Topic: Bang Your Head on Your Desk - the thread of teaching despair!

[Langue_doc]

Stu was just in my office doing the "I'll do anything to pass," routine and saying that I was not helping, that I was not telling him what he needed to do to pass. He is right at 70% and this is a C course for the major. I repeated to him, "I've already told you what you need to do to pass. Come to class these next two weeks, do the work as assigned, and ask questions if you have them."

Then he said, "I did much better in the class when I took it with Prof. A." I reminded him that he failed it the last time he took it, which was why he was in my class this semester. That earned me a glare. He again said I needed to tell him what to do, and I repeated the same answer as before. And I added that there was no extra credit, no re-do of previous work, and that I was not going to make extra work for myself at this point in the semester and would not offer him anything that I would not offer to the entire class because to do otherwise would be unfair. He then stated that if he took the class again next semester, I'd have to grade his work again and that would be extra work. I said that that wouldn't be extra work for me, it was part of my normal workload to grade the assignments of everyone enrolled in the course. He snorted, huffed, said 'whatever,' and left.

He's a super senior, 11th semester. He is routinely late to class and has failed several of the in-class assignments. I strongly suspect he's getting lots of 'extra' help on the homework (not doing it himself) but those are worth only a small part of the overall grade. The in-class work is almost exactly like the homework and the demos done in lecture, only they can't consult with each other when doing it, but can use their notes and book. The median and mode grade in this class is currently 88%, but he also tried to give me the "no one is doing well in this class," routine. Ugh. There's always at least one, every semester, isn't there? Two weeks until finals. I surely can make it two more weeks!

Could you email Stu along the lines of "this is what we dicussed when we met in my office", and once again reiterating what Stu needs to do in order to pass the course/get a higher grade? CC-ing Stu's advisor and your chair might be helpful. It's always a good idea to leave a paper trail.

[EdnaMode]

...

Could you email Stu along the lines of "this is what we dicussed when we met in my office", and once again reiterating what Stu needs to do in order to pass the course/get a higher grade? CC-ing Stu's advisor and your chair might be helpful. It's always a good idea to leave a paper trail.

You're right, keeping tabs on this kind of student is important. I didn't email, but I did talk to his advisor, who is our department chair. I told him that Stu may come complaining and he said that I shouldn't worry if he did complain, he had plenty of experience with Stu and would tell him the same things I did, that the only way to pass is to do the assigned work. I'm lucky to have a chair who has our six when it comes to student whinging and moaning.

Kay - we can't get rid of him, he's making progress, slowly but surely, he is making progress. He's the kind of student that when his name comes up in faculty meetings, everyone rolls their eyes and says something like "Oh, so you have him this semester, have fun with that."

[Stockmann]

I have 51 students enrolled in one of my classes. A grand total of 28 showed up for the first quiz. I'm sure it will be all my fault when there's a massive fail rate in this class...

[fosca]

I'm lucky to have a chair who has our six when it comes to student whinging and moaning.

This is such a wonderful thing to have.  I don't at my current job and it makes things much more stressful.

[FishProf]

I have to retract my statement about the obvious AI.  The student did, in fact, just copy the passage about Venture Capitalists "swimming with sharks" because her google literature search turned up a paper with "shark" in the title.

I am a little stunned by the abject stupidity I just encountered.

[kaysixteen]

But how much of his 'progress' is really just due to the reality that the more he retakes any given class, the more he will simply memorize enough of the required answers to pass the tests, without actually learning the skills taught in the class, which if it is indeed a major req with a C minimum req, should be important to know?   Med schools, etc, do not allow endless course retakes, right?

[EdnaMode]

But how much of his 'progress' is really just due to the reality that the more he retakes any given class, the more he will simply memorize enough of the required answers to pass the tests, without actually learning the skills taught in the class, which if it is indeed a major req with a C minimum req, should be important to know?  Med schools, etc, do not allow endless course retakes, right?

In our School of Engineering, we only allow 2 attempts at a course. To get a third (I'm being vague to avoid outing myself by quoting actual policy), a student basically has to get permission from multiple people including their advisor, the department chair, assistant dean, etc. etc. and write a letter about why they failed the first two times, their specific plans to pass the third time and I've only seen that appeal done successfully a few times. And I think that's a good bit of why Stu is so insistent on needing to pass the course this time, it's his second time through, and a third attempt is not likely to be approved. He could still pass, but he needs to put in the effort.

[apl68]

But how much of his 'progress' is really just due to the reality that the more he retakes any given class, the more he will simply memorize enough of the required answers to pass the tests, without actually learning the skills taught in the class, which if it is indeed a major req with a C minimum req, should be important to know?  Med schools, etc, do not allow endless course retakes, right?

In our School of Engineering, we only allow 2 attempts at a course. To get a third (I'm being vague to avoid outing myself by quoting actual policy), a student basically has to get permission from multiple people including their advisor, the department chair, assistant dean, etc. etc. and write a letter about why they failed the first two times, their specific plans to pass the third time and I've only seen that appeal done successfully a few times. And I think that's a good bit of why Stu is so insistent on needing to pass the course this time, it's his second time through, and a third attempt is not likely to be approved. He could still pass, but he needs to put in the effort.

