Students!!! AAAAAGH!

[CityGirlintheCountry]

Quote:
Actually, I have given makeup tests for just such reasons. I have given incompletes for illness, death in the family, car trouble, and all manner of things. I am more than happy to help my students when problems pop up. What I am not willing to help out with is "I skipped class all semester because I was too lazy to show up and do my work and now I have failed. Fix it because I can't afford to take this class again." Why is your irresponsibility as a student my problem as a faculty member? (speaking metaphorically of you and not literally as I'm sure you are not this kind of student)

The OP ran into an unavoidable problem outside of her control. She made every attempt to get the test to the students and was foiled by the administration and by life. Theoretically her administration should have helped her out and proctored the test for her. They did not. She made alternate arrangements with the students. Some students chose to not take the test. What else can she do? Go knock on their door and stand over them while they take it? She isn't their mother. She is their boss.

My students are not my customers. They are my students. It is my job to prepare them for the real world. It is my job to share with them the wisdom that I have picked up over the years and the knowledge that I have about my field. It is my job to hold them accountable so that when they do make it out into the real world they are prepared and can keep a job (harder and harder to do in this economy). For now, I am their boss and this is their job. True, they pay quite a bit of money for the privilege of learning. They pay for the collective wisdom and skill of their university professors. If they do not wish to "buy" this knowledge than they are welcome to keep their money and go try it on their own.
Your analogy is flawed. Students buy the right to come into the store. What they do once they are in is totally up to them. I can help them if they want help. I can feed them if they are hungry. I cannot make them hungry.


Now, the last of my finals have been graded and I just turned in final grades. SCHOOL IS OUT FOR SUMMER! Whoohoo!! I'm out of here! There are eggs in my bator that need candling.

 

[HarlansHollowFarms]

Quote:
I have been in that situation and informed the Prof. there was an incident on the hwy. and they believed it, probably because I had proven previously to be a reliable student.

 

[I have WHAT in my yard?]

Like CityGirl I have given make up exams for a wide variety of reasons including "I could not make it to the exam because I was so busy throwing up from anxiety." Each student is different and should be treated as such.

I think I more than met them half way.....

Given that there is no way I could have waited a week and no one else would give my exam I still do not hear a plan that meets your criteria for fairness.







BTW life is not fair. I can lose my job over things like not getting to work on time when my boss can be late routinely and no one can fire him.........

The teacher gets the benefit of the doubt because they are the teacher. After ten years I have earned my credibility, the students have yet to earn theirs, and earn it they must.

 

[Rosalind]

I have WHAT in my yard? :

Truly, I would like to hear from others exactly what other options you think I (or the other three professors who were also not able to get to the school that day) could have done.

My options as I saw them:

1.) Cancel the exam and let the students grade stand where it was.
I rejected this because several students really needed another chance to pull up their grades. Since not being present was my fault I thought they should still get this chance.

2.) Reschedule the exam
I rejected this because it would have been all but impossible for the students to agree on another time, not to mention we had little time.

3.) Give them longer to complete the exam??
Just my experience, but no matter how long the lead up, there are still many who will wait until the last minute to do something. Besides if they had studied, the material should be fresh in their heads now and it was better to get it over with. Not to mention that final grades are due Tomorrow.

So, in the name of improved future performance and customer service - what else could I have done?

Edited to add: I offered to have the exam e-mailed to the dept, they refused to print it out or proctor the exam.

Your dept. refused to proctor the exam? Wow, your department is not so good. I never had a problem getting TAs to proctor exams, I just had to set out a plate of cookies from Trader Joe's.

Also, we always had to have extra folks available for proctoring exams for the ADHD kids--I never actually had one come up to me and schedule the Quiet Room Exam, but they all turned in their Disability Forms in the beginning of the semester anyway, so we had to have extra proctors hanging around as a rule.

I would have given them longer. As an old fart who went to school as an adult, it IS really a near-impossibility to re-schedule on that short notice--when I was in school (

) I had two research projects that took 40+ hours/week, worked 25-30 hours/week, and then went to school. And not all workplaces are the least bit flexible about scheduling their student workers; many of my friends who worked off-campus were told by their bosses to skip class in order to work or risk getting fired with cause. And one thing that made me really crazy was when professors would schedule last-minute important review sessions during late-night work hours...then tell the kids who came to the review some incredibly vital piece of information critical to passing the exam, like, "it's going to be an open book test." 48-72 hours would have been plenty of time though.

In all fairness, I am a wicked evil grader. I gave out many Fs that were later overturned to C-s by more sympathetic administrators. I understand the temptation to give out Fs, but I really think it's only appropriate for students who have been slacking off all semester.

Two final formats that I really liked:

Calculate grades as follows: If you have 3 regular in-class exams + the final, tell the students they are allowed to miss ONE exam for dead grandmothers and so forth, but they must take at least 3 exams, and calculate grades as 3/3, or if their grade is crummy and they need the "extra credit," they can take the final and have their grade calculated as 4/4 instead--however, the final exam is essay format. I have some hilarious essay answers saved for posterity.

