, a fairly short (6-8 pages) analytical paper. I was initially going to have the students submit it on the last day of class, but then i thought, “No, i’ll be a nice guy and give them an extra week.” So, instead of the last day of class, i made the due date the Friday of dead week (or Reading Week, as it’s called at my university).
Well, one of my more annoying and officious students pointed out that, according to university rules, no work is meant to be due during Reading Week. I had never heard this rule before, but i found out that she was correct.
So i said, “Oh, i’m sorry, i didn’t realize that. OK, i guess you’ll all have to submit the paper on the last day of class.” Thus giving them a week less to do the paper.
Guess which student was not very popular with the rest of the class?
I’m with you on this whole feeling of bewilderment! I teach 9th graders, so a slightly different thing than you are dealing with, but still. I had 29 of my 109 students fail this last 6 weeks. Two with a 0% !!
Then, our school does this thing called “Recovery School” for core classes. You stay after school once a week for the next 6 weeks and work on your make-up assignments, retake tests, whatever the teacher wants you to do, and your grade will be raised to the lowest passing D. How many of those 29 students have done this? Four. I had about 10 turn in the paperwork signed by their parents, but only 4 have come during the first 2 weeks. They can still start, because there are 4 weeks left, but I won’t shorten the work just because they put off going.
About the only way to make my class any easier is if I just give them the answers to everything. At least that is how I feel sometimes. The other day we spent a whole block – 90 minutes – doing 10 problems. They worked them out, then I went over every problem. Their test was the exact same 10 problems. They were allowed to use their notes (but not that study review I’d done with them!). Lots of them still failed.
They choose to not pay attention. They choose to skip my class and not do homework. I do my best, but you can’t force them to learn.
Congrats on starting over and doing so well!
And I cannot recommend this book enough; How to Stop Worrying and Start Living. It’s old, it may seem simplistic, but it works!
Good luck with the rest of your semester!
I think they do, to. I gave him about a week to sit on the email before I just went straight to his office, where I asked him the question in person. He told me he had read the email, but hadn’t responded yet. I was offended, but what can I really do?
This wasn’t a big project or paper, though. Just [an extra large helping of] the normal homework that he assigns every week.
Nice to see Ms. Officious get a bit of a comeuppance, I suppose. But in that situation, couldn’t you have said that the paper was officially due the last day of class, but there would be no penalty if it was handed in any time up to the Friday of Reading Week?
I teach part-time at a local law school so I have some experience in this area. For the most part, the students are very communicative. I guess that goes with them wanting to be lawyers and having had at least 4 years of college under their belts. The only instance I had that caused me some concern was involving a student who failed to complete the essay portion of the exam. The student contacted me several days after the exam. That was somewhat tricky to deal with.
Other than that I have been very lucky and have been blessed with some great students. That said, I believe a teacher/professor has an obligation to at least respond to each and every query. For the record, I believe most professors are very flexible and reasonable.
Huh.
Never even thought of that. I suppose i could have done exactly that. Next time, maybe.
I’m just a TA, but when I marked the first batch of essays for a second-year class, one student wrote a completely illiterate essay that demonstrated that he hadn’t even read the assigned 10 pages of primary sources. With the prof’s approval, I gave him a 30%. I was a bit nervous, waiting for the inevitable email, but it never came. I recently marked his second essay, and it was an improvement - but only just. I’m happy not to have to deal with whiny students, but that level of apathy is also scary!
I’ve lurked a bit and I gather you’re in nursing school? I appreciate that the standards are probably higher than a general arts/sciences program (and I’m glad if they are!), but I personally think that kind of grade inflation is destined to drive students crazy with perfectionism. I couldn’t have coped, knowing that nearly perfect was expected. I was always very happy in undergrad when I got an 84, and I graduated in the top 2% of my class. You really have my sympathies.