Procrastinating until very last moments to take online exams

[Aster]

Since I'm teaching entirely remote this term, I have been getting extra experience observing fun student behaviors.

This week is an exam week for two different classes. The exams have been available to take for three days. The exams have a 1-hour time limit. There is now 1 hour left until the deadline to submit.

Class A: 20% of the class waited until the very last hour to take the 1-hour exam and are taking it right now.
Class B: 10% of the class waited until the very last hour to take the 1-hour exam. 15% of the class still hasn't turned on the 1-hour exam yet.

[Aster]

10 minutes remaining.

Class A: everyone has submitted their exams.
Class B: one person is currently taking the exam. 10% of the class has *still* not activated the exam.

[OneMoreYear]

Will be interesting to hear the update on that 10% in Class B.
I did not have good student habits in undergrad (horribly disorganized; still am to lesser degree). I walked into multiple class periods in which there was an quiz/exam I had not studied for because I had forgotten there was an quiz/exam that day. I took the quizzes/exams, of course, without admitting to my professors that I had not remembered there was quiz/exam. I never skipped class, that would have been a bad combo.  I wonder if I had been in asynchronous classes during my undergrad if I would have missed exams like your students.

[Aster]

And now I'm getting an email from a student asking for a short exam extension because he still hasn't picked up his textbook. He wants to take the exam on the same day that he picks up the textbook. Yes, you heard that right. New textbook pickup and taking exam on the same day.

Dang man, we just wrapped up Week 4 of the semester. How have you been studying your lesson materials without your textbook for the last three weeks? How is picking up a virgin textbook that you haven't used before going to miraculously help you on the exam?

Teaching is never boring.

[arcturus]

I send email reminders to students who have not started the exam. I start with those who have not logged into the LMS within the past 24 hours about an hour before they would need to start to have the full time for the exam. I then email those that are in the LMS, or have recently been in the LMS, about 15 minutes before that "last minute" start time. I have had several students send me thank you emails for the notification. It makes no difference, of course, for those students not engaged in the course.

[Aster]

Will be interesting to hear the update on that 10% in Class B.

I just heard from one of those AWOL students, two full hours after the deadline had expired.

Stu Dent: "... is a way for me to make up the exam. Because I was at work and I tried taking it on my phone but it wouldn't allow me to."

Wow. You waited until the last minute... to take your major exam... at work... with your phone.

[research_prof]

Will be interesting to hear the update on that 10% in Class B.

I just heard from one of those AWOL students, two full hours after the deadline had expired.

Stu Dent: "... is a way for me to make up the exam. Because I was at work and I tried taking it on my phone but it wouldn't allow me to."

Wow. You waited until the last minute... to take your major exam... at work... with your phone.

You can just say "no": "According to the policies outlined in the syllabus, no make-up exams will be offered."

[mythbuster]

This is why I only have my exams open for 24 hours. There really is no need for these multi-day exam periods.

I also send out an email announcement when the exam opens. It states in bold the time you need to start the exam in order to get the full time allotted.

[downer]

I got an email from a student saying the exam closed while they were taking it because they started it half an hour before the deadline. I wrote back saying, yes, that's what is was meant to do. Didn't hear back.

[marshwiggle]

Will be interesting to hear the update on that 10% in Class B.

I just heard from one of those AWOL students, two full hours after the deadline had expired.

Stu Dent: "... is a way for me to make up the exam. Because I was at work and I tried taking it on my phone but it wouldn't allow me to."

Wow. You waited until the last minute... to take your major exam... at work... with your phone.

Interthreaduality: I'm thinking of adding "try" as a Trendy Word I Dislike when used by students like this.

[polly_mer]

Students are people.  People who aren't invested in an activity wait until the deadline to do things.  How many faculty wait until the third !ate reminder to do something those faculty consider unimportant?

I'll send emails today to authors who are past the deadline for their submission.  It will come as a shock to some people that the email will state we no longer need their articles for this special issue because being months late has previously been acceptable and we're not yet at the month-late mark.

[kiana]

This was pretty catastrophic last semester -- half of the students missed the first test, despite a set day to take it and repeated announcements.

I do think that quite a few of these are people who would've been the type to forget there was a test until it got put in front of them in class.

This semester I decided to have the on-time students wait for their feedback and put a daily late penalty for people who missed it. Interestingly, the number of people who missed test 1 was a LOT lower than last semester (about 10% of the non-AWOL students), and even those who missed it did it within 24h (to avoid a second penalty). We will see how this shakes out as the semester goes.

[Caracal]

Honestly, I probably would have  done the same as a student. Often, younger people leave things to the last minute because they can afford to. I'd like to imagine I don't finish stuff at 4 in the morning anymore because I've become wiser, but it is probably mostly because I just can't stay up that late anymore. I do important things, like submit my course requests well before the deadline, because I know that I shouldn't count on being able to have time the day its due and I know that if a bunch of things come up, I might forget it and that would be bad. Many students have fewer moving parts in their day so they can afford to just do something at the last minute.

[Katrina Gulliver]

I just heard from one of those AWOL students, two full hours after the deadline had expired.

Stu Dent: "... is a way for me to make up the exam. Because I was at work and I tried taking it on my phone but it wouldn't allow me to."

Wow. You waited until the last minute... to take your major exam... at work... with your phone.

Isn't this a perennial issue with online classes (some people thinking of it as something they can slot around their actual lives, rather than something that demands the level of time/attention as in-person classes)?
No way in a F2F class it would fly "Oh I didn't sit the exam because I went to work that day instead".

[fishbrains]

I just heard from one of those AWOL students, two full hours after the deadline had expired.

Stu Dent: "... is a way for me to make up the exam. Because I was at work and I tried taking it on my phone but it wouldn't allow me to."

Wow. You waited until the last minute... to take your major exam... at work... with your phone.

Isn't this a perennial issue with online classes (some people thinking of it as something they can slot around their actual lives, rather than something that demands the level of time/attention as in-person classes)?
No way in a F2F class it would fly "Oh I didn't sit the exam because I went to work that day instead".

Yes.

It's also interesting to watch my dual enrollment students in the high schools always use their phones if at all possible. For one class, we had a cart of brand-new MacBooks in the classroom, but the students would always try to do everything on their phones. Even if I told them that doing the assignment on the MacBook would produce an automatic A, generate a perfect ACT score for them, clear their acne, and give them a real live therapy kitten, they would try their phones first. Then second. Then third. Then complain. Eventually, they would walk the 15 feet all the way to the cart (and the 15 feet all the way back to their seat) to procure the device that worked.

I've chalked it up to something generational that I can't understand. One of the big student complaints about D2L is that it totally sucks to use on a phone.