Make the final exam a Jeopardy style oral exam. Have a proctor be the grade recorder, counting who answered what. Only works for smallish classes, but it was a lot of fun and forces people to talk. You can really tell who was paying attention and who was snoozing. Of course, in the event of massive traffic problems, you would be outta luck.​

 

[CityGirlintheCountry]

Why should I allow them to take 4 tests, and then drop one? No boss on the planet is going to allow that. "Here. We have these 4 very important clients with very important projects. Go ahead and screw one over. We'll lose the client and all the income they could have produced, but that's okay. I know your life is busy."
School is their job. While they may have a family and a job and umpteen other things to do, they have chosen to come to school to work towards a degree. If they are not willing to do the work, then perhaps they need to wait until they can handle the workload. Otherwise they need to be more organized and plan better.
On the first day of class we are required to provide the students with a syllabus and a calendar. On that calendar I mark all of the due dates for every project, every test and every assignment. Everything is on there and these dates don't change. I plan my classes very carefully. There is no "busy work" and nothing in there just to add up to a grade. Trust me when I say that I would be very happy to give one test and be done. It would be a lot less work for me as grading is very time consuming. Instead I carefully plot out a series of tests and exercises that build on skills and knowledge. Every single project is important. Skipping one means they are behind and will have a harder time on the next project or test. I expect them to do the work. All of the work.

I know college is hard. I know it is time consuming. I know that it is difficult to juggle classes, homework and a job. Most of my students are working to help pay for school. I know that and I am sympathetic (as I did the same when I was a student). But, school is their main job. There is no point working at a minimum wage job to pay for school if you aren't going to work in your classes and make a passing grade. Failing a class is throwing money down the drain. Why would you not turn in projects and tests?
In this case the professor was detained through no fault of her own. It happens. She prepared a substitution and offered the students a chance to take it within 24 hours. Theoretically all of them had prepared for the test already. All they had to do was fill in the blanks. Actually the test was a lot easier as it was a take home exam and they could use their notes. How easy can you make it? If they had problems they could have emailed her. They did not. I suspect that if someone pops up to say "ACK! I didn't get the email!" the OP will allow them to send it in late. I suspect that most of them will not.

 

[Judy]

This has been an amazing thread. I still feel you were perfectly fair. I only wish all teachers had your innate good sense. Congrats to you.

The only alternative presented here that feels anywhere near fair to me is allowing them to choose to take the exam, or take whatever grade they already had, as their final grade. I have not read every word here, and do not even know if your institution would have permitted it. Even if they would, I can easily see why you might have felt this would be unfair to some, so I continue to respect the choice you made as fair. And I would certainly have respected your choice had I been your student in this class; actually, as I already said, I would have been delighted. To me, it would have meant I could take a closed book test as an open book test, in effect with no time limit. What more could a compromised student ask?

In my mind, it is absurd that no one was available to proctor the exam for you. A janitor, or certainly a secretary, could have done it with 5 minutes' training, for goodness sake. Does not require a teacher's skills!!! Actually, a waste of a teacher's time, but then, who else is available? To me, the school should have had a "disaster plan" at the ready to deal with such a situation. Hospitals must do this; why should schools not?

Of course life is not fair. Know this song?

I beg your pardon,
I never promised you a rose garden,
Along with the sunshine,
There's got to be a little rain sometimes....

etc.

This pops in my head regularly, as needed....

 

[CityChicker]

I swore I was leaving this thread! Argh! Anyway, I truly feel sorry for instructors. In this situation, I still would have given the students a week to make up the test (if that were possible). You can only do so much though. As has been noted, every situation and every school is different. I think it is horrible that no one could proctor the exam (and certainly not the OP's fault that the school doesn't have any way of doing this).

The truth is-all of the negative things said about students I have seen for myself firsthand. I have TA'd classes and stepped in for instructors when needed as well. The level of mediocrity that some students are happy with is astounding to me (in fairness though, some instructors are not much better).

Ultimately though, as I said, the vast majority of the instructors at my school are nothing short of amazing people. Most are there because they love it. They don't get nearly the respect they deserve. They also make far less than they could make as a cashier at McDonald's. That is what is really sad.

 

[Judy]

Quote:
I think it's clear that the instructor did not make any sort of mistake. In reality, the institution did, in not having a backup plan to deal with this eventuality. The instructor had no choice to show up or not show up, unless we believe she should have had a helicopter available to pluck her off the freeway.

And I think it is clear that students in the same situation would have been treated fairly by the OP.

If I were going to fabricate an excuse, it would not be a blocked freeway -- to easy to confirm or refute!

 

[Judy]

Quote:
I think she already said she did not HAVE a week.

 

[CityChicker]

That is why I added "if that were possible". LOL