I don't know why, but most of the students I've ever added to a class after it has already begun haven't stayed. I always ready lots of add slips, never more than this semester, when my classes are shrinking all the time. But the two students I added today didn't turn in their slips, and I think that again, this means they have decided not to stay. It's peculiar, since I was feeling so comfortable with the material, which is after all new to me, and the students.
But I won't second guess the students for not staying in the class. It could be for any reason, from the material, a rather off-putting and graphic science fiction story that certainly does not foster comfort in its readers, to the fact that technology was acting up and students were having trouble downloading a handout on Blackboard.
And another student who wanted to add and emailed me last week managed to slip by unnoticed when the email was not forwarded. I only checked the inbox today after half a week of reading a very small number of forwarded emails. She probably doesn't need the class anymore.
It is funny that everytime I report that problem with email, the test emails arrive perfectly, immediately after they are sent, like the noise in my car I reported to the mechanic, only to have it purr like a kitten when he started it.
I'll just have to wait till a student complains, and have that person write to tech services. Perhaps that person will have better luck than I have.
2 comments:
It's true that late adding students are at risk. Their commitment to the course is tenuous from the start. For that reason, I give them an inordinate amount of attention at first to see if I can glue them down.
I did that with the two who wanted to add. One of them admitted to me that he had taken Wr. 2 4 times and failed before, but assured me that this time would be different. However, he brought no pen and paper to the class and came very late, so you can imagine I was skeptical of his resolve. He hasn't added the class, and seemed annoyed when I told him he had 20 minutes and then 5 minutes left to finish his diagnostic at the Center yesterday.
The other woman I can't imagine what went wrong. I was so friendly and helpful! I think that perhaps it annoys some students that I give out no handouts and expect them to download everything from Blackboard. This semester they seem to be having a lot of trouble downloading documents for some reason. But I simply can't give out handouts anymore; we get too few Xeroxes for that.
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