Dealing with an annoying student

[polly_mer]

These are graduate students.  Please, please go talk with your local mentors and the department chair regarding expectations for faculty. 

It's possible that the expectation is this is a bridge-type program in which underprepared students are given support to come up to professional level during their three-year master degree.  That's a very different situation than being a let-everyone-try-and-then-weed program or a cash cow program at Just Pass 'Em U.

Knowing what the situation is at your institution can help you decide whether you're going to adjust to teach the students you have* or start the preparation to get another job because you want to be somewhere else.

* I am amused at the idea that this is the level of behavior that rises to annoying enough to inquire about what to do.  It might be a rough faculty learning curve supervising that first thesis research and all the bureaucratic steps that go into it.

[backatit]

Just to answer your question, it took me a few semesters of the sort of struggle you're going through to figure out a method (I try to make as little work for myself while still helping students learn good work habits that prepare them for real-world meetings). I should probably explain a bit about the course - this is a lower-level graduate certificate course that involves a lot of group work (which is natural for our industry). Students have to meet with their groups, and so I have them track their meeting participation - each group has an "area" on Canvas and they can keep documents, meeting notes, etc, where I can look at them. They have a specific assignment for "participation." So they can see a running total of what they have on the spreadsheet, although I don't grade it till the end. I look at it about weekly, though, and if I notice someone is not up to par, I will e-mail them a quick extrapolation (hey, if you keep this up you will have x percentage at the end). This is also a fully online course, so it's harder to hide that sort of thing - I can see when they are online, and their meetings are recorded. Face to face I'd probably do a meeting sign in sheet with meeting minutes to record participation (so if someone never pipes up, you would have a sense of it; right now I scan through their meeting logs and can see who has chatted and who has not - I don't have a specific contribution requirement but I do define "active participation" in meetings and give then a rubric for substantive participation that's not just reply based (it has to do with information conveyed, questions asked, and preparedness for meetings). But I'm also TEACHING this sort of collaboration, since these students are going into a profession that requires heavy use of virtual teams, so that's a small advantage. For class discussions, I HATE the standard post/reply/reply. And since they are fully online, I try to do a lot of different things, from having them discuss topics in zoom and recording it to doing virtual tours of issues we raise around their class topics and recording them and bringing them into online discussions (I'm trying deliberately not to get too specific but this actually works pretty well to generate authentic discussion).

[the-tenure-track-prof]

Thanks for sharing your experiences. It is a relief to know that other faculty members were in this same situation I am at today. If I may ask you: I like the idea of the active online participation. I teach an online course next semester. How do you assess active participation online?.

[hamburger]

I am a new faculty and at the beginning of the semester, I initiated meetings with most graduate students I teach to break the ice and show students that I have an open mind and open-door policy. One student who I invited to a meeting, made such a big deal out of it and then when I`ve sent that student a friendly reminder to see if the student got my email, that student wrote me back an email that left me completely shocked as the student interpret my invitation that s/he is singled out and that I didnt invite other students to a meeting and this is because I have something against the student. Since it was only a few weeks into the semester, I was not only shocked but I was also puzzled as to how this could be possible?. I responded with one line "my door is open if you change your mind". I received an email stating "I am confused.." then suggesting to come and see me about something in an upcoming assignment.
It was clear during the meeting that s/he is making up questions not really about points the are unclear but just for the record that s/he met with me. I didn't, however, say or do anything and continue to be busy with all the zillion other things that I was busy with. The semester went by and I could see clearly that this is not an "A" student and has basic abilities in analytical thinking that are required in our field. It was clear from the writing and the quality of responses in the classroom and the lack of participation that the student is overwhelmed with the material and not able to grasp basic concepts. Being a new faculty I have been generous with grades and gave most students an A, and only few students got a B however I write a lot of comments and suggestions in all papers although it is extremely time-consuming. This student is among those who I granted an A in the graduate class that I teach. Today I`ve entered final grades but they are not going to be posted until Monday. I ddi post in the grading system the final grade and the grade for class participation which was still not posted.  After posting the score for the class participation, this student emails me to ask why the participation score is 10 points less than the full points 140/150. Note that no other student in all my classes asked any questions about the participation score even those who got B or C. Importantly this student doesn't deserve the A grade that I`ve granted him/er in the first place because the quality of answers s/he provides lacks creative and proper analytical skills that are expected from a graduate-level student and often times address my question by reading from my own PP slides in class.
I honestly not only think that this student doesnt deserve the A but this student clearly unaware of the level of his/er performance. My attempts to guide and help the student are perceived in a negative light and the student refuses to come and meet with me so I would explain things according to the student`s pace and meets him/er at their levels. From the papers that this student write I also see that this student is constantly angry at people.
My question is: It seems to me that now after granting an A grade, the student is just intentionally being annoying. Does anyone see that the student is corssing the line in any way?. In my institution the participation is at professor`s discretion. Once again I granted the student an A grade (but the student will see it on Monday when the registrar office enter grades). Shall I ignore the student`s email??. I honestly feel exhausted from this student who is an overbearing person and would like to get rid of this student who lacks many skills and also high maintenance student. Any insights? advises?

