Student is almost always late, and expects me to re-explain everything he missed

Question

I teach introductory calculus to engineering students at my local college. I have one student who is consistently late for class. My class is at 8:20 in the morning, so I do have some sympathy for my students. After all, most 20-somethings aren't exactly morning people.

What bothers me though, is that this one student, whenever he is late (which is about 80 % of the time), comes down to me during the first break and expects me to privately explain to him everything he missed due to his tardiness. Since I do care about my students, I usually do this, but this also means that I really do not get any break time at all. And I am starting to get a little bit annoyed, without showing it of course, that this student, in a sense, asks for special treatment. I am slightly afraid that I might set the precedent that it is totally ok for my students to be late, as they can then always expect me to go over the material a second time during break time.

If anyone has any advice as to how I should deal with this situation, then I would greatly appreciate it!

Answer 1

I know it’s not easy, but the key is to tell them this:

No.

Give or take some pleasantries as per local culture. You can add some details, such as stating that you need a break now too, or that you expect students to follow the lecture.
Personally, I strongly recommend to avoid anything that amounts to a justification. You should not get into a discussion on whether it is proper, justified, or whatever that you spend your break on them.

---

That said, if you have a good relationship with your students, it can be worth to inquire if they have a justification for their behaviour. After all, it makes quite a difference to sacrifice your break for someone troubled by health or family issues versus someone just too lazy to bother being on time.

Answer 2

You need to have some kind of catch-up mechanism in place, as even the most diligent student might miss a lecture due to circumstances beyond their control. At my university, we record lectures. But sufficiently detailed lecture notes, or maybe just slides + pointers to specific sections in a textbook would also do. It should be clearly communicated to students how they are meant to catch up for missed lectures.

You could, in principle, have "come to me in the break or office hours and I explain it to you personally" as your catch-up mechanism, but that scales badly (and is probably a bad use of your time anyway). I will thus assume that this is not your designated catch-up mechanism.

With a proper catch-up mechanism in place, if a student asks you to recap the material they just missed, you can respond with eg "please go over the lecture notes for today, and then come back and ask any question you still have after that".

Answer 3

By accepting to reexplain during the break time, you are doing to the student and yourself a disservice. For the student, because he will get used to come late and that it has no consequence, and to the fact that the world turns around him and then life will show that it is not the case. And for you, since you cannot do what you would like to do during the break : take a coffee, reply to some emails or simply relax, or whatever.

If the student misses some part for any reason, valid or not, he is supposed to catch-up by all the available means: notes of other students, online lecture notes for example. Then if after having reviewed the missed material he has questions, then you can answer them.

It is important to be able to say no without feeling that you have something to reproach to yourself (easy to say, not so easy to do). You work as a teacher is to reply to question, re-explain notions and so on during the classes and office hours but you do not owe the student anything during the break. Imagine the situation where a student comes late and misses the topics T1, T2 and T3, an other one only T1 and T2 and the third one only T1. A a fourth student missed the previous lecture and want you to do a summary. Would you spoil your break and more to re-do what you did in class?

Answer 4

If a student does not understand something in your lecture, it is absolutely a Good Thing that they try to make up for this. Whether this lack of understanding is due to them arriving late or not is not relevant at this point.

Imagine this was a student who arrived on time every single day... and still came to you in 80% of your breaks with questions. How would you feel in this situation? I think this thought experiment might clarify your reaction.

Calculus is hard. It is quite understandable that students do not understand everything. And it's better for them to try to work on that understanding as soon as possible, rather than finding out the hard way in the exam at the end of class that their understanding is deficient.

We can't tell you whether you "should" be fine with a student coming to you in 80% of your breaks. Some instructors are fine with having discussions in every single break. Other instructors need that time to recharge.

I personally would explain to your student that it's quite common not to understand everything at the first pass, and that it is good that they try to work on that. However, you also need your break. As such, the student's first step should be to go over the material after class, either alone or together with other students. If things are still unclear here, direct them to your office hours or any TAs.

At this point, and only now, I would add gently that you have the impression that they are sometimes late, and that their tardiness correlates with their questions. So they might try to make an effort to arrive on time, in case this is the root cause.

You need to judge whether it makes sense to go into the fact that not everyone will pass calculus. Some students simply do not have the mathematical aptitude. Others have personal situations that do not allow them to invest the necessary time, whether this is having to work late, or having to take public transport that makes them be late every single time. Either one is unfortunate, but you can only make up for problematic circumstances to a limited degree.

