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Re: Caving in



At 06:21 PM 12/2/96 -0600, Keith Tipton wrote:

What do kids say or do to get you to change your mind about grading, test
schedules, incompletes, curves, etc?

Students will try a lot of stuff - a former colleague reported an informal
poll in which his students told him that they were more inclined to cheat on
faculty they deemed "sympathetic or friendly".

I'm flexible on test schedules if students report two or more coincident
dates, but only if mine is the smaller class affected. My grading schemes
are clearly stated in the syllabus, including the criteria for assigning
scores to homework and exam problems (syllabi also available on my web site)
so there's not a lot of "wiggle room". I only award incompletes for medical
or serious family problems, not because the student screwed up. I'm moving
away from curves an more towards performance criteria as noted above.

What do you say or do about it?

I try to be calm and reasonable, and I insist that students do the same.

What has worked best, in your opinion? Has your dept chair backed you?

I am the chair, and I won't intervene without good reason (only once in last
6 years, when it was clear that the student and an adjunct faculty member
simply couldn't reason with one another). Before I became chair, I was
fortunate to get the same kind of support from my predecessor - and these
kinds of grading policies are supported by the Dean, who has cautioned
against grade inflation.

Have you found that it seems that 'most' other teachers give in, making
you look particularly out-of-place in the scheme of things at your school?

I suspect "some" rather than "most" are susceptible. Especially non-tenured
and adjunct faculty, though for different reasons. Non-tenured folks feel
some pressure to get good teaching evaluations. Adjuncts often can't be
bothered to deal with the hassle.


I am at the end of my rope with my kids, whiners all... I could use good
advice, good stories or good jokes to make this end-of-year crunch a little
easier!

Good luck - the semester is almost over!

George Spagna **********************************************
Department of Physics * *
Randolph-Macon College * "Because Mathematicians frequently make *
P.O. Box 5005 * use of Time, they ought to have a *
Ashland, VA 23005-5505 * distinct Idea of the meaning of that *
* Word, otherwise they are Quacks ... " *
phone: (804) 752-7344 * - Isaac Barrow *
FAX: (804) 752-4724 * *
e-mail: gspagna@rmc.edu **********************************************
URL: www.rmc.edu/~gspagna/gspagna.html