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| I find it's a nice place to finish my Sudoku. |
These students haven't been submitting any work all quarter (hence the need to drop), but they keep coming to class. They participate in discussions when they can (since they don't read, their participation is limited to general comments), they don't seem to have a poor attitude about being there, and they keep coming. One asked permission to keep coming, claiming that he needed the structure to his day or else he would sleep all day. The others just keep showing up. When I told them that in college they don't have to keep coming, they shrugged and said, "We know." Some of them claimed they just enjoyed the class and wanted to keep coming. One comes and works on other homework (quietly, in the back row). One said she was embarrassed for her friends to find out that she had dropped and asked if she could keep coming so they wouldn't find out.
What do you make of this? Are they secretly hoping that by coming to class faithfully, I'll just pass them? Do they really not GET that they don't have to keep coming after they've dropped a class, or if there is no hope of passing? I'm thoroughly perplexed by this.
If I were a student who had failed a class due to my own negligence, I might very well keep going so as to get a leg up on the course content when I had to retake it. Could that be what's going on, or is that too charitable an assessment of these particular students?
ReplyDeleteI am tempted to give a charitable spin on their actions as well. Sometimes life just gets in the way of a student doing (any?!) of the work for the class, but not in the way of attending lectures.
ReplyDeleteI've dealt with many students like this. They are deluding themselves if they think sitting in the class but doing no work will help them next semester. It didn't help for the exam this semester, did it?
ReplyDeleteOften students won't drop a class because they need to retain their full time status for scholarships (probably their last semester of it) or keeping their student visa, if they are international. Others won't admit that they failed or they don't want their parents to find out. I worry that some first-generation students don't understand what a failing grade can do to their transcript and GPA.
I've seen this before too - student intends to re-take the course next year, and thinks that they'll do better 2nd time around if they continue to attend this time around, even though they've already dropped the course. So long as they don't say a peep and don't interfere with my class in any way, I let them.
ReplyDeleteThe students may also continue to attend because their financial aid could be tied to their attendance. If they are failing your class, it is highly likely that their performance is sub-par in other courses.
ReplyDeleteAlso, dropping could put them below full time student status, which negatively impacts financial aid and often times health insurance from their parents' policies. I've had students who hung on, and even took the final, because they needed to prove they had taken the entire course in order not to owe the financial aid office tuition at the end of the term.
Yes, the students may be outright failing, but the system rewards them for being in that room and breathing.
Yeah, but the ones who have dropped and who keep coming astound me more than the ones who, for whatever financial/F-1 visa reasons, need to maintain a full load.
Delete@Cynic: Print out enrollment verification pages (one per student) and hand them out at the end of the next class. Each student gets a page; no student knows what the other students' pages say. Then, as your last statement for the day before you walk out, tell them that only students who are actually enrolled in that class are allowed to come to class. Say it out loud. Write it. Put it to music, if necessary. And have an armed guard at the door at the beginning of the next class. Perhaps write an awkward, polite note to the one student acknowledging that you had made an exception for hir and had given permission to hir to come to class, but that you must stick to this policy for the rest of the semester. No more exceptions.
ReplyDeleteSame advice for the department chair with regard to faculty who have quit or were fired: Those people shouldn't be attending department meetings.
I'm curious why you think they NEED to be barred from attending class.
DeleteIs it not negligent for higher education's primary operators--whether they be Angry Archie, Julian Morrow, or community college "admissions" officers--to fail to separate the wheat from the chaff?
DeleteStudents who have dropped the class have forfeited the privilege of attending class. Students who cannot pass, but have not dropped, are entitled to attend.
FERPA precludes you from revealing the latter's grades to the other students, but propriety (and a proffie's good inclination to avoid gaslighting other students) precludes a good proffie from allowing non-enrolled students from attending the class--except in exceptional cases.
My school considers it theft of services if a non registered person sits in on a class. This includes those who have dropped.
Delete"Theft of services"? That's insane. The students aren't paying for the instruction; they're paying for the credential. I'll talk to whoever cares to show up. They just won't get credit for the course if they haven't paid for it.
DeleteIn our institution, the policy is to positively exclude students from a class for which they are not actually registered.
ReplyDeleteThe reason for this is a possibly-apocryphal story of a student who wasn't enrolled, but attended the class anyway, and since they showed up and did the work, sued to get credit granted for the work in that class.
I have no idea if that is true, but I have no problem with it.
I checked with our Registrar, who says that the only way they can claim to have passed is if they are doing work that I'm accepting and grading. I have no attendance policy and of this group, none of them are doing any work. So... essentially, they're just loitering in the classroom, soaking up the good vibes, or whatever. I don't know.
DeleteI will bring it up with my dean. My chair had no input into the situation, claiming that if they want to sit there, that's their problem.
When one of those students brings a semi-automatic to class and mows down the other students, your chair will change his tune: "Why the fuck did you allow that student to come to your class? He wasn't even enrolled! Now we're being sued and we've got 25 dead students on our hands!" (He'll mention being sued before mentioning the dead students.)
DeleteThe ones who have failed the class, dropped and keep coming would be barred from attending at my college too-----we have the same story and I wonder if it is urban legend as no one knows the particular student or profs involved and it was before the current administration's time.....
ReplyDeleteI don't know. The explanations have plausibility, even verisimilitude.
ReplyDeleteSometimes students who have dropped or are otherwise not enrolled in my classes stop by for a lecture or two (a fact I consider evidence of my charisma!), yet I have never had students stay for the remainder of a course.
I too have found that students who know they will fail the course this time around believe that they will do better in the future if they 'fail better' now.
Perhaps be less cynical for this one and take them at their words? The one who is too embarrassed to drop would almost break my heart.
You need to share your "best practices" with Rhonda in Rochester.
ReplyDeleteMaybe I need to hold extra study sessions: that might scare them away. :)
DeleteThe one who says they will sleep all day if they don't have the structure of your class sounds like he or she may be depressed... Might want to recommend student mental health services?
ReplyDeleteLet them come, but they have to wear a big red "D" over their left breast.
ReplyDeleteAs I see it, once they've dropped, they are not longer paying for that class and have no right to be there.