Do I get extra credit for …
Published on Apr 2, 2007 at 1:22 pm.
3 Comments.
Filed under college teaching.
My students want to know if they can get extra credit for attending class. They want to know if they can get extra credit for turning in their homework on time. They want to know if they can get extra credit for actually doing the homework. They ask if they can get extra credit for answering questions completely correct on the exams.
What gives? When I was a student, these things were all assumed to be what was expected of students. You didn’t ask for extra credit for doing what you were supposed to be doing. Extra credit is for something above and beyond the required things for credit! In fact, when I was a student, we worked hard to do the credit things. There normally wasn’t really time to do “extra” things. You only got to do those things after doing all of the credit things.
But, perhaps this is also an indication of how rare it is today for students to do all of the things in my first paragraph. Doing it seems so out of character that they ask if they can get extra credit for such things.
So sad.
-Astroprof
Jeni on April 2, 2007 at 2:22 pm: 1
Next thing they’ll ask is whether they get extra credit for breathing!
terry on April 4, 2007 at 10:20 am: 2
Yikes!
So, what do the kids do with all their free time, if they aren’t doing the homework? Have grades slipped over the years?
Astroprof on April 4, 2007 at 11:02 am: 3
Yes, grades have slipped for those of us who still hold to standards. But, nationwide, faculty are giving in and asking far less of students, so they are getting high grades for doing far less work (the so-called “grade inflation”). Then, students get an A in a class at one college, transfer to another one, and fail the second semester of the class, or else they graduate with a very high GPA, but can’t get good scores on GRE, MCAT, etc exams.