Answer 5

It is correct that you should not have to provide this extreme degree of accommodation. I am just making a supposition here, but based on my own lifetime experience having pretty serious and disruptive ADHD, I know that one of the primary ways this condition expresses itself in people with ADHD is what is called "Time Blindness". No, this is NOT a "get out of jail free" card. It is simply an incredibly well-researched by neuroscientists precept that communicates not only is this a serious problem zone for the person, but also in many way it is out of her or his control. To a point!

I am simply saying it is highly possible this student suffers from all sorts of processing lag cognitive problems, and task management executive functionsd such that it could be a serious struggle for them. As easy as it is for outsiders to be dismissive of, or disbelieving in, the level of control such an ADHD person has in relation to managing this real problem, it is in fact a very well-known facet of the disorder. (See neuroscience and ADHD expert Dr. Russell Barkley on this topic on his youtube channel, and/or expert sites from CHADD, ADDA, ADDitude Magazine, verywellmind).

NOTE: This answer will likely be too detailed and need editing, but I am writing it because I believe it is important.

Since ADHD is a recognized disability under the law, it is at minimal useful for people in yours and other professions to have some minimal knowledge of this. And it is very common that in educational/learning environments, such students are often provided some forms of accommodation to help the student.

My purpose in writing this however is to state that this kind of persistent or constant lateness, coupled with the student's expectation that you help "catch him or her up" is way out of scope for "reasonable accommodation". In this possible scenario I am presenting, the student would likely be aware that she or he has been diagnosed with ADHD, thus knowing or learning about this common executive function struggle. In which case an initial presentation of these problems showing up might lead to a student requesting some form of catch-up help. IF this were an initial problem showing up, and a teacher were to be informed of this, along with a request "could you please help me catch up?", I would consider that a reasonable request. But as many many have stated, any kind of ongoing expectation of "catch up sessions because I was late" is completely out of bounds, and, again as many have stated, completely unsustainable for you with your workload and responsibilities. The corrected expectation, to me, would be "You've got to figure out a way to mitigate these lateness struggles. It will require work and effort by you, whether it means setting multiple alarms to ensure you wake up not just ON TIME but with additional padded time to account for unforeseen circumstances (be they transportation hiccups, or behavioral breakdowns, whatever).

The flip side to the many uncontrollable, or hard to control, signal processing functions inherent to ADHD is that research also shows that ADHD people tend to have incredibly adaptive & creative mechanisms to problem solve for both the chronic lateness problem as well as the "how do I catch up on the material I missed due to lateness".

I like the answers and suggestions re having a "catch-up mechanism in place." In the end, I am (1) providing a possible context for the chronic lateness, while (2) also stating adamantly that the solution to this student's problem is not incumbent solely on you. My scenario here may not even be remotely at play with this student; could be something else entirely. Still, I would recommend at least having the conversation once with this student to ascertain "Do you know if ADHD is possibly behind this problem?" and if it is, empathy is a remarkable force multiplier in helping to talk over what he or she might be able to do to better regulate and accommodate their own problem. But beyond placing the issue on the table, and perhaps initially (early on!) accommodating the request for some catch up session, it should be made perfectly clear that as much as you may sympathize, it is the student's responsibility to mitigate this chronic problem.

Lastly I want to state that, again, as incredulous as it may seem to some people, you would be surprised just how many people exhibit the wide array of symptoms of the neurological disorder, yet have zero awareness that they possibly even have the disorder. One salient illustration. I got mostly straight-A's from grade school, high school, on through college. Yet because of my age and era of growing up, nobody in the 1960's and 70's were ever screened for ADHD because it was largely unknown except in the most esoteric of situations. Did I know I had problems with being late, with losing things all the time, forgetting things mid-sentence, having stressful breakdowns because too many noises, voices or other distractions would knock my thoughts and attention straight out of my head? Yeah, I knew it very well. But even with 45 years of different therapists & doctors, nobody ever, not in the 80's, not in the 90's, not in the 2000's, ever once pointed out "Has anyone ever told you you might have ADHD?". Only at age 63 did an ER doctor ever pose the question -- turns out yes I had it diagnosed, and no matter when it was diagnosed, you had the condition your entire life.