So . . . roughly two weeks left of the college semester. As Rick Braggs puts it, “It’s all over but the shoutin.’”
Share your wonderful, weird, and wacky happenings here!
Mine:
-Student in a late-start (8-week) online course emailed me Friday: “Professor J-Shark, I forgot to log-in when the course started in March. How do I get caught up?” Answer: “Um, start over in the fall.”
-From an advisee: “Dr. J-Shark, I am failing all this semester’s courses. Can you approve me to take six classes in summer session I so I can still transfer in the fall?” Answer: “Summer session is a six-week semester, so . . . no.”
-One of my wonderful students who struggles with profound dyslexia presented a paper at our student research conference last week. Despite shaking in sheer terror (literally), he got through his speech and was even able to take questions from the floor. It was like a Dead Poet’s Society moment.
This is our last week of classes, then I’m off to a conference midway through finals week, so I’m going to have to write a couple of take-home exams over the next few days. Final papers in the two comp classes coming in on Thursday, in the Brit Lit survey on Friday, and in Shakespeare on Monday of finals week. Somehow those all have to get graded, too. Oh, and of course I haven’t written the conference paper. Why do I let myself in for this?
On the bright side, I got a ridiculously sweet e-mail from one of the Brit Lit students saying how much she enjoyed the class discussions. (This kind of perplexes me, because I always felt like I was pulling teeth in that class trying to get them to say anything at all, but I will take compliments where I can get them.)
Three weeks before the end of the semester, I graciously and without notice reopen all assignments so any slackers have half a chance to get caught up. It’s a mandatory class for most majors, and one some aren’t thrilled to have to take (MS Office). I figure if they do they work I’ll give them credit, and hopefully I won’t see them again next semester.
About this time I meet a student who asks if he can get an “Incomplete” in the class so he can finish up during the summer. He just got a three week window to get it done, and if he can’t get it done by the end of the semester he’ll never do it. So the answer is “no”.
Two weeks later, he hasn’t submitted any of his missing assignments yet. He’s got two days left, so there’s still hope.
Exam dates are not set by instructors (if they take place during exam week you can hold them during a last class). Syllabus available before classes start lists exam day and time. Students are reminded about exam date several times during semester including last Wednesday (second to last class day).
After review session today in class, student comes up to say he has a conflict because his plane tickets home are for the day of the exam. Can he take the exam early.
“Yes,” I tell him, “with the permission of the Dean of Students as that is the rule.”
“I’ve already spoken to DOS office, they won’t let me change it, I need you to.”
I work in a humanities department and university with no set grading scale. So it’s up to each individual instructor to choose a set of percentages corresponding to the letter grades they assign.
Can you guess where this is going?
Usually, I use the scale for the next university over. These numbers are low (60% is a solid C; 85% is an A). I explain that the letter grade is primary, and the numbers are secondary, used only to make sure the final grade is a logical sum of the previous, differently-weighted assignments. People freak out, because they seem to think that even in the humanities, the percentages are assigned on some magical absolute scale that we use but refuse to reveal. How come they only got 85% for a borderline A- / A paper?
This semester, I used the American scale (73% is a solid C, 93% is an A). One student ignored my explanation on Day One and, of course, the syllabus, and is now UTTERLY SHOCKED to receive a B. No amount of explanation is getting through her math-phobic head, and she’s kicking it up the hierarchy.
The department, which set this assinine let’s-not-have-a-policy policy, is annoyed at me. The student is annoyed, and wants all of her work recalibrated to the scale of her choice (which I did, while pointing out that she had all the data she needed to do this herself. It’s just math!). And she still wants to come grade-grub in person, which, fine, I guess.
I feel you, Dr. Drake. The level of innumeracy among some of my students absolutely staggers me. I’m the historian, i haven’t taken a math class for over 30 years, and yet i still manage to know more about basic arithmetic than most of my students, many of whom are science and business and computing majors.
I used to simply assign papers a letter grade (A-, B+, etc.) using the 4.0-point GPA scale, but students could not work out how to add up their grades in order to calculate their overall grade. Even after i explained to them that A=4, A-=3.7, etc., they still couldn’t do it. Now, i use a percentage system like the one you describe, where A is 93 or more, A- is 90, C is 73, etc. I did this to make the calculation easier for the students.
And still i get students sending me emails asking “What is my grade in the course so far?” I tell them that, with the exception of their participation grade, which will constitute 15% of their overall grade, and which has not yet been finalized, they know as much about their overall grade as i do.
I say to them, “You know the grade for your first paper, right? And for your second one? And for the online tests and the in-class writing exercises? Well, that’s most of the information you need right there.” And i still have students who can’t seem to work out what it means for their final grade when they get 85% for a paper that is worth 15% of their overall grade. It’s very depressing.
This is also the time of the semester when my office hours are busiest, usually with students who have done nothing for 13 weeks, and who now want to know what they need to pass the course. The answer? A time machine.
I’m jealous. My husband’s university is on the quarter system (they have staunchly resisted changing to semesters :smack:) so he has nearly 5 weeks of classes to go. Of his crappiest class schedule in his almost 13 years there. I swear the scheduler tried to make his schedule miserable, it is hard to make a schedule this bad accidentally.
I’m so glad we’re not on the quarter system. The shorter terms, and the rapid turnaround from one term to the next, seems to be a real pain in the ass, in terms of workload and pedagogy. I have quite a few friends who teach in the quarter system, and almost all of them wish that they could move to semesters.
Was I the only student who back in school would have this nightmare that they had been enrolled in a class which they had then forgotten to go to and now its the end of the semester?
I teach voice. Part of the course requirement is to go to four concerts (all vocal of some nature, 3 of them some variety of “classical”). They have been aware of this requirement since January. I have been giving them constant updates on relevant concerts, most on campus, and most free.
Classes are over, and finals begin on Thursday. So naturally a handful of my students have begun emailing me to find out if there are any more concerts coming up. “How many do you need?” I ask.
I know several Americans who mentioned similar nightmares. I think it’s directly linked to how the school system works, in ours it simply wasn’t possible for something like that to happen. Our nightmares involved missing exams or sitting down to take one and realized you’d forgotten an essential tool at home, instead.
I’ve taught in both the quarter and semester system. For me, the quarter system is too short and the semester is too long.
I’d like to propose a “medium semester” of 12.5 weeks
I get overwhelmed by the number of special events I have to attend this time of the year. In the last two weeks we’ve had our student research conference, several visiting author events, faculty presentations, and so on. And, of course, graduation is in two weeks.
When i did my undergraduate degree back in Australia, it was the same, although the overall time-frame was longer.
A semester was 13 weeks of actual instruction, plus a one-week mid-semester break.
At the end of the instruction period, there was a one-week break to give students time to study and prepare for exams. Then, after the one-week study break, exams were held.
Looking at my undergrad university’s academic calendar, i see that things still work pretty much the same.
When I was in college the year was split up in three terms, which meant about 10 weeks of actual classes and then another two for exams and handing in papers/teachers grading.
I preferred it that way, over the shorter “quarters” I had to follow later on. Never did whole semesters, but it sounds like something I’d like (both as a student and a teacher).
My undergraduate university had 13 week semesters, which is pretty close. I took a class at the local community college a few years ago and their semesters were 16 weeks. :eek: That was way too long. I’ve been a student and taught on the quarter system too. I like the 13 week semester the best - short enough that it doesn’t drag on but long enough so that you don’t feel like you’re finishing up just as you’ve reached your stride.
