I teach online. It's flexible, which is cool, but if I need a day off (funerals, weddings, honeymoons, conferences, etc), I can't get a sub. Either I teach the class or I have to give the whole thing up and it goes to someone else.
If I want a specific day off I have to -- this is crazy! -- plan ahead. Get my grading done, get my discussion posts written up ahead of time, plan out any materials that need to be added to the classroom.
Unfortunately, many of my students (not all, but any means), take online flexibility to mean any time they feel like it. Now that it's summer, I'm getting requests for extensions up the wazoo. All of the assignments and due dates are listed in the syllabus and calendar: the students know from Day 1 what is due and when it is due.
Instead of planning or working ahead, I get a flurry of extension requests. Now, I admit this is my fault: I don't have a hard and fast extension rule. When I was in undergrad, two professors kindly granted me extensions (I was still reeling from my father's death the previous year), and in grad school a prof granted me an extension when I was trying to finish my thesis. And most of my students are working adults with families. So I think there is some value in occasional leniency.
But I hate judging excuses: does the person with a sick kid get an extension, but not the one suffering technical difficulties? Should someone who asks on Day 6 get an extension, but not the one on Day 7?
Blah.
Next term I'm thinking of a new rule: 1 extension per student, per class. Use it wisely.
What do others think about granting extensions?
That'd probably work better than what you're currently doing, which almost sounds like they're writing their own syllabus.
ReplyDeleteI hate extensions. They mean more for me to keep track of and that irritates me. I'm a mean, high-rolling bitch when it comes to anything that hints of deviation from the syllabus. Where I work the dept has a policy whereby the only thing that'll get an exception from the rule is a medically documented somethingerother. Not all faculty apply it, and they get all manner of nonsense. I apply it, and minimal nonsense floats my way.
That's not to say that I don't have a heart when it comes to something really horrendous, death in the family...but even that sort of thing requires a note from a doctor or grief counselor or whatever, and I'm really lenient on how quickly they need to get that to me. A faker probably won't go to those lengths, someone in real grief will get to it in time, and at that point, I make adjustments.
I tell them no late work, but if it's an extreme emergency, they can contact me. I also tell them everyone gets a max of one emergency per term and I am the decider of what constitutes an emergency. Like Dr. Cranky, I will work with them as much as I can if it's something truly awful and can be documented. But I never let that go on too long because often if it's something that bad, they get so far behind it becomes better for them to cut their losses and try again when they are up for the learning experience.
ReplyDeleteTechnical problems don't get them off the hook. Unless it's an issue on the college server's end, they shouldn't wait till the last minute and then expect a bailout because they couldn't get something to work.
When I was an undergraduate (I was still arrogant, if not more so, back then), one of my professors would give out one extension to every student. She did this by handing out pieces of brightly colored paper (one per student) in the first class. We had to put our names on them right then (so we couldn't trade), and it was our responsibility to keep them, not lose them, throughout the semester (lose it and no extension). She used a different color of paper each semester, so students couldn't hang onto old ones.
ReplyDeleteWhen it was time to turn in an assignment, you could turn in your extension paper instead. This gave you an extra week to complete the assignment.
This way, our prof. didn't have to care about whether you had a real emergency or deal with emailed requests and excuses. She didn't care why, when, or if we used the extensions, because the system was fairly automatic and self-regulating after the initial class.
It couldn't work quite the same online, but promising one extension per student can reduce the hassle and harrasment.
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ReplyDeleteMy experience with extensions is that they delay inevitable bad grades more often then not. While some students have honest delays and master the subject matter, my experience is that most who beg for for more time are simply inept and procrastinating. It's actually compassionate of me to deny extensions because then the student can get the bad news ("you are failing") before the withdrawal deadline.
ReplyDeleteDr. Cranky writes: "A faker probably won't go to those lengths, someone in real grief will get to it in time."
ReplyDeleteA case corroborating something like this is my freshman whose father was murdered. (No real need for extra documentation; it was in the newspapers.) Before even leaving town to go home he calls me up and asks for the handouts and assignments so he can do them while he's gone. "Don't even think about that. Go home to your family. They need you. We'll talk about this when you come back." And we did. He ended up with either an A or B (earned, not coddled). And all this with a shrink-certified learning disability, too.
Meanwhile, of course, as Dr. Cranky suggests, the prototypical guy with the 3 dead grandmothers was probably failing the class before even the first one of the nonexistent old bats even allegedly took ill.
I got fed up with the constant requests for extensions and with having to say no to everybody to maintain my own hardass rule.
ReplyDeleteSo this semester I tried something new. I created a drop box in the CMS labeled "Late Work" and left it open without restrictions until the day of the final. I have told the students that I will grade anything they submit to that box, but will penalize them 20% for turning in a late paper within 24 hours, and 50% thereafter.
I've also used it for required rewrites, which helps me keep track of everything.
Of course, if I have 84 late papers in the drop box on the day of the final, I may live to regret this decision, but so far, it is working out.
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