A student in my course does well on exams, but doesn't do the homework: Go easy on them, or make them "pay the price?"

Question

I have a student in my course that does well on the exams, and his answers to the exam questions show a deep understanding of the material. However, this student has not been handing in the assigned homeworks and has a missed a few lab assignments, as well. I've been told by other faculty that he has a job which keeps him up late, and have noticed that he struggles to stay awake at times during the class.

Depending on how he fares on a project worth a large portion of his grade, and the final exam, the missed homeworks/labs could cause his grade to be below a C, which is the required grade that a student must receive if they are to advance to the second, more advanced course. (Also, a C grade is also needed to get credit for the course. Otherwise, the student will need to retake it again on the next offering, which isn't until two semesters from now.) Further, this student is a senior, so a D grade would be a major setback for him.

For those of you who have been in this situation before as an instructor, my question:

• Have you ever passed/failed a student like the one described above? If so, do you regret your decision? Why or why not?

Answer 1

As an instructor, when I find myself in this situation, I invite the student to make an appointment to speak with me privately in my office.

During that private meeting, I will discuss his/her current performance in the class, and point out the likely consequences if he/she does not submit the required work. I will advise the student as to what he/she must do to achieve the grade he/she needs.

Then it's up to the student to earn the grade he/she wants - or to fail. You can't live their lives for them.

Answer 2

I strongly recommend you start with whatever the policy is in your syllabus. Most syllabi contain details about grading, points allocation, etc. By starting here, you can avoid any claims of "unique treatment", given that everyone received the same instructions.

That said, it sounds as though your student has a unique personal situation causing him to have difficulty completing all the material. In that case, I would follow the advice of ff524 and meet with the student privately to discuss. Simply bring the issue up and see what the student says. A comment of "I don't need to do your stupid homework, I'm good enough at the material without it" may deserve a different reaction than "I would love to do it but I simply don't have time with my other responsibilities".

Answer 3

Talk to the Student now

If possible you should communicate to the student exactly the precarious position they are in. Presumably this student is capable of completing the assignments and labs just like other students in the course. From the sounds of it, even doing an average to below-average job on these would substantially reduce the odds of a very negative outcome.

At that point the burden is on the student. You cannot make changes to the weighting of grades because of the external circumstances: this would really not be fair to other students. Presumably you have some notion of the percentage weights the various graded assignments are worth. Explain this, and make it clear that excellent performance on exams is simply not enough.

Of course, I would feel bad giving a D or lower to a student in this situation, but the grade must reflect the student's performance in the course as a whole. It is unethical to give a student a grade other than the one their coursework has earned.

Answer 4

I had a professor that instituted a "flex" grading system (for all students) to cover this contingency.

There were three aspects of the course: 1) homework 2) hourly exams, and 3) the final, weighted 1/3, 1/3, 1/3.

But if some student did markedly better or worse on one aspect of the course, the professor would re-weight the grades 40% for the best aspect, 25% for the worst aspect, and 35% for the middle one. That way, each part of the course would have a minimum weight of 25% and a maximum weight of 40%, but students with skewed grades were given a benefit compared to the 1/3, 1/3, 1/3.

The professor's experience was that the "re-weighting" rarely changed anyones' grade, but might for the odd student. I was that odd student.

Answer 5

Kudos to you for wanting to find a way for a talented and hard-working but over-extended student to succeed.

What is the right measure of whether the student is mastering the material in a way that supports the follow-on classes? Ideally, you will design your syllabus so that the student's grade will appropriately reflect their level of mastery. In some courses, there is no real mastery without lab mastery. In others, textbook-based conceptual mastery would suffice. They are many reasons why the grade contract on your syllabus might be incorrectly formulated. E.g., you might be weighting homework heavily because that is the only reasonable way to get pass rates appropriate to your institution. That is, sadly enough, sometimes it is unavoidable to reward effort instead of mastery. You say the student shows "deep understanding", and if by that you mean that he will be well prepared for the follow-on courses, you might propose a fair replacement for the grade contract on your syllabus. Make sure you would be comfortable offering every other student the same option. Then consider whether the grade contract on the syllabus should be altered to include this option. If yes, then you have probably found a good solution.

One strategy I use in courses where the final exam provides a comprehensive test of appropriate mastery is to give an A grade to anyone who gets an A on the final. (Of course, this is inappropriate in many courses.) Perhaps this offers a helpful starting point for dealing with this student.

Answer 6

There are many answers already, but let me give one that applies in France (hoping I am not the only French around here).

