Monday, April 1, 2013

I'm Not Hiram, But I'm Baffled Anyway. From Nobby in North Dakota.

Got this email from a student in a third-year course for majors.  As background, please note that the late assignment policy on my syllabus, in its entirety, is this:

Late Assignment Policy:Late assignments are not accepted.
For good measure, my syllabus also contains the following:

Timeliness is of utmost importance 
and, 
Make Up Policy: There are no makeups.
Yes, I have reinforced this verbally.  Many times. With this student sitting in class.   And I do enforce it.

And now, the email from my student:


> I never thought points would be deducted for missing the date I was suppose to present at. Is there?

Is this the unavoidable effect of the constant enabling behavior of our Student Retention Office? 


And short of some kind of public execution early in the semester, is there any way to get the message across that deadlines really do matter?  

5 comments:


  1. Me have accountability & repercussions? That's unpossible!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Here's an idea, untried and untested:

    Give them an ablative assignment early in the semester. Something worth trivial points, but something that requires just enough work that they will put it off, and then make a big show of rejecting late submissions.

    Since they're all keeners at the beginning of term, you'll have to put the scale: perhaps announce the assignment on Monday, fail to remind them on Wednesday, then require the assignment by beginning of class on Friday.

    You can even explicitly state that the purpose of the assignment is to get them used to submission policies.

    ---NJT

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I like it. I might actually use that in the fall semester. Thx! :-)

      Delete
  3. Why is there a Student Retention Office? Have people stopped having children?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Pretty much. Also, people have stopped being able to afford to go to college.

      Delete

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