When I teach introductory classes, I use a somewhat more complicated homework policy than most of my colleagues. As a result, my syllabus tends to run longer than theirs, by at least a page or two. I sometimes worry that this is excessive, but happily, Inside Higher Ed is here to prove me wrong:
By my second semester, I was getting more specific on paper. My attendance policy seemed clear to me — as did my requirements for rewrites. I had even made up an in-depth course outline, which listed due dates for papers, late due dates for papers which included a 10 percent grade penalty, quiz dates and test dates. I reasoned that any person accepted to college would surely be able to understand my course objectives and see how they could accomplish those goals. I was wrong.
As with most of these sorts of stories, there’s a certain sick fascination to the whole thing, but mostly, I’m glad I don’t have to deal with that. Maybe it’s the difference between science majors and English majors, but I don’t usuaully get buried in questions about my complex policies, despite providing much less information than Ms. Wilson does. In fact, I refuse to put class-by-class outlines on my syllabus, and argue against putting them on common syllabi.
(Apologies for the Capital One joke, but really, who could pass that up?)
I have learned to put a time limit on grading questions. If my students think I have added points wrong, taken too much off, whatever, they have 7 days to ask me about it. They must deal with it in the present. Thus no more people coming into my office after the final has been graded, with a pile of everything they have done, saying “lets go through these and find the x points I need to go up a grade”.
Could it be that you just command more respect than the average new English teacher, who tends to be female and young? I’ve certainly gotten the kind of constant questioning and slacking attempts that make you inclined to lay out every single policy (even the ones that should be obvious). But I actually get it more from my science and engineering majors, so I don’t think it’s about the students per se. There’s also the very dangerous (but common among youngish female teachers) desire for students to “like” us, which can easily lead to this kind of obsessive chronicling of outlines and policies.
I finally figured out that they’re not going to read or remember the policies or outline no matter how much detail I put on them, besides which they’ll lose a paper syllabus and even when it’s online they won’t check it enough. But I definitely understand the inclination to lay everything out because I’m worried that they’re confused and won’t like me (or will try to take advantage of me and then plead ignorance, which forces me to be mean, which I don’t enjoy).
Our school has a strict homework policy across the board; teachers are free to implement the policy as they see fit. The policy is: all work has a deadline. Late submissions are penalized — in my case, 50% — and after a week, there’s no credit awarded. There are obvious exceptions for illness, family emergencies, etc. Long term assignments, like projects and research papers, have additional proviso. Whether the student is sick or not, the assignment must be submitted on time.
The rules may seem draconian (uncharacteristic for our normally laid back school), but they are in the handbook and in our syllabi. Some kids end up in trouble, grade-wise, after they miss a few assignments, but usually it takes just a few experiences to convince them that timeliness is in fact important.
Here, each teacher’s syllabus is different. Some of us offer just a chronology of events (me) and others a week-by-week precis of the entire course. I know some teachers who can tell you to the day what their lesson plan will be. Subbing for them is pretty easy, I’ll tell ya. I am nowhere near that organized, preferring to follow my somewhat reliable inner clock to pace the class.
How many of you use WebAssign and similar web-based homework systems? I started with WebAssign last year and found it actually helps some of our kids improve their homework scores.
I have a very strict homework policy in my syllabi, that no late homework is accepted. I relax that policy for individual cases, usually involving medical or family emergencies. I hardly ever get those requests, the students accept the deadline and either turn in the homework or receive a zero.
For my syllabi, I put in all quiz and test dates, and details of grading papers and more arcane homework assignments (the joys of music composition). I sometimes put more details of lecture schedules, but that is usually for my own benefit to keep me on pace.
Perry Rice – I have a problem with your “7 day to change grade policy”. I can see a situation where a couple of points may not mean much early on, but become moere important by the end of the course, leading to a frustrating situation for all concerned. If the “couple of points” changes the grade at end of course, shouldn’t you allow the student to receive the correct grade, especially because if would be your error that lowered their grade in the first place, not the student’s error?
Jess: Could it be that you just command more respect than the average new English teacher, who tends to be female and young?
I’m not that old…
But yes, I am male, and large, and loud, so I suspect that I get less hassle than Ms. Wilson as a matter of course.
But my syllabus is longer and more detailed than those of my female colleagues, and they also get less of this sort of hassle than is described in the article. At least, that’s my impression.
Some professor had a joke that, no matter how math-phobic their (liberal arts majors) class was, any grading policy would be instantly analyzed for optimzation strategies, as if a crack team of operations researchers was at it.