This morning upon checking my roster, I find the student has withdrawn from the class. Am I bothered by this? Not at all. This was the same student who, after receiving a 61 on the first exam, asked me if I could just drop the exam. Not very likely I informed them in response.
I guess they decided to just take a "W" on their transcript rather than get the grade that would be coming to them.
Now come lecture time this week I need to inform the students of their grades in the class up to this point and let them know that March 26th is the last day they can withdraw from the class without having to provide any reason. Do I think any of them will do this? Yeah, unfortunately I do. The couple of students that haven't attended really any lectures... they'll probably withdraw. The student who didn't even show up for the first exam (15% of the final grade) and still thinks they can pass...they'll probably withdraw.
Oh well..... thats the way it goes, right? If they don't think they'll get a B, some will just drop. Or am I incorrect in that assumption?
And, I have to keep reminding myself to not take it personally. Why is that so hard? All I want to do is teach them. Get them to learn something in the science department.
Depends on the tuition refund policy; some will continue on anyway. And some don't particularly mind a C.
ReplyDeleteYou might be surprised to find that there is one or two students at the end of the semester who never bothered to withdraw but still will get a 'F'. Sometimes I think students are in denial, sometimes I think they can't drop or they won't have enough credits to be considered "full time", and sometimes the ones that miss classes also miss deadlines to withdraw. It was not uncommon in a large lecture to have somebody at the end who didn't take all the exams but never dropped. I even had one student who never dropped, attended the weekly discussion section but never took ANY exams (despite scheduled make-ups) and wanted to 'pass' the class!
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