I find myself dealing with a new personality this semester - the student who will fight over every single point on every single graded item.
Of course students always check their grades and over last semester and what has gone by of this one I've gotten a few questions here and there but for the most part students accept their grades and move on.
In my new course though, I have one student who is now consistently raising some kind of issue with virtually every graded thing we have done. This began a few weeks ago just a couple of days prior to the first exam. She wrote frantically to me on Sunday (the exam was Thursday) and explained that she had to be at her son's school that Thursday morning at 9AM (I give exams from 8-9). What could I do for her? I reminded her of the policy that I will be happy to let each student take a late exam once with no penalty so this was not really a big deal. I also reminded her that of the 3 hours that make up class, exams will only ever take up the first hour, so if she really had to have an appointment on an exam day making if for after 9 would be fine. Of course it's not ideal to miss lecture/lab, but easier to deal with than an missed exam. We discussed when she would take the make-up and I thought that was that.
Not exactly. Over that week I got several e-mails from her suggesting that this exam should not count as her make-up exam. Her reasoning? Her excuse was really good (this was true, on the grand scale of excuses). I don't think she made up her reason for not making it to the exam, but as I explained to her when I said that yes, this really is your make-up exam, I refuse to be the judge of what is a "good" excuse and what is a "bad" excuse. I cannot allow some students to have 2 make-ups and others only one. Happily, she did seem to understand this and we've moved on......for now.....there are 5 more exams to go this semester.
One effect of her missing that class was that she also missed a lab. She was able to make that up during the following class as well and while most people needed to have their reports in last Thursday, hers would be due on Tuesday. This Tuesday came and went and I didn't have the lab report. What I did have though was an e-mail telling me that she was trying to finish the next report (which again, she was passing in a day later than everyone else) but I hadn't graded the last one and so she was going to wait until she saw how she did before passing this next one in. What? I didn't have the report - or so I thought. Turns out that she just handed it in with all the new ones passed in by everyone else. I had zero time this week to look at those so her late report just stayed with the pile and I had no idea it was there. We've fixed this problem - I asked her just to mention to me from now on when something late is coming in so this doesn't happen again. But I'm not sure I'm enjoying her flexible relationship with due dates - and the fact that in her mind she seems to find it justified since it was "my fault."
Next issue - on Tuesday the students took a lab quiz, very short, very simple, grade out of 6. Yesterday she asked if I had her quiz - I didn't. Did I have a blank copy - I did. She proceeds to go over the answers with me and she knew them all. Great. Then she starts with the "so I don't understand why I got 2 wrong on Tuesday." I told her I would take a look at her quiz when I got home. By the time I was at the house I already had an e-mail from her telling me to not forget to check the quiz - this is going to get old, fast. I did and found that she had swapped two answers around. I'm sure she knew the answers, but we all make mistakes like that which is what I told her when I e-mailed back. I also reminded her that there would be 2 lab quiz grades dropped so she shouldn't worry too much. Imagine my joy when I got the e-mail back that said "I don't know about that quiz. I knew all the answers." So now I have to take her quiz back in next week to prove to her that SHE got things wrong and that I'M not out to get her or unable to read.
We have about 7 lab quizzes, 8 lab reports, 5 exams, 1 research paper, 2 spelling quizzes and a couple of other random graded things left this semester. I'm not sure I can make it if there's going to be a fight over everything. But I will look upon this as a good experience. Every new personality I have to deal with just makes me a better teacher. I hope.
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