Glimpses into the adjunct world
Posted in Uncategorized at 1:34 am by profart
Have I mentioned that I hate emails that ask for special treatment because a student works, goes to school, and has kids?
50-80% of the folks I teach any given semester have all three of these at once. The other 20-50% also have sick parents/disabled family members/spouse in school.
Its a community college, people. We all have lives. Get to work.
Posted in Semester endcap, student stories tagged bad at math, grades, grading, students, syllabus at 7:45 pm by profart
As the spring semester winds to a close, I would like to share one of my (least) favorite emails I have received from my students- the kind that makes me bang my head on my desk and wonder why I am here. Several years ago, I received this (and yes, I kept it. Remember, friends, email can be forever!):
Dear Ms. Arrt:
I was wondering if you could help me with my final grade, I’m trying to figure it out. I’m transferring to DecentFourYear College (DFYC), and I’ll have to retake this class if I didn’t get at least a C so it won’t effect my GPA.
Baddat Maths
Note the mis-spelling of my name. Yes, this person actually mis-spelled my name, and continued to do so throughout the whole email exchange, which was a general back-and-forth of “The formula for computing your final grade is stated in the syllabus, as well as conversion from letter to numerical grading. I do not discuss final grades.” “But I can’t figure out my grade!”
And here was the crowning moment:
Ms. Arrt:
When I added up my grades of 58.8 for my mideterm, 45.6 for my final, 72.9 for participation, and my 72 for my paper, I got 251.4, and divided by four, I got a 63.85. Is this a C? I really need to transfer to DFYC.
Baddat
Did you all get out your calculators? That’s right- not one of those calculations is correct. And better yet, neither is the participation score. When I actually tallied it according to the conversion I provided, I got 62.8 (apparently, Baddat didn’t realize that when you get a 0 for a week, you have to actually count that in, and divide by the total weeks, not just the weeks you participated in. And it would still be wrong.) Oh, and according to the syllabus, a 63.85 is a D. Since I consider 62 the cutoff for a D-, the student still got a D. How Baddat would get through DFYC with this kind of problem with simple arithmetic, I have no idea. They certainly took none of the classes I teach at DFYC.
I get a few of these every semester, but none this bad- and despite my “I do not discuss final grades” clause in my syllabus.
As The Semester Turns