So it seems likely that the student will be "defenestrated" from the program in the near future after all.

Come on, student!  Put in the effort!  You can (and must) do better than this!

[ciao_yall]

But how much of his 'progress' is really just due to the reality that the more he retakes any given class, the more he will simply memorize enough of the required answers to pass the tests, without actually learning the skills taught in the class, which if it is indeed a major req with a C minimum req, should be important to know?  Med schools, etc, do not allow endless course retakes, right?

In our School of Engineering, we only allow 2 attempts at a course. To get a third (I'm being vague to avoid outing myself by quoting actual policy), a student basically has to get permission from multiple people including their advisor, the department chair, assistant dean, etc. etc. and write a letter about why they failed the first two times, their specific plans to pass the third time and I've only seen that appeal done successfully a few times. And I think that's a good bit of why Stu is so insistent on needing to pass the course this time, it's his second time through, and a third attempt is not likely to be approved. He could still pass, but he needs to put in the effort.

So it seems likely that the student will be "defenestrated" from the program in the near future after all.

Come on, student!  Put in the effort!  You can (and must) do better than this!

If a student failed the class twice already, the chances of them (1) remembering enough of whatever they didn't absorb the first two times (2) adding it to a third equally weak try, and (3) being enough to pass... is pretty low.

[marshwiggle]

But how much of his 'progress' is really just due to the reality that the more he retakes any given class, the more he will simply memorize enough of the required answers to pass the tests, without actually learning the skills taught in the class, which if it is indeed a major req with a C minimum req, should be important to know?  Med schools, etc, do not allow endless course retakes, right?

In our School of Engineering, we only allow 2 attempts at a course. To get a third (I'm being vague to avoid outing myself by quoting actual policy), a student basically has to get permission from multiple people including their advisor, the department chair, assistant dean, etc. etc. and write a letter about why they failed the first two times, their specific plans to pass the third time and I've only seen that appeal done successfully a few times. And I think that's a good bit of why Stu is so insistent on needing to pass the course this time, it's his second time through, and a third attempt is not likely to be approved. He could still pass, but he needs to put in the effort.

We have a similar policy at our university, and have had for as long as I can remember. There have been cases of students basically failing out of a program because of failing a required course twice, so there's no way for them to meet the requirement.

[mythbuster]

We had to institute the two strikes and you are out rule after one student infamously failed a senior level required course six different times. The real kicker to the story is that at that time, we only had one faculty member who taught the course (we now have 4). So they took it 6 times with the same faculty member!

[onehappyunicorn]

As we push to the end of the semester I really wish I didn't know exactly how it is going to end for a fair chunk of my students. I'm already getting emails and in-class conversations about how to make up missed classes, missed assignments, etc. It doesn't seem to matter that all the information is in the syllabus, that I have announced it in class multiple times, and that I have posted all of the policies recently on the LMS because I know the grade grubbing is coming.
I teach a figure drawing class where we draw from a model every class, there is no way to make up that studio time. I tell students at the beginning of the class that missing that drawing time is going to negatively affect their grade and yet the student with five absences is just dumbstruck that their grade has been lowered accordingly.
I get an email telling me that they are going to miss another class but really don't want their grade to go down so isn't there something they can do. Well, I sure wish I didn't have to experience the negative consequences of my poor decision as well, I don't know what to tell you. I still hold out hope that eating a pint of Ben & Jerry's will make me lose weight instead of gaining it...

[apl68]

We had to institute the two strikes and you are out rule after one student infamously failed a senior level required course six different times. The real kicker to the story is that at that time, we only had one faculty member who taught the course (we now have 4). So they took it 6 times with the same faculty member!

It must have been a nightmare for that faculty member.

[FishProf]

We're about to adopt a limit to repeats rule in my department.  Some students just never get over the hump, but it differs for which hump is the problem. 

We typically have students who repeat the course, and then work LESS HARD because they've "already seen this material before".  Then they fail.  Again.

[the_geneticist]

But how much of his 'progress' is really just due to the reality that the more he retakes any given class, the more he will simply memorize enough of the required answers to pass the tests, without actually learning the skills taught in the class, which if it is indeed a major req with a C minimum req, should be important to know?  Med schools, etc, do not allow endless course retakes, right?

In our School of Engineering, we only allow 2 attempts at a course. To get a third (I'm being vague to avoid outing myself by quoting actual policy), a student basically has to get permission from multiple people including their advisor, the department chair, assistant dean, etc. etc. and write a letter about why they failed the first two times, their specific plans to pass the third time and I've only seen that appeal done successfully a few times. And I think that's a good bit of why Stu is so insistent on needing to pass the course this time, it's his second time through, and a third attempt is not likely to be approved. He could still pass, but he needs to put in the effort.

We allow 2 attempts AND you can only repeat if you did not earn a passing score the first time.  And they have low registration priority.  Anyone who is attempting the class for the first time gets to register and if there are any seats left, then those are offered for any repeaters.
3rd attempts are sometimes allowed if the student had extenuating circumstances, but it's not encouraged.