{"id":229,"date":"2013-04-22T14:35:04","date_gmt":"2013-04-22T14:35:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/2013\/04\/22\/there-is-no-way-i-can-fail-your-class\/"},"modified":"2015-08-25T16:58:44","modified_gmt":"2015-08-25T16:58:44","slug":"there-is-no-way-i-can-fail-your-class","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/2013\/04\/22\/there-is-no-way-i-can-fail-your-class\/","title":{"rendered":"There Is No Way I Can Fail Your Class!"},"content":{"rendered":"

In fact, there is.<\/p>\n

\"Student<\/center><\/p>\n

It\u2019s begging season. Around this time of year students across the country get desperate. I teach between 300\u2013500 students every semester. So any crazy life situation that only happens to 1 in 500 students, happens in my class\u2026 every semester. Even students with mundane explanations for their poor performance can ruin your day after they tell you all of the dire things that will happen to them once you submit their D or F. It\u2019s awful. I became a teacher to help students achieve their dreams, not to see them fall away from them. It\u2019s excruciating for me.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve taught more than one semester, you\u2019ve had to deal with situations like this. Given how much I hate the social awkwardness of student begging, I\u2019ve developed a 2 phase approach.<\/p>\n

Phase 1: Inform Them Early<\/h3>\n

Two weeks before the end of the semester I run the grades for the class in Excel.[1]<\/a> Then I sort the grades and get the names\/emails of everyone who has a 74% or below. All of these students get an email that informs them that they are \u201cat risk\u201d of earning a D or below and what they can do right now<\/strong> to improve their grade. See below and download the text of the email here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Low<\/p>\n

Phase 2: Preempt the Begging<\/h3>\n

On the day that final grades are posted I send a class wide email thanking the students for a great semester and letting them no that there is no point to even asking for additional assignments or freebie points (or what I call \u201cJust \u2019Cause Points\u201d). I really tried to frame the email as a positive and explain that my unwillingness to change anyone\u2019s grade stems from my desire to treat everyone in the class fairly. See below and download the text of the email here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

My plan isn\u2019t fool proof and I still get a fair amount of emails from students that start with, \u201cI know that you said you wouldn\u2019t give out any extra makeup points, but I just can\u2019t fail your course!\u201d But, I get a lot less with my proactive approach.<\/p>\n

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  1. \n

    To make this grade book double useful, create 4 columns using Excel to calculate how many points it would take each student to earn an A, B, C, and D. That way if a student asks, "Is it possible for me to get a(n) _ grade you can quickly look and tell them.  \u21a9<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    In fact, there is. It\u2019s begging season. Around this time of year students across the country get desperate. I teach between 300\u2013500 students every semester. So any crazy life situation that only happens to 1 in 500 students, happens in my class\u2026 every semester. Even students with mundane explanations for their poor performance can ruin […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1982,"featured_media":348,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30650],"tags":[30603,30734],"class_list":["post-229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-resources-for-teachers","tag-class-management","tag-student-relationships"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/files\/2013\/04\/What_I_Cant_Fail.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1982"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":349,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229\/revisions\/349"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}