Category: Entitled (Page 1 of 2)

Background from Instructor: Students are assigned a short writing assignment. They select one of three paper options. The instructions are clear, including, “Carefully read and follow all instructions for your chosen paper. Make sure your paper is at least 1,000 words and include a word count at the end. Points will be deducted for not following directions, grammatical errors, or late submissions”

Email from student: Good afternoon! I aimed to meet the 1000-word target, but I focused on keeping the writing clear, concise, and relevant. I included all necessary information and avoided unnecessary filler, resulting in a final word count of 541. I prioritized quality and clarity over length while still fully addressing the topic.

Background from Instructor: I emailed a student asking her to revise her weekly assignment. She had not been specific when referring back to the short film and reading in her discussion; there was no indication she watched the film or read the article. The directions state that I need specifics. Rather than enter a 0, I offered her the chance to revise it.

Email from student: Hello, With all due respect, an assignment completed within the due date and time warrants credit. The assignment was completed, even if it does not meet all standards does not warrant a 0. I apologize it is not as specific as desired, however receiving a 0 is unnecessary, and not reflective of completing an assignment. I would like for this to be reevaluated. Thanks.

Background from Instructor: I send a weekly email reminder to students in my large online class. I feel it is a way to help students keep on track and to let them know I am there.  The email is always labeled, “Reminder for the upcoming week.” I received this email from a student.

Email from Student: Please remove me from your reminder list. These emails are more of a nuisance than a helpful aid. I don’t need my professor writing to me.

I replied to the student, telling her she is free to delete or ignore my weekly email reminders.

Background provided by Instructor: It is near the end of the semester and I emailed all students who have missing assignments, urging them to get those in for reduced points. One student emails on Saturday evening to say she is upset that she is doing so poorly. I explain she is missing three assignments, and that I have emailed her several times about these over the past month. She says she did them but I point out they have not been submitted and to email them to me. After several back and forth emails, I point out it is Saturday evening and I need to go. I suggest she submit the missing assignments for me to grade as late (she’s lucky I am willing to accept them) and if she wants to meet me to discuss things further, she can come by during office hours. She then replies again:

Email from student: I have things to do too, but I am very concerned about my grade and do not want to fail a class when I did the work and passed it in, and am not getting credit for it. I realize it is Saturday night but you are the instructor and you should be answering any emails from students no matter when. I know I have had all semester to deal with this, but I am just now looking at my grades since it is the end of the semester.

Background provided by Instructor: I received this email from a student after the class ended when they checked their final grade (C). They lost points for never doing the final paper. They had received many reminder emails, including the opportunity to take an incomplete and send in the final paper later. Their decision to wait to read the assigned paperback in the last week is telling.

Email from student: I do not understand why I am being penalized a whole letter grade just for one paper. I understand that I signed up for this course but I have had work in the morning and baseball games every night and honestly do not have much time to read a book in a week. If there is anything else that I can do I will do it.

Background provided by Instructor: I taught a short online course that took place over three weeks between the semester break. All students were informed ahead of time that the course is a typical 15 week class condensed into just 3 weeks (15 days) and therefore requires daily attention and participation. While students were encouraged to work ahead, they were warned that falling behind would be problematic (“late assignments will not be accepted”).  After the first week, one student “disappeared” and did not respond to daily email inquiries for the entire second week. The student sent the following email. In addition, the student insisted I should accept that they essentially missed one-third of the class due to the family vacation and offer extensions for all missed work.

Student’s email: I would just like to apologize for how spotty I have been with assignments this past week. I have been on a Caribbean cruise with my family since Sunday, so I am doing the best I can. Thank you very much for your patients, it’s much appreciated.

Background provided by Instructor: I teach an online course and the requirements for log-on time, my office hours, office location, phone number, etc. are all in the syllabus in several other places, such as in the Start Here link or in the Instructor Information.
Here is what one of my students who had been logged on for 2 hours 35 minutes in week 10 of the term emailed me:

How can you expect us to login for 4 hours a week when all we do is play matching games and answer a 5 question quiz? the matching games we play give us no credit nor does the journaling or the discussions. I didn’t ask you for a report on when I login in I dont need to be logged into the system when doing essays do I?? I have spent alot of time and effort and you just hand out bad grades. Just as you can evaluate, I too can evaluate. This is the worst class I have taken and your teaching style has really brought me down. I have had no feedback or help from you. Im sure you know what my feedback was on your evaluation. I will do my best to dry and catch up but I feel as if I should just re-take this class with a much more involved instructor. Im not here to be criticized and as a teacher and instructor you should be here to help instead of just passing me on to someone else. As I know this is not all your fault as most of it is mine due to unforseen circumstances I will be taking this to the Dean of students. As you can see I have almost no feedback or teaching from you. Yes this is an online course but you are also employed to teach online or not you should be involved with your students.

Background provided by Instructor: The students were assigned a computer project, which was posted two weeks before the deadline with a grading scheme. They were required to send a milestone to us after a week to receive some points; there was no partial credit for this section.

Email subject: This lab is very hard. You guys should try do it yourself.

Email body: Hi,

I’m not very happy. Why is task 1-3 no partial credit. Please send in some feedback because we need this for part 1-7 and if this is not right and we have no way of correcting this we are getting a zero. It is a very bad way to grade homework like this according to me. I have been correcting this thing for a long time. I admit i’m very stupid please help us by sending some feedback.

We talked to the TAs and they said they cannot see errors in my function.

Background provided by Instructor: I am always amazed by the emails from students…how brazen and entitled they are…. and their tone. In this example of an email reply from a student, I had given the student only partial credit (a gift) for a paper because when I screened the paper for originality, a significant portion of it matched to other book review websites. The paper did not follow my specific directions for what to discuss. When I wrote to the student about their paper, I said that it made me wonder if they had read the instructions or the book.

I see that I only recieved half credit for my paper. I completely understand your comments but I did read the book from start to finish. I am upset about your accusations that I did not read it because that is just not true and very unfair. I hope to get the credit on my paper that I earned.