First, Universities usually have special attendance waivers for students who work aside their studies. Students have to declare this early to make university able to accommodate them, but it is always a good thing to let them know they should disclose their situation to the person in charge. Note that some otherwise mandatory requirement can be waived (e.g. some homework, some in-class evaluations) but that some cannot (e.g. practical work in experimental sciences are usually too important a part of the curriculum to be waived).

Second, the grading system is often only loosely defined, which makes one able to adapt it to the case. One should of course always be as fair and as precise as possible, to make the grade really reflect what it should measure.

Third, even if the grading scheme has been precisely established and cannot be changed at all, the end-of-year jury has complete power of changing grades. Be sure to attend it so that the student's case is treated appropriately. Short of that, make sure the case is known to all colleagues.

Answer 7

While it is important to try to be "consistent" with grades, I think we can mostly agree that the point of courses is to educate, rather than demanding compliance to (admittedly artificial, even if self-consistent) rules. If the situation described comes up in the middle of the term, it's awkward to accommodate, because suddenly declaring that students have the option of having their grade determined by just exams could be objected-to on the grounds that if they'd known that, they might not have done the other work... Hard to argue with this, even if we imagine that the intention of homework and labs is to help learn the material, etc.

In the past, I have bent my own rules and given grades based on performance on the final. By this time, I would arrange things so that I'd have less reason to do so... Altogether, out of perhaps 100 such cases in 40 years, I can recall at most 1 or 2 where students were genuinely successful in learning the material while being somewhat disconnected. So, in fact, although some students half-heartedly complained that they'd have not done the homework if they'd been allowed-to, not "allowing" it did them a favor.

So, I have no regrets at bending the rules for a few, although I was not happy that in 98 percent of cases this bending didn't save them.

So, by now, my default for undergrad courses is to "require" homework + for exceptions see me at the beginning of the term, not part-way through... explaining that changing things in the middle easily leads to unfairness... I do give examples of plausible exceptions (about skipping homework, especially, about missing a midterm, ... how can I demand that people not go ski-ing at Thanksgiving?...)

Summary: the goal is education, but/and a significant fraction of students will dis-serve themselves through naivete... But/and I no longer can stomach arguing that enforcement of artificial rules "makes sense". I strongly prefer more defensible positions. :)

Answer 8

Stick to your syllabus.

That doesn't mean you're out of options though. Talk to the student and determine a minimum number of assignments that the student must complete in order to reach that C. Concentrate on balancing assignments that the student can complete, with assignments that you feel are especially important.

My school has a similar grade requirement for meeting the prerequisite for advanced classes, although a student will get credit for the current class with a D. When faced with similar situations I have on occasion recommended students be accepted despite their lower than typical grade. That has had mixed results, bending the rules too much for a student will not do them any favors.

Answer 9

First of all, let's dispense with the fantasy-world argument about the ethics of grading fairness and all that claptrap...The student's grade is the student's grade, and no other student has any standing to discuss it or even notice it, much less complain about it. "Objective" grading is a starting point. No more, no less.

Having said that, I have opened the door to the fact that any grade given is purely at the discretion of the professor, and that doesn't mean it is completely arbitrary: there should be some discernible qualification or justification for a grade that diverges from an "objective" grade.

Of course, any individual Professor's criterion for adjusting a grade will ultimately be subject to review and revision by the department chair and/or dean or even provost...so let's just dispense with that here and consider it assumed.

I think the breakpoint is whether the situation is chronic or episodic. My personal feeling is that a student isn't going to school to get through part-time work...They're doing part-time work to get through school. Their coursework is, as far as I care about, thier primary concern. With this notion, I am less inclined to give chronic absentee/no homework situations a "pass" but reserve the ability to be lenient in the here-and-there odd situations where "life happens."

Answer 10

In my experience, if a students final mark works out to be just short of a passing grade It is common for teachers to round up the grade if they think the student has an adequate understanding of the material.

In some cases this has involved meeting the student after the final exam and going over the test with them to get a better understanding of the students depth of understanding. Some answers on a test may look good, but it could just be that the student has seen a similar problem before and has a good memory - but are not capable of elaborating on their answer. In this way you can get a better sense of the students actual proficiency with the material and decide based on that to pass or fail.

The whole purpose of homework is to help prepare the student for midterms and finals - and retain that knowledge. So if they can accomplish that without the homework and have an above average understanding of the material I don't think it makes sense for them to fail the class. This is probably one reason why university level courses often have finals worth 50% of the grade, whereas homework accounts for maybe 10%.

