Favorite student emails

[FishProf]

The problem with the "miss an assignment" restriction on being able to get an A is that many people use the practice of dropping one (quiz, assignment, whatever) as a way to not have to vet every potential excuse. Requiring every assignment to be submitted gets back to having to vet every excuse, because even the worst students think they can get an A thanks to the Dunning-Kruger effect.

Not really.  The drop grade assumes everyone gets a freebie, so there is NO penalty for missing ONE.  If you don't miss ANY, then you get a pass on your worst one.  If you start accumulating Zeroes beyond that, your falling out of A-range performance.

IOW - the one you drop isn't a "missed assignment"

[Puget]

The problem with the "miss an assignment" restriction on being able to get an A is that many people use the practice of dropping one (quiz, assignment, whatever) as a way to not have to vet every potential excuse. Requiring every assignment to be submitted gets back to having to vet every excuse, because even the worst students think they can get an A thanks to the Dunning-Kruger effect.

Not really.  The drop grade assumes everyone gets a freebie, so there is NO penalty for missing ONE.  If you don't miss ANY, then you get a pass on your worst one.  If you start accumulating Zeroes beyond that, your falling out of A-range performance.

IOW - the one you drop isn't a "missed assignment"

I always drop the lowest couple of all the low-stakes weekly assignments-- it saves about 90% of the hassle of dealing with student complaints and excuses, so win-win.

[marshwiggle]

The problem with the "miss an assignment" restriction on being able to get an A is that many people use the practice of dropping one (quiz, assignment, whatever) as a way to not have to vet every potential excuse. Requiring every assignment to be submitted gets back to having to vet every excuse, because even the worst students think they can get an A thanks to the Dunning-Kruger effect.

Not really.  The drop grade assumes everyone gets a freebie, so there is NO penalty for missing ONE.  If you don't miss ANY, then you get a pass on your worst one.  If you start accumulating Zeroes beyond that, your falling out of A-range performance.

IOW - the one you drop isn't a "missed assignment"

That's reasonable, and I agree; I wasn't sure from the original posting whether your interpretation was what was being suggested.

[Istiblennius]

I have students who flail a first exam and can still earn an A, because they can demonstrate that they've learned and moved forward on a later exam (we have a final score will replace a lowest exam score if the final is higher). There's a huge difference between the students who just regularly do crap work and don't care and the ones that have legit had a bad day, or were unprepared but then realized with that wake up call what they needed to do to improve and master the course outcomes.

[the_geneticist]

Just when I think I've heard everything. . .

Student presumed that I'd give him an extension on an assignment, despite the no-late-work policy.  I explained that offering him this exception that all other students didn't receive would be unethical and unfair to all the others in the class.  His follow-up:

     Makes sense. Thank you for explaining it.

    Would I be able to get an A in the class even though I missed this assignment?

    If not, is it possible to extend the due date on this one for everyone so that it's fair for all the students?

o_O

I gently (?) replied that it was already fair for all the students as I'd originally handled it, and reminded him that poor planning/time management on his part does NOT constitute an emergency on my part.

I must be burned out/past caring at this point.  Years ago, his request would have at least gotten a rise out of me.  I will admit, though, that my first thought was to reply with, "Why, hell, yes. I'm happy to do as you ask!  In fact, let's just cancel all those deadlines for the entire class for the whole semester--just turn things in if and whenever you feel like it!"

But I didn't. Clearly, I'm losing my touch.

Got to admit, the student was creative and bold!  I've never had anyone ask to change the deadline for everyone after just that one student turned something in late.  Usually the whole "out of fairness to your classmates" line means they say never mind & thanks.

[Anon1787]

I dislike the expectation that a student should be able to miss an assignment or fail an exam and still be able to earn an "A" in the course. IMHO, the highest grade is supposed reflect a consistently high level of performance.

I guess it would depend on what you mean by "assignment".

In the lower-level math classes, I have a fair amount of formative assignments that are deliberately low-stakes, and it'd be possible to miss a few and still get an A. An exam? Nah.

I meant a major assignment. I understand the usefulness of low-stakes assignments.

[Langue_doc]

From a student who missed the second half of an assignment (the first assignment of the semester):

... I'm sorry I didn't notice I had to do that too I just thought it was the two assignments is there anyways I can get the point back to get a 5/5? Thank you for your time and this will never happen again.

Every now and then I get very polite and apologetic emails; another student sent me a similar email. The students usually mean it when they say that this won't happen again.

[kaysixteen]

Since student errors of this sort likely regularly occur at the beginning of the term, what do you do about it?

[kiana]

Since student errors of this sort likely regularly occur at the beginning of the term, what do you do about it?

I set the points so that the first assignment is worth very low points and I let the grade stand.

If I modify it, past experience has shown that they do not start reading carefully because they expect that I will let them fix it next time as well.

[Langue_doc]

Since student errors of this sort likely regularly occur at the beginning of the term, what do you do about it?

These are low-stakes assignments; I remind these students that I will be dropping the two lowest scores in these categories, which seems to be acceptable as I don't get any more emails about these assignments.

[the_geneticist]

Since student errors of this sort likely regularly occur at the beginning of the term, what do you do about it?

I set the points so that the first assignment is worth very low points and I let the grade stand.

If I modify it, past experience has shown that they do not start reading carefully because they expect that I will let them fix it next time as well.

Same here. 

[FishProf]

My typical response is "I bet you won't make that mistake again".

[FishProf]

Sorry, double post. But a day apart..

From a student in my asynchronous online course that started on 18Jan22.

"I hope you are doing well.

I just wanted to reach out and give you an update as to why I'm behind in your course. I'm a transfer student from [Now Closed U], and coming to [FishProfU] has changed a lot for me. This included cutting down most of my hours at work. Because of this, I really only have enough money to get me to and from school. I know it sounds ridiculous given the low prices of the books, but I just couldn't afford to buy them with my own funds. I was waiting for refund money to order them.

After seeing I had gotten a red flag in this course, I did end up having a breakdown. My boyfriend offered to pay for them and put the order in last night. The books are due to come in tomorrow, then I can work on catching up."

Umm, OK.  Three books, total cost <$45.  Buy one for now?  Get them from a Library?

More importantly, you have online lectures w/ quizzes, and videos w/quizzes.  None of them require the books. Let's see, how many of those have you done.  Oh - NONE.

What is the point of this email?  Sympathy?  Do the work, or don't.  Your call.  EVERYTHING is due in May.

[mythbuster]

This may be an email that they have sent to all of their professors, regardless of how applicable it is. I would flag them to your Dean of students or any student support services you may have. This is an all too familiar story, and they are not lying about the lack of funds. Since they are new to your Uni, they may not know that the library has a copy- likely their previous now-defunct school did not have the funds for that kind of resources. This is a cry for help- I would respond by directing them to those who can best provide that help.

[the_geneticist]

I think mythbuster is spot on for this one as an email to all of their instructors from a student in a crisis , especially with the note about the barely having money to get to campus.  Your class is online so the only reason they'd need to be on campus is for having access to good internet.  I'd sent them to their academic advisor, dean of students, etc.  and point them to other resources (food pantry? emergency funds?).  And let them know that they can start the assignments for your class even without having the books.