Sunday, September 09, 2012

Latecomers

I got an email this afternoon from a student who registered for my class after Friday's class.  So zie has missed a week of class.

I know it's not the student's fault, but what a pain in the rear.  This class has already turned in an assignment.  Should I let this student make it up?  How about the assignment for Monday; allow hir to make it up, or no?

The student sent a polite email, which is good.  But it's still a pain in the rear to rearrange stuff for a new person.  We're sort of the factory floor of education; it sucks but there it is.  You do all this planning to try to make things work for 20 or more students, and then you have to rearrange.

5 comments:

  1. I had this happen--we've been in class for two weeks already, but add/drop only ends tomorrow. I had a student add about an hour after the Wed class. I sent him the syllabus, the first two readings, and told him he had to get the first assignment (a short response) to me by Friday if he wanted credit. He did, and it was a pleasant surprise--definitely the best short response I got from the whole class. Basically, my philosophy is give them a really demanding schedule to get caught up, but let them try and catch up. That *usually* weeds out the students who don't want to work hard and were switching from another section in hopes of something easier.

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  2. That's a really good idea :)

    It's only one short assignment so far, after all.

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  3. One of the schools I worked for in CA had a 2.5-3 week add period. It was insane. I had people add so late they they would only have one class before a test or paper was due. And the profs could do nothing about it. Fortunately the syllabi were online and students would take it upon themselves to catch up before adding, usually. But it was still a mess. Heartland only allows adding during the first week of classes, so it's better where I am.

    I'd say let the person make up the one assignment by a certain due date. If it's late, I wouldn't give credit for it.

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  4. Our add-drop's only ten days long now but it's bad enough for the student who adds on the last day. Th system's slow enough that some don't 'see' the online section for a few more days, so you can't just point them to that - you have to email or print out all the relevant course files.

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  5. One of the downsides to adding a course late is catching up. That's life.

    I would feel bad if this student had a full time job or something keeping him from getting work done.But if this is a full time student, well, doing the work is his job. He'll survive.


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