Answer 11

Depending on whether your academic rules at your institution allow this flexibility, you can offer the student to do what at least two of my professors did during my undergraduate days:

• Talk to the student first to ensure that they really understand the material.

• Offer them to simply take the tests and the final test as 100% of their grade. Maybe ask to solve a couple of randomly selected homework problems too.

• In the interest of fairness, offer the same option to all students in the class who qualify (based on already-passed test grades). If they feel that they really know the material excellently enough not to bother doing the homework, prove it to you in an brief oral exam combined. If they perform as well, they get the same waiver.

This way:

1. You ensure that the students you graduate from your class truly reflect the level of knowledge you wish to impart to them

2. You don't penalize students who know their stuff (because they are just extra smart, or because this is old material for them) by making them do make-work which doesn't enhance their knowledge or understanding because the homework in class isn't intended to evaluate the student's knowledge but to help them gain that understanding.

3. You don't treat anyone specially due to their "special circumstances".

Remember, your goal is to (1) teach the material; (2) teach to learn. It's not to make students complete 100% of their homework because the homework, like Everest, is there.

Answer 12

What do you wish a grade in your class to mean? If you ignore the missing homework, a good grade in your class will indicate that a student has a strong grasp of the material and a high level of skill in solving the sorts of problems which you put on your tests within time limits. If you penalize the missing homework enough to make excellent test performance alone inadequate to obtain the good grade, a good grade in your class will not reflect the students ability to utilize their knowledge of the material to solve problems under time constraints. They may still have a good grasp of the material, or they might not. If they get a poor grade, they may still have a good grasp of the material, or they might not. The homework-penalizing grading will, however, reflect a degree of subservience and submission to discipline even in situations where the homework has little to no benefit to the students knowledge.

Answer 13

The last part of your question is a poll and is not kosher for this site, but I will offer my point of view about your basic dilemma.

The old-fashioned way of grading put a great deal of weight on the exam(s). In a lab course, this would include a lab exam.

Over time, we started to become more humane, and reduce the pressure about the exam performance, by giving more weight to other components.

If you feel that your exams are well enough designed that a solid exam performance sufficiently permits a student to demonstrate mastery of the material, and if you are confident about your exam proctoring procedures, then be humane. Be flexible. Celebrate his mastery of your course material by giving this student a well-deserved A.

Answer 14

As others have said: default to the syllabus grading scheme to the letter. Diverging from this sends you down a sinkhole of making more modifications on the fly, trying to be fair to all students, running different case what-ifs, and generally doing a lot more work.

Given enough heads-up (again, as others said), I have specified a bare-minimum number of assignments that a student has to turn in to get a passing grade.

Also consider the appropriateness of an "Incomplete" grade. Although I almost never do it, if there is truly a unique situation that you want to account for, consider withholding the grade until the student passes in some bare-minimum work after the fact. A downside of this is that it does create more work for you (scheduling and following up), but in theory that grade status is designed to account for that.

Answer 15

In my alma mater, which was also where I taught for a several years, the academic studies bylaws explicitly stated that the course grade is intended to reflect the student's command of the subject matter. Assuming the subject matter is not the practical skill of writing code or building something, the "deep understanding" OP has discerned would be enough to give the student an excellent grade. There are rules, and there are higher-level rules (the "constitutional level" if you will). So, actually, sticking to some formula in the syllabus against one's better judgement would be mis-grading that student and, theoretically (but not practically) grounds for him/her to complain...

Answer 16

My approach in this kind of situation has been to follow my syllabus and grading process to the letter. Students who earn Fs, even those who need a passing grade to advance, get Fs. If they need a heads up to see this coming, then it's definitely worth pulling them aside and telling them. It really can change their approach.

Answer 17

One way out would be to announce to the class that you would be giving out a difficult optional assignment that anyone can attempt for bonus credit of say 20%, and at the same time inform that student privately that you are doing this for his sake but such that it is still fair to all, and so he had better submit the optional assignment if he didn't want to get a poor grade.

The first advantage is that it is fair to all students and yet rewarding those who have a much deeper mastery of the subject. You should of course mark the assignment impartially and try to prevent any cheating, and it will naturally give extra credit to the better students.

The second advantage is that it does not penalize any students at all, since it is purely bonus credit. So no student will have any reason to complain, since the good students can prove that they deserve a good grade.

