At the end of the semester everyone is so happy to be finished with everything and to be able to get ready to enjoy the holidays. Classes are over and finals are done. Time to party! Unless, that is, you are a professor. Then it is time to deal with student grade complaints. Ok, I am being a bit overdramatic, it doesn't really ruin the holiday. But why oh why are there always problem students?
Problem Student 1 has been a problem all semester. I can't remember if I blogged about her already and I'm too lazy to look it up, so sorry if this is a repeat. She is in my physics lab class for science majors, which meets once a week. Actually, all of my complainers are from that class - my general ed students just took their grades and were happy (or not, whatever). Anyway, PS1 had a hard time actually coming to class. She missed the first day due to "illness." She actually came to the second class (but never turned in the lab report). She then missed each subsequent class, always emailing me with an excuse: "emotional crisis" "clinically depressed" "stomach virus" "side effects of anorexia". Each time I had told her that she could come in to make it up (minus one lab since I have a policy that you can miss one without penalty - more on that below). She said she would but never came in. Eventually after 6 (7?) weeks of class she had only been to one class and had turned in nothing. I told her that I thought that she should drop the class. She also was failing the corresponding lecture, so that professor and I both agreed that she should drop them both and told her so. Unfortunately she refused to drop the course, still delusional about her plans to make up all the work. I told her that I would no longer allow her to make up any more labs she missed, and I would start taking late penalties on her work. She was sure that she would be fine from then on. Then she still hadn't made up the early labs and told me she couldn't come in to do them because she sprained her wrist. She later couldn't turn in a lab because her roommate hates her and stole a page of her lab. And she never even purchased lab notebooks for the class. At this point I didn't care so I just graded her like usual. She did start coming to class for a few weeks, then stopped before the end of the semester. She also eventually came in and made up the early labs that she missed, though she never turned them in. She didn't do the final project, which was to make a research-style poster on one of the labs and present to other faculty judges at a poster session. In the end she turned in three labs and got an overall course grade of 18% (yes, eighteen). No surprise to anyone that she failed. Well, no surprise to anyone but her. Given all that background she actually emailed me after the end of the semester saying that she needs a B- to keep her scholarship! WTF?! Delusional much? I politely and with much restraint told her that an 18% cannot become a B-. She of course insisted that she would make everything up and turn it in. Then she at least wanted a D- instead of an F. Seriously? Sigh. I hope that she gets some much needed help. (And yes, I did refer her to the campus mental health services.)
Problem Student 2 pales in comparison to PS1. Really they all do/will. PS2 seemed to be a decent student in class and came to every class. I think that she benefited from having a good lab partner. The problem is that she never turned in labs. She maybe did a handful of them over the whole semester. Until the last two weeks of class when she turned in every lab at once. As someone who has done a lot of grading in my time, it was pretty obvious to me that she had copied these labs from somewhere. You can tell even by the handwriting that she wasn't thinking things out as she was writing it. She even hand drew graphs that were supposed to be done in excel, with best-fit lines. I don't really know how to explain it, but if you've graded stuff you know what I mean. Since her lab partner was a very good student it seemed to me that she had copied all the labs from her partner. Unfortunately her partner had done so well that she didn't need to turn in the last lab (my one missed lab policy again), so I didn't have her book to compare it to. Given all of the late work penalties she ended up getting a 69.78%. This is right on the border between a D+ and C-, and I normally would round up, but I gave her a D+ as penalty for turning everything in late and I believe cheating. She of course emailed me saying that she needed the course for her major, and if she didn't get at least a C- she would have to retake the course next semester. She actually was ok with having to do that, and said she would plan to be in my section of the lab again. This put me in a bit of a predicament. If she took my class again she would simply recopy all of the labs again, but this time turn them in on time. She wouldn't even have to come to class. And she would end up getting a good grade in the class. So I emailed her lab partner asking her to bring me her lab books so I could check something. I figured if I could prove that she cheated I could fail her and take her lab books so she couldn't copy them next semester. The lab partner agreed to bring them by but never did. When I emailed her to remind her she said that she totally forgot and had already gone home for the break. I emailed her and asked if she had her labs with her, and she never wrote back to me. This is a normally very good, organized, student, so the fact that she didn't bring me her lab books makes me even more suspicious. But sadly I had no evidence of cheating, so I couldn't do anything about it. I actually emailed PS2 and told her all of this: that I think she cheated, but her partner flaked on bring me her book, which makes me more sure that she cheated, but there's nothing I can do and there's no point in making her rewrite all of her labs into new lab books, so I was going to give her a C- even though she doesn't deserve it. I haven't heard from her since that email. I would say that means she definitely cheated, otherwise she would have responded saying she hadn't. Either that or she is very offended/upset with me that I would make such an accusation. Sigh, I hate letting people get away with cheating.
Problem Student 3 is downright tame in comparison. As mentioned above, I have a policy that the students can miss one lab without penalty. That's because it's a lab class that meets every week and I understand that things come up in life that might cause you to have to miss a class. Rather than hear excuses about broken down cars, roommate troubles, club activities, family trips, etc. I just say that life can happen for one week and I don't need to know about it. I also explain it to them that way. For some reason PS3 interpreted that policy to mean that if he came every week the lowest lab grade would be dropped. Now I can see the logic of that; it almost makes sense. He claims that he would have done better in the class by cutting a class than by coming to them all. My logic, though, is that he would have to be psychic to know which class he would have to cut. If I randomly choose a lab grade to drop, corresponding to a randomly chosen skip day, it is just as likely to hurt his grade as help it. Dropping the lowest lab grade would change his grade just a percentage point, but with rounding up it would give him an A instead of an A-. Needless to say, he is not pleased with me right now. But 8 other students (out of 23) in the class legitimately earned an A using the same grading scheme, so he just has to suck it up and be the one just below the line. It happens.
PS4 is not really a problem, except that he has bad timing. Apparently I misrecorded a grade of his early on in the semester. For some reason he waited to point this out to me until an hour after final grades were due. Thanks dude. Now I get to learn how to change grades! Not until after the break though.
Speaking of the break, I am finally about to head home today and I should probably pack for the trip!
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