Read My Mind

Do you know I expect students to read my mind?

Hm-mmm.

Or at least that was what I was informed of yesterday by a student.

He had an issue with his last exam.   I should say he had multiple issues with the exam (mainly stemming from the fact that he got a 62% on it), but I will spare you the details.  Instead I will focus on the fact that apparently I expect my students to read my mind.  Heaven forbid that the information asked about was not only in the book but was also in my lecture powerpoint and was extensively covered in class.

However, this particular student, when asked a short answer question to provide all the major differences between Topic A and Topic B, thought that providing just one difference should have been enough to get him full credit on the question.   He didn't understand why he got less than partial credit on the question and he argued and argued with me.   He kept coming back to the same statement, "I didn't know I was expected to read your mind."

How does fully and completely answering the question require any mind-reading?   I believe, and correct me if I'm wrong, that it simply requires actually reading the material, paying attention in class, and studying.

But apparently that is too much to ask, and I should just give everyone full credit if they throw the words DNA, RNA or protein into their answer.

I don't get it....

So I gave my lab students an option last week.  I had been hearing grumblings about how unreasonable I am with not accepting late assignments.  So I decided to be the nice guy (for once.. no really, I think I'm overly nice and accommodating, my husband says I'm a softy when it comes to my students) and announced in lab that I would accept one late assignment from them all.  

However, there were two stipulations: 

1) it had to be e-mailed to me by midnight Sunday, March 8th (5 days after announcing this)

2) the grade would be based out of 80% rather than a 100%.   For most of them, this would mean  potentially getting an 80 on an assignment they previously had a 0 on.

The students were all very enthused and profusely thanked me.

Fast forward to Monday, March 9th.  I check my e-mail.  And have 1 assignment in there.  From a student who has gotten perfect scores on every assignment, yet had to miss one class due to a death in the family, and thus needed to make up a homework.

1.  In case you missed that, here it is again.  1.

Out of 31 students.  Each of which had at least one assignment missing and would have to take a 0 for that grade unless they used this opportunity to make it up.

I think I was in disbelief.  Do students these days really not care?  Or is it just this bunch?  I have to believe there are better students out there, otherwise I just don't think I can continue on the academic track.  Am I just setting myself up for only dealing with a lower quality student by adjuncting at a community college?   (That sounds so egotistical and I apologize.)  And if so, does that mean my experience of adjuncting there is not really serving the purpose I intended it to, to give me a realistic view of what its like to teach.

ps- I also got another e-mail this morning from a student complete with their make-up assignment.  (sigh)  What part of "by midnight on Sunday, March 8th" did they not understand?