The third advantage is that you do not have to rely on your subjective and possibly inaccurate judgement of this student's abilities. It may be bad to give good students an 'undeserving' poor grade, but it would be even worse to give bad students a truly undeserving better grade than there is clear evidence for (unless you are absolutely certain that your student's performance on the exam is so outstanding that all your colleagues will agree fully with you).

Note that I'm purposely not answering the question of whether to pass or fail the student involved, since according to the above we can only answer that question after the optional assignment deadline.

Answer 18

It is imperative that you design your grading system to take this type of situation into account. Some students simply will not get the homework done, even if they understand the material. The reason is not really your concern (unless of course it's something like a medical or family emergency). In my courses, I always instituted a way for students to avoid zeros on homework. For instance, I would allow them to make up late work for up to a week, though at only a fraction of the value. If it was past a week, I would offer them additional work (e.g. writing a paper, or doing a special project or lab) to make up some points. However, I stress that this policy must be written in your syllabus so that grading remains fair to all students.

Answer 19

Your syllabus has, or should have, a formula used to calculate the students' grades. This student is making a choice, based upon what he or she understands that formula to be, not to do the homework. Every student should be able to look at the grade formula, figure out what grade they can accept, weigh that against their goals and the time demands of their other courses and pursuits, and determine what they want to hand in.

Of course, doing the homework should help the student to generate an understanding of the topics in the course, and thus help the student do better on exams and major assignments. It could also help a student recognize red flags for a lack of understanding that merits extra attention. If the homework doesn't play such a role, or some other similar role, then it's just busy work, and you need to ask why its being assigned in the first place.

You should view the grade as a pre-established contract with the student put forth in the syllabus. If the student can abide by it, they stay in the course, and if they find they can't, they're free to make other plans. The fact that you're wrestling with this decision now seems to signal that you haven't clearly established this contract. Use this situation as an experience to sharpen your grade formula in the future such that a student in this situation would get the grade you feel is deserved, but for this semester you need to stick to whatever formula you conveyed. If you haven't conveyed a formula, do what you think is right, but it is WRONG to place students in a situation where they don't understand what generates their grade and you should certainly fix this for future iterations.

How much should homeworks count? My own personal feeling is that if it counts too much, it just encourages academic dishonesty. It should count enough that poor homework performance should certainly rule out an A, just to encourage students to do it.

Answer 20

Convert assignment to exam. Just explain the student that not everything can be verified in exam, that some kinds of performance, understanding can only be seen from assignment results, so assignment marks influence the exam marks.

As the student is doing exams well, he will do the assignments well also now, because they are part of the exam. Currently he probably does not think it is necessary.

Answer 21

You should discuss an alternative scheme for the homework problems for this student. Just tell the student that the way things are going now is not acceptable, he'll not get the credits for the course. If he tells you that he'll try harder, tell him that you actually know why he isn't doing well on the assignments, that he is going to fail the course and may also become ill due to overwork and then risk dropping out of university altogether.

Then offer him an alternative scheme for the assignments that is more compatible with his schedule, but which also comes with zero tolerance for not adhering to it. You should aim for assignments for him that are at least as hard as the regular assignments. You should tell in class that some students are following an alternative scheme for assignments to accommodate for private issues, that this is open to everyone, but the assignments are on average a bit harder than the regular assignments. This makes sure all students are treated equally, and that the alternative scheme is not an easy pass so the floodgates for the alternative scheme are not opened.

Answer 22

One follow-up question I wold ask is whether the exam in question is as rigorous as the OP suggests; the student may indeed have known the material well (or known it already from past exposure), but if it required very little practice to master the skills needed to excel at a summative assessment, how powerful a measure could it possibly be? My students often ask me for a final exam whose grade could trump the rest of the semester (probably because they got that "Senior Day" treatment in high school), but I ask them two question which quickly snuff out the requests:

1. Would you be satisfied if your exam results dipped and thus brought your A down to a C, "just because" you got a 79.8% on the exam?

2. Are you prepared for an exam genuinely testing every major "essential" ("irreplaceable") concept we have discussed, and not this "gentler" one I have prepared in acknowledgement that you have already showed me a partial mastery based on your earlier exams? ("'Cause I could always make this final exam a lot more challenging....)

Answer 23

I know what you want to do. You want to give them a break. BUT, you established grading standards for the entire class. It would be unfair to treat this student differently from the rest. And you can be penalized for doing so. If you don't want to enforce your own standard, then you should create a new one for the next class. But you must enforce the one you established for this class.