Extra Credit
Extra credit is a weird thing.
Someone asked me the other day if I would give extra credit to students who get tutoring; my response, of course, was no. But it got me thinking about the odd mentality extra credit can bring about in some students.
I had a class a few years ago that was not doing something I wanted them to do. I said I would give them 1 point extra credit, if they did said thing; everyone did it. There were over 500 points possible in the class, but that one point meant more to some of the students than all the others. Why? I have no idea. The students who had the worst grades (who never did the 'regular' credit) were among the first to do the extra credit. Needless to say, that 1 point didn't really help their grades.
Why would you be willing to do something for 3 points of extra credit, while neglecting a 20-point assignment? I've had this happen, multiple times, and I don't get it. Is it that sense of getting something for nothing; except it's not for nothing, and what good is it, if you haven't done the non-extra credit work you should have done in the first place?
I once had a professor who said he had a fantasy of giving A's to all of his students in his last semester on the job. He would do this, without their knowledge, to get them to work just as hard as they otherwise would. I have a fantasy of having an all extra credit class in my last semester on the job, but to get an A, you'll have to get 90% of the extra credit right, 80% would get you a B, and so on....
Someone asked me the other day if I would give extra credit to students who get tutoring; my response, of course, was no. But it got me thinking about the odd mentality extra credit can bring about in some students.
I had a class a few years ago that was not doing something I wanted them to do. I said I would give them 1 point extra credit, if they did said thing; everyone did it. There were over 500 points possible in the class, but that one point meant more to some of the students than all the others. Why? I have no idea. The students who had the worst grades (who never did the 'regular' credit) were among the first to do the extra credit. Needless to say, that 1 point didn't really help their grades.
Why would you be willing to do something for 3 points of extra credit, while neglecting a 20-point assignment? I've had this happen, multiple times, and I don't get it. Is it that sense of getting something for nothing; except it's not for nothing, and what good is it, if you haven't done the non-extra credit work you should have done in the first place?
I once had a professor who said he had a fantasy of giving A's to all of his students in his last semester on the job. He would do this, without their knowledge, to get them to work just as hard as they otherwise would. I have a fantasy of having an all extra credit class in my last semester on the job, but to get an A, you'll have to get 90% of the extra credit right, 80% would get you a B, and so on....
posted by Jefferson at 11:11 PM
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