You did everything possible before the semester began to ensure that your class would operate smoothly, taking great care to set the opening & closing dates of threads, quizzes, & assignments. Emails are checked daily with quick responses given to worried students who can't seem to find enough time in a day to juggle work, school & any semblance of a life. Thread responses to student posts are sent to facilitate critical thinking further into the topic. Alas, things are looking pretty good as the finish line for the semester is a month away.
Suddenly, some students realize that their grades may not be near where they wanted them to be because life won out over investing in homework, chapter readings, & regular class participation. The emails turn more urgent, asking what extra credit they might be able to take on. Or perhaps they are making excuses about their undesirable performance, making the Withdraw process seem the last choice instead of taking an F.
Some students can be very inventive when it comes to winning over your heart, & squeezing out extra work on your end by giving unique excuses of why they could not take a scheduled quiz or submit a paper on time. Interesting phenomenon may have impeded the student's ability to write or test such as following a week long religious holiday, or being hit by a snowstorm. No longer do we hear "The dog ate my homework!" But we do too often hear how computers went on the blitz, how the Internet stopped working, or how a power pole fell into a house knocking out electricity for days. What to do about the excuses that create more pull from your end to open a quiz, grade late papers sent as attachment in email, or students begging to send thread responses to you after a thread closes?
Each of us have specific criteria establishing boundaries regarding late work or missing assignments. Some policies are set in stone, while other instructors have flexible guidelines relating to untimely circumstances that impede a student's productivity. Whatever your rules are, it is always good to consider that life is very unpredictable. We saw this with the events of 9/11. We are all living in very stressful times...some of us in more stressful situations than others. Students are no different. In fact, life may very well be even more difficult for them as they are working on their degrees, where we already have ours.
Sometimes it isn't so bad of an idea to give an extra hand to students who experience unexpected tragedies, or who are having a hard time adjusting being back in school after being out for so long. A little extra encouragement, amnesty for late work, or just an email telling a student you care about their success can do wonders for boosting morale. In tough times, it is important that we stick together, for the strong can encourage the weaker links to toughen up their responsibilities. Excuses can then convert to reasons why success is a greater goal than mediocre attempts at higher academia...
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It's important to have how lenient you're planning on being in your syllabus.
ReplyDeleteYou don't want to say "No late work accepted!" and then quietly have the real policy 'unless you e-mail me about it'. Imagine another student E-mailing the chair saying you were unfairly favoring another student by violating your written rules.
I include flexibility within the rules from the get-go. Replacing the lowest exam grade with their grade on the final is a good easy one, but my favorite is to build "late periods" into the schedule. I make it clear assignment X is due on day Y, but the settings allow it to be taken a day or a week late. I tell them they can get an automatic extension, but only if they E-mail me. Just a single day automatic extension in College Algebra, which I call the "tech-glich day", took care of the majority of late complaints.