Background provided by Instructor: I teach an online class. The syllabus and calendar are emailed to each student and are also posted online. Each week I send reminder emails about what is due. Since the prelim is open over the course of several days, I also send daily email reminders. For this exam, one student had not completed it by the deadline, so I extended the due date and emailed the student. It appears this student has not been checking email or his Calendar and forgot. The day after the prelim closed, I received this email:
Dear Professor:
I don’t know how, but somehow I completely missed prelim 2. I’ve been keeping extremely close track of the calender, but somehow that test completely slipped by me. I’m panicking right now. Professor, is there anything you can do for me? I don’t want to fail this class. You know I try really hard in it. This was just a brain lapse on my part, and I really don’t feel I deserve to lose out so much over it…I also didn’t see the email you sent about leaving prelim 2 open until the end of Sunday until 4:20 AM today. I didn’t think to check my email because I thought I had my entire schedule covered, and I thought Prelim 2 would be next week… I’m so very sorry. I really hope you’re willing to work with me on this…