7:30 am: receive email. "Dr M, I was looking at the syllabus and it says we have an exam today. Is that true?"7:31-7:35 am: type reply, "Yes it is. We have a test at 9:30 this morning. I mentioned it in every class for the past two weeks and we had a review on Thursday (which you missed.).
7:36: Delete reply, type new one. "Yes we do, see you in class."
7:37: Regret 1985 decision to stop drinking.
I've had 3 emails this afternoon asking what's on the quiz tomorrow. Why, everything I said was on the quiz, today, in class, where you weren't, sweethearts. And posted on Moodle, with helpful links, where you didn't apparently check. I deleted without answering. This is going to do my "helpful and accessible" score no good.
ReplyDeleteI just delete e-mail like this, without replying, but while shaking my head and thinking, "Oh you stupid peabrain."
ReplyDeleteMy actual reply would have been very similar to your first draft. I would have deleted "(which you missed)" and used phrases like "as was discussed in class" and "as is listed on the syllabus". If they are too dense to take the hint, it is likely they were destined to fail in any case.
ReplyDeleteHey MAM, so what happened? Did the student show up, or suddenly experience a bout of gastrointestinal upset or suchlike to have an absence with a medical exemption?
ReplyDeleteThe student showed up. I have not graded the exams yet. I had one no-show and one last minute drop out of 35.
ReplyDeleteTwo more disgruntled students sent me churlish emails late last night demanding that I reschedule the quiz for next week because they didn't know it was going to be CUMULATIVE, and that was TOTALLY UNFAIR, because that makes it a MIDTERM, and like all of the classes with MIDTERMS they were told WEEKS ago ...
ReplyDeleteWhy? Because I told them in class that I reserved the right to take 4 of the 20 multiple-choice questions from material they'd covered before the first quiz.
It's always tempting to believe that students are becoming steadily more over-privileged and entitled, but in fact I think a couple of emails like this every year on one subject or another, and thanks to my sunny temperament, I forget them.
Anyway I wrote back to both and told them to suck it.
@Merely: Admittedly I don't give many tests (my courses are all about papers), but I don't get the extreme anxiety over cumulative tests. I don't remember even making the distinction when I was in college. Aren't their college careers supposed to be cumulative? Heck, isn't life cumulative?
ReplyDeleteOkay; time to go to bed; it's been a long day. It isn't only here that the online natives have been restless. Maybe there's a full moon (I know, I know, Froderick; that's a myth).
I suspect a lot of students use the old "cram-and-dump" method of studying (when they actually bother to study), and don't want to have to read the same thing twice. It takes up valuable headspace that could otherwise be used for thoughts about sex, celebrities, and LOLcats.
ReplyDelete