Thankfully not my own frustration, but quite a few colleagues of mine have pending grade appeals from students retroactively taking advantage of the university's laissez-faire H1N1 policy.
On the other hand, I'm already starting the start-of-next-semester frustrations: today a student enrolled in one of my spring courses emailed to inform me that he'll be missing the first week of class because he'll "still be on family vacation and it won't feel right to leave early."
In most cases...if you accept a student's excuse and allow a make-up, if they are bad students, the extra time won't help them, and if they are good students with real problems, it will work itself out.
^ The only problem with this policy is that if you accept every students' excuse, you'll be in your office supervising makeup exams about 60 hours during finals week.
The only way I'd ever go with a "no excuse needed/any excuse acceptable" policy is by blocking off one day of each class for make-ups.
Actually...I tell them no excuses..and it cuts down on the number of requests. I would say in the course of the semester, I get about five such request across all my classes.
I don't have the time or inclination to fight this fight with students...there are enough things to deal with in the course of a semester.
Setting a single time for a make-up usually accommodates 80%-90% of the students (including those who simply disappear), and then for the remainder (except in unusual circumstances), just say you'll take the average of the other grades. There's usually not a whole lot of variance anyway, and in the situations where a student is actually recovering from an illness or dealing with a family crisis, their ability to concentrate is minimal anyway (particularly in the latter situation), and averaging the other grades probably provides a better sense of their ability anyway (this is presupposing that the role of exams is evaluative, not punitive or adversarial)
Argh. Student just left my office, complaining about getting a 57 (F) for a course grade, since s/he "has to graduate tomorrow."
What are you complaining about, Speakeasy? That gives you a whole day to get everything resolved.
Professors...geez...
I had a paper on Realism talk about how to approach how a burglar would approach robbing Ted Nugent. He even even included a Waltzian reference. Like the poster above, I gave him an "A". I never though I would see Neo-Realism and Uncle Ted together, but it happened.
Had a student print out a paper to hand in. But ALAS - zie forgot to change the name of my colleague to whom zie had turned in the same paper (well 90% the same). So, instead of printing out a NEW title page, zie just crossed out the colleague's name and wrote mine in pen. The sad thing is - zie would have gotten an okay grade if zie had printed out a new title page.
Pet peeve: utilizing superfluous details in research papers to meet the page limit. To wit (from my undergrad IO class):
"Michael Barnett, a professor at the University of Minnesota, and Martha Finnemore, a professor at George Washington University, in their journal article titled 'The Politics, Power, and Pathologies of International Organizations,' written for International Organization, an academic journal published by Cambridge University, give a detailed account of how a constructivist approach, when applied to international organizations can paint the clear picture that certain pathologies dominant the landscape of international organizations."
AND...
"In Arie Kacomicz's article, written for the International Studies Association's 2006 symposium on the North-South Divide, entitled 'Globalization, Poverty, and the North-South Divide, he cites Holm and Sorensen (1995) in defining globalization as 'the intensification of economic, political, social, and cultural relationships across borders…"
^ At least they're citing.
True.
Plus, it definitely beats the paper that argues that Kaliningrad is an independent state, and that the EU must absorb it in order to not lose legitimacy, regardless of "risking relations with Russia."
...or the one with the earth-shattering claim that "Genocide is a tremendously horrible happening."
Man, I've got to get done with these soon.
Just read a wonderful paper about the North Quran conflict, which seemed to be about US actions in Iraq but ended around the first Gulf War with Saddam still in power today.
Just read a wonderful paper about the North Quran conflict, which seemed to be about US actions in Iraq but ended around the first Gulf War with Saddam still in power today.
So basically you have a genius student with (i) the gift of revisionist history; and (ii) the gift of prophecy. THEN DUDE/TTE INTERACTED HIS/HER GIFTS. I think we all know what the board thinks you should give the student.
HINT: It's a vowel.
E ?
That's my favorite region of the Quran.
E ?
Dammit I am too hung over for your subtle and nuanced arguments. Where I come from, E ain't no grade. But you're a fighter, and I like your spirit. We are now good friends.
GIVE THE GIFTED PERSON AN A!!!!
I received a note attached to a take-home final for my Introduction to American Politics class. Among other pieces of wisdom the student offered the following: "I felt that I did learn something from this class but over all it seemed fairly straightforward and meant for the incoming freshman more than a junior. Being that I am in the third year of college and a computer science and engineering major, it is of little use to me to take this class seriously, which I did not take seriously to be sure." He goes on to explain: "Though I myself fell asleep due to factors outside the classroom quite a bit, the class was interesting and kept my attention....I encourage [you] to continue being so delightful."
That's my favorite region of the Quran.
What's wrong with South-East Quran? The shared beaches with North-West Talmud are superb over there.
This is the best/worst answer that I have gotten in my short career. I should add that (a)this test was a take-home and (b)I have entered it here exactly as it was submitted.
Q: What is a minimal winning coalition? Why is it important?
A: A minimal winning coalition or cabinet is a cabinet that has a central government that shares no powers or do to their being minimal parties involved within the coalition. It is impotant that you don't have to share power ad shouldn't share power do to the place and time crunch that we are in and that we decided to make it an ultimate decision to deliberate. It's like when Coke Controlled Coke Zero. But when Coke Zero controls Coke the product can taste and remain the same. Another example would and could be would be (pgs 385-386 abd pgs 393-400 of text book).
^Obviously.
I hope you'll be sharing his/her interpretation of the median voter theorem as well.
I've just been lurking ever since registration became required, but well this is a thread where I had to post. This is not from this year, but comes from a class I TAed two years ago.
The exam was mostly multiple choice with a few short answer, and as I'm going through I notice that this kid is getting every single answer wrong, and some of them are just ridiculous. I get to the end, and sure enough the kid got every single question wrong, even the super-obvious ones. Then, at the bottom of the last page, he wrote "P.S. You have to know the right answers to get every single question wrong, don't you? So how about an A?" That takes some serious guts, but I guess if you're going to fail anyway, you might as well do it. I gave him the 0, but part of me has always wondered, I guess that's what he was going for.
When I was a TA a while back, I got an unmemorable but adequate paper, gave it a B-. Student comes to my office, says "I have a concern about my grade. You gave it a B-, but my girlfriend turned it in to another TA and she got a B." I paused for a couple of seconds, maintained my composure, and calmly said "that does sound like a problem. If you can bring me your paper and your girlfriend's paper, hopefully we can sort this out". So he does, and we turned them both in for plagiarism.
Actually, that wasn't a frustration. It was awesome.
^You're my hero
^^ rules; I need to teach more stupid students to get a chance at replicating the D-maneuver