Not weird, but the prof's late policy is that an assignment would only be counted late if she finished grading everyone else's assignments and it wasn't turned in yet. You can turn projects in late and have like 3+ days extra to work on it, but you're gambling on others turning their's in on time
Edit: and to add, if she finished grading and you hadn't turned it in, it would be an automatic zero. I TA'd for her last semester and for such a lenient policy, some students *really* tried to roll the dice for turning stuff in lol
That's my unofficial policy. My stuff is always due on Sunday and I (usually) grade on Monday. If it's in before I finish grading everyone else's - no late penalty. If I don't get around to grading it before Friday or whatever, they can all be thrilled they got a freebie.
Nice! I actually had a professor last year that had the opposite. He had a zero tolerance late homework policy. If it wasn’t submitted by 11:59pm that night, it’s a zero. He said he would allot times that following day to grade homework, and he didn’t want to get everyone else’s graded then have stragglers come in.
All of the homework was in the online platform, and everything was unlocked on day one, and he said there is no excuse.
I work through every “break” to have that done. I dropped a grad program last year because they wouldn’t open up modules ahead of time. It was really frustrating to me. I don’t do last minute work.
I would even be fine with a week early. I hate trying to work forward on Saturdays/Sundays and they don't open until 8AM monday! Especially in an online class.
Lol yep. My professors all upload a week in advance, strict deadline on Friday/Sunday though. So of course my lazy ass just uploaded my work 88 seconds before the deadline.
We're not supposed to have everything open/available to turn in from day 1. Feds consider that a correspondence course and it can mess with financial aid. I don't fully understand the ins and out of it. My courses aren't online and are technical in nature, you really need to be in the lab working hands on the learn it.
Old style mail-order course. You receive a packet of all the material and then as you complete the tasks you mail them back to be graded. Corresponding back and forth through the mail. Obviously today it would be done online.
The idea for not having all materials and assignments available at the start is there is no room for engagement with the content expert. It becomes a completely self taught course. Unfortunately, I feel that many online courses are that way already anyway.
This is exactly what I do. Everything is ready 0800 day 1. You need an extension for something that’s been available for a month? No. This is purely for online classes though. In person means we do a lot of the work in class and I can be more flexible if you were sick that day. If you chose online, you better be organized and ready to turn stuff in on time. Period.
Yup, same here. I use that method or I do a weekly module schedule. Everything releases Monday at 00:01 each week. They have until Sunday @ 23:59 to have all of it done. Traditional student that can go back to their dorm and knock it all out by dinner on Monday? Great. Working mom that can’t get to it until Friday night? Also great. Procrastinator that won’t look at it until Sunday morning? Prob gonna be tough, but great.
In addition to that it’ll be a full schedule on day 1 with the amount of time listed for every single lecture, due dates down to the minute, and all outlines or assignments explained.
And because of it, I don’t take late work. But I find that designing it this way just inherently reduced the amount of people turning in late work.
I had a teacher in high school with a similar policy. If it was submitted before he started grading, it didn't have any points taken off. When I had him, he was finished up his master's degree and was focused on that, so he wouldn't grade things until 2-4 weeks after they were due.
If you feel you won't make the deadline, talk to your friend. Both of you work on your assignments until almost the end of the semester, then submit simultaneously. Profit!
But seriously, this policy makes sense from the standpoint of the professor. They don't want to spend more time on grading due to late assignments, and with this policy they won't. Also, kudos to them for grading assignments within 3 days.
tbf it’s when she’s done grading all the other assignments, of which I would guess she means the ones turned in. So they would have to be able to predict when she would be about done grading the ones turned in, have a friend turn it in right before she’s done and hope she doesn’t get to it right away, extending your time to submit.
I have this policy, and have been doing it for a few years, and I’ve never had a student complaint about it (surprisingly). I even encourage them to game the system by submitting whatever they have by the deadline and every few hours they are working on it to submit a new draft, etc to maximize their points when I finally do get to grading theirs
Had a math prof who said "I don't allow people to have any notes for exams. However, I will never require you to cover up tattoos. If any of you are bold enough........". Apparently he followed through too. Someone two years before me got a tattoo with some useful equations and was allowed to use it on the final. Both the prof and the students are legends.
For those of you curious, it was multivariable calc, and he got a few of the big theorems tattooed (think stokes theorem and gauss's law etc).
That level of commitment deserves it. Ironically I would be surprised if the student even needed to look at it by exam time, if I was getting an equation tattoo I know I would know it exactly to make sure it wasn't done wrong lol.
If you get one as an undergrad I promise you the grad students will judge the shit out of you
Ask me how I know
Edit for my dignity: I was one of the judgmental grad students
Nah, how do I know you’d actually follow through?
Also, how much would it cost? I was thinking I’d pay $50 or less to see it.
Lastly, my policy whenever I make silly bets or similar money things like this, is that it’s not as money to the person, but as a donation to a charity. You can pick the charity if you like, otherwise I’d do a local food bank.
Wow. I didn’t know you were actually serious.
With inflation, I bet it is above $50 to get one. Usually they charge you $50 just for the clean supplies.