Sounds like the kind of students I have. They are greedy. If you granted them an A, they really think that they were A students even they are not! They got high grades through copying, being in a group with better students, etc. Students have told me that in group projects, usually one good student did the work and the rest just got high grades being in the same group.

This semester I had a student. He told me that he did poorly on the test and asked if he could do some work for me to get higher scores. Upon checking with senior colleague, the answer is no as it is not in the syllabus. I guess he resents me for that. He ended up getting 90s through doing group projects throughout the semester but he posted on Rate My Professor that I am a bad professor and gave me a failing grade!

[backatit]

I sent you a PM because this will get a bit sidetracked.

[backatit]

I am a new faculty and at the beginning of the semester, I initiated meetings with most graduate students I teach to break the ice and show students that I have an open mind and open-door policy. One student who I invited to a meeting, made such a big deal out of it and then when I`ve sent that student a friendly reminder to see if the student got my email, that student wrote me back an email that left me completely shocked as the student interpret my invitation that s/he is singled out and that I didnt invite other students to a meeting and this is because I have something against the student. Since it was only a few weeks into the semester, I was not only shocked but I was also puzzled as to how this could be possible?. I responded with one line "my door is open if you change your mind". I received an email stating "I am confused.." then suggesting to come and see me about something in an upcoming assignment.
It was clear during the meeting that s/he is making up questions not really about points the are unclear but just for the record that s/he met with me. I didn't, however, say or do anything and continue to be busy with all the zillion other things that I was busy with. The semester went by and I could see clearly that this is not an "A" student and has basic abilities in analytical thinking that are required in our field. It was clear from the writing and the quality of responses in the classroom and the lack of participation that the student is overwhelmed with the material and not able to grasp basic concepts. Being a new faculty I have been generous with grades and gave most students an A, and only few students got a B however I write a lot of comments and suggestions in all papers although it is extremely time-consuming. This student is among those who I granted an A in the graduate class that I teach. Today I`ve entered final grades but they are not going to be posted until Monday. I ddi post in the grading system the final grade and the grade for class participation which was still not posted.  After posting the score for the class participation, this student emails me to ask why the participation score is 10 points less than the full points 140/150. Note that no other student in all my classes asked any questions about the participation score even those who got B or C. Importantly this student doesn't deserve the A grade that I`ve granted him/er in the first place because the quality of answers s/he provides lacks creative and proper analytical skills that are expected from a graduate-level student and often times address my question by reading from my own PP slides in class.
I honestly not only think that this student doesnt deserve the A but this student clearly unaware of the level of his/er performance. My attempts to guide and help the student are perceived in a negative light and the student refuses to come and meet with me so I would explain things according to the student`s pace and meets him/er at their levels. From the papers that this student write I also see that this student is constantly angry at people.
My question is: It seems to me that now after granting an A grade, the student is just intentionally being annoying. Does anyone see that the student is corssing the line in any way?. In my institution the participation is at professor`s discretion. Once again I granted the student an A grade (but the student will see it on Monday when the registrar office enter grades). Shall I ignore the student`s email??. I honestly feel exhausted from this student who is an overbearing person and would like to get rid of this student who lacks many skills and also high maintenance student. Any insights? advises?

Sounds like the kind of students I have. They are greedy. If you granted them an A, they really think that they were A students even they are not! They got high grades through copying, being in a group with better students, etc. Students have told me that in group projects, usually one good student did the work and the rest just got high grades being in the same group.

This semester I had a student. He told me that he did poorly on the test and asked if he could do some work for me to get higher scores. Upon checking with senior colleague, the answer is no as it is not in the syllabus. I guess he resents me for that. He ended up getting 90s through doing group projects throughout the semester but he posted on Rate My Professor that I am a bad professor and gave me a failing grade!

Students are "greedy" for a lot of reasons. A lot of students, particularly in my state, are so stressed out by the grade requirements to keep their funding that I can't entirely fault them for asking - I would too if I were under that much pressure. While there are certainly entitled students whose parents are paying their way and who feel that they "deserve" a grade and are set up by the system to believe that they should get it no matter what, the majority of students I deal with are simply reacting to a system that keeps jacking up the scholarship requirements for the meagre funding they barely qualify for. I had an undergraduate sobbing last week about this, and while I didn't change her grade, I really did understand. She was not a stellar student (she certainly didn't fail), but did work pretty hard. I did listen to her, though, and we discussed options for her, and I referred her to some on-site resources (why on earth would you read online reviews anyway - they only attract students who have an axe to grind?). I have a few difficult students but a lot more really interesting and pleasant ones, so I try to focus on the good ones.