h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I just had one of my tutees complain to me (in tutorial) that his homework had been marked late (and therefore not marked). I'm afraid I got a little annoyed. First let me explain the basic set-up.

1. Students put their homeworks through little letter-box holes into locked lockers.
2. At some point after the deadline, someone (not sure who) puts a piece of blue paper in.
3. Any homeworks above this blue piece of paper are marker late by the markers.
4. This student claims to have posted his work about an hour before the deadline.
5. No-one else's work has been marked late, never mind incorrectly marked late.
6. This is the first tutorial this student has attended in the past four weeks (he picked up old homeworks this tutorial, including the "late" one) and doesn't seem to have done much work (kept questioning what I was writing on the board, which was just a recap of some old stuff).

You may not think 6 is relevant (and indeed I sometimes wish my tutees would ask more questions - getting too many is rare), but in my experience this sort of thing doesn't tend to happen to consciencious students.

Anyhow, I'm not supposed to give extra marks, let alone mark an entire paper, so there wasn't much I could do except refer him to the course professor (that's what they call them), which I didn't want to do as there's not really anything he could do. In the end I did, but mainly because I wanted to get on with the tutorial and he was wanting to go and complain to the marker, as if it's her fault, but not before getting annoyed and pretty much suggesting he had handed it in late.

So, my question is what should I have done?

Difficult one - the guy sounds like a pratt. Have any of your fellow tutors experienced anything similar? They might have some tactics to suggest.

Dunno. Well, students are often asking about questions, but that can be wanting to know what's wrong rather than complaining.

I don't know that I want to call him a prat, I'm already feeling a bit guilty for thinking he's trying it on.

His behaviour was prattish. A tutorial is not the place to sort these things out. He was using other student's time to compensate for his lack of organisation. Staying behind for a few words with you would have been more appropriate.

Perhaps there are reasons why he's missed the last few tutorials - maybe that needs to be addressed - has he been ill or does he have some other problems which have been causing disruption?

Perhaps - give him the benefit of the doubt re lateness once - and hope he's learned a lesson?

Ps - how many tutees are in a tutorial these days?

In my day, a tutorial group would number about 8 students. I have heard of tutorials for 30! And lectures for 300!

Don't bend the rules in any way for a person like this. Offer him extra time at the next tutorial. If he is genuine, he will jump at the chance. More likely, he won't turn up.

I think he should be given the benifit of the doubt. It is possible that the mysterious blue-paper-dropper was early.

I would query the whole letter box procedure...it sounds very odd, if someone goes to put in a bit of blue paper why not just get the same person to empty the thing at the same time, that way anything that is late just wont be circulated to the marker with the other work and so wont get marked.

We only had a post box for out of hours homework...ie if you finished the night before and wanted to hand it in then rather than come in the next day, between 10-4 we had to hand the work in at the school office where it would be signed dated and stamped and we would get a reciept (including the date/time). Most deadlines are for the end of the day 4pm (although our office got them brought forward to 2pm so that they could get all of the admin sorted before they closed the office).

As for mr late I would tell him you're looking into the letterbox procedure but unless there is any evidence that it is possible for on time submissions to be marked late accidentally then the mark wont be reconsidered.

Come on, cut the guy some slack! Weren't you ever young?

Yup...and dispite being disorganised, useless, lazy and unmotivated I still managed to stick to deadlines....I might have missed tutorials, lectures and labs (in fact I only attended 15 lectures in my first yr and I slept through some of them) but I still somehow found out what work I had to do and did it on time.

I finished my dissertation at midnight the night before the deadline - it wasn't perfect but it was more or less finished...I was so angry to take it in and find that half the class had been given extensions...bloody rediculous unless there is a specific thing that has stopped you from finishing on time (being ill or grieving is actually the only one I can think of that is reasonable - software/hardware failure is something that you should be prepared for for something as important as a dissertaion)

"I love deadlines. I love the wooshing sound they make when they go rushing past"
~DNA

..well I admit my record at meeting deadlines at work is pretty shoddy...which makes me wonder how anyone who can't even keep up with their uni homework would be able to get by...it's much better to make this student face the consequences of being slack on deadlines now...it doesn't get easier and the consequences get harsher as time goes on.

I still think the letter box thing is more than a little dodgy - and lays the whole system open for claims of being unfair...and for homework I'd say it was a bit uneccasary - it would be easier to tell the tutor group to bung their work in the markers pigeon hole which will be emptied on the deadline - that way the marker can be confident in whether the work was late or not.

Although we did have a system for late work to be marked. If it was less than a week late it would be marked as usual and then 25% would be removed from the total score (so if you got 60% for the quality you would have a final score of 35%...basically took a 2:1 score down to a pass). If it was more than a week late then you wouldn't get any credit for the work (unless you had an autorised extension)...the penalties didn't start until the morning after deadline day (so even if you handed in after the 2pm deadline so long as it was before the office close at 4 you were ok)

With our system you get points out of 10, 1 point of for every school day you're late.

Teuchter - There's something approaching thirty in each tutorial, though only about half that number tend to show up.

PQ - the markers don't have pigeonholes. In fact no-one does - us grad students and faculty members have mailboxes, but they can only be accessed with a key or from inside the office. They're also not big enough to hold thirty assignments.

I won't say I'm investigating the system because I'm not - I agree it's wide open to claims like this, but it's a department-wide (probably university-wide) thing. That said, this is the fourth term I've TA'd (TA - teaching assistantship, not really a verb, but who cares) and the first that's used this. Mind you, two didn't have assessed homeworks.

35% a pass? Lightweights. You had to get 37.5% where I went. Here in Canada it's 50%, which means my transcript with a load of 60s and 70s looks really bad here.

Sir Ralph - if the blue-paper-dropper was early, surely more students would be late. As I said no-one else in this tutorial was, though I think there was another in the course. That said, I would cut late people some slack, but there's nothing I can really do now, I just wondered if I could have handled it differently in the first place.

Gnomon - I'm not sure what you mean about extra time. The tutorial's a fixed length and I try to talk to the class (chances are if one person has a problem, so do others and they just haven't said). Hmmm, perhaps it was unfair to moan about his questions - lots of people get confused about stuff. On the other hand some things come out just by thinking about them, so its good if people do that.

I could point out that he's welcome to come to my office hour - that's best for explaining stuff to just one person.

I would have asked him to stay for a few minutes after class or see me later. I'd ask why he hadn't been to tutorials..was there a problem and did that excuse his late submission of work If he has been ill or had some problems I'd give him the benefit of the doubt this time.If he had missed 4 weeks that would explain all the questions.I would also ask the other staff if they have had problems with late work from him etc.

Urk. That sounds tricky. If he had missed four weeks, he should have given a note to the registrar, not pretended to have handed things in on time. Anyhow, as he handed in all his homeworks in this subject, he clearly hasn't been missing for weeks.

Hmm, sounds like you take tutorials very seriously over there...

'Round here, for my subject at least, it's mostly a case of 'try and get the work in the day before and we'll try and mark it'... ... that said, the marks don't count for anything.

Bagpuss, is it possible he was abroad for the missing time? Perhaps he hadn't reset his watch to the proper time zone...

Dunno, shall we stick to the theory he was kidnapped by s.

Probably those damn s again.