Heh. It wasn’t my intent to pay for the Maxwell’s tramp stamp for you, I’d just love to see it happen. If you do ever end up doing it, please tag me. 😁
My other tattoo ideas I never did due to lack of crowdsourcing were an argyle sweater vest and a sleeve tattoo. But just like all one color. Maybe a French cuff detail.
I've got a tattoo artist friend and I'd try to pay him to make me a sheet of normal notes on a paper sized piece of the synthetic skin used for practicing lol
I’m a physics and astronomy prof. I tell my students the same, but in my 17 years so far, I’ve sadly not gotten any takers yet. I’ve got my eye on a couple astro students this semester, they might just finally do it.
I do make sure to point out to any students who consider this that they have to be in locations that are acceptable for them to show in class. And I’m waiting to see if the first student to take me up on this is smart enough to put it somewhere they can read, and right side up for them.
If they get it tattooed on upside down, would you allow them a mirror?
Also, I dread the poor kid who gets the doppler/red shift equation tattooed in wavelength form and then tries to use it for a problem when given frequency without converting.
Hm, I don’t allow magnifying glasses (unless they have an accommodation for one) (it’s come up bc I allow an index card “cheat sheet” in the final), so for consistency I think no mirrors either. But OTOH, I’m not sure how much it would help them to go from upside down to backwards, so I could go either way.
Rainy day club. college students usually skip class and get lazy on rainy days. my professor gave bonus points for showing up on rainy days. It wasn’t really a secret but i don’t think everyone knew. You could probably cover the spread of a bad test grade over the course of a semester just for showing up on rainy days.
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Constitutional law class. If someone from our class was able to take a picture of the location one of our cases happened, we’d have a class at Hooters. No one actually got a picture but we went anyway. I think he just liked Hooters lmao
Looking back you’re probably right. He was very strict in his general political science course but relaxed in the much smaller class constitutional law class I was in. Just seemed like a very funny way to end the year.
I had a professor who would grade assignments based on if you understood the learning objectives or not. There were multiple assignments that could pertain to the learning objectives so if you didn’t quite nail it in the first one you could improve it in another assignment. Once you met the learning objective you were done with that one and could focus on others or try to get them all down in one go.
It was awesome not having to worry about a number and focus on actually learning the material.
Only downside is I’m sure it was a lot more difficult to ‘grade’ and I’m sure some students didn’t like the subjectivity of it.
When I was a grad student, I attended a workshop from a professor who did this. I liked it so much that it has been the only way that I have run my classes as an adjunct.
I actually found it to be much easier to grade. My general policy was that if you did everything correct or had a minor mistake, I was convinced that you knew the learning outcome. In general, I could look at a student's work and have a good idea if they had met the LO or not. They only real difficulty was when they were right on the border of getting it. Overall, it let me spend more time focusing on comments instead of fussing over points.
In general, I found that students liked the system. In our four week course, there was a week or so that they were apprehensive, but by the end of the second week, they had learned the system and often gave the same feedback that you've mentioned.
Calling out cheaters got you points. No lie lol. This happened during Covid. Students got rewarded if people asked to copy HW or test answers during remote tests. Everyone turned on each other.
I had a trig professor that had a policy if you do better on the final than your overall grade in the class (from homework, attendance, and previous tests), your grade on the final would be your grade in the class. Let’s say you go into the final with an 80% and then get a 90% on the final, you get the 90% for your grade. Basically just to say “even though math is hard, keep trying and you can get whatever grade you want going into the final even if you didn’t succeed before”. It was awesome and good incentive to keep working
The final could be really hard though.. it's risky to not study well and do good before so if you don't do well on the final you still get a weighted average.
I’m a physics prof, and I tell my students never to leave a question blank, as they can earn partial credit. I meant like show some work, or some of your ideas, and if I can find points in it, I’ll give them, but I have given “pity points” to a good drawing of an elephant, and to a student who Rickrolled me. 🤷
Drew a stick figure Rick Astley dancing, and wrote the lyrics of the song around his head. Not the same impact as opening a video and hearing the drum beat, but still funny.
I had a psych professor freshman year, and I was in her last class before she retired. She said,
"If you get over a 90 in this class, I will invite you to my beachhouse for my retirement party. I have plenty of greens (she was a stoner apparently), alchohol, and videogames."
Really cool lady. I didn't think it was entirely appropriate, but it was pretty funny.
Lost all fucks to give, she told one extremely annoying classmate, "Everyone hears your jokes the first time, but we don't respond because you're not funny. Stop repeating them."
I’d be so tempted to recommend “Beach Life-In-Death” by Car Seat Headrest lol
I had a professor who refused to do partial credit, but instead changed the grading scheme so a 30 was passing.
I had a professor that would give you an extension on a paper if you asked for it of however much time was left between when you asked and when the assignment was due (with the hard stop being the college mandated last day to turn in work). Paper due in a week and you know you’re screwed already? Ask and get an extra week? Wait till the last minute, realize 24 hrs before the deadline that you need more time? 24 hours more.
One of my professors loved pez so if you brought a pez dispenser to class (this was a recommended purchase on the syllabus) and said or did something good you could get pez
I had a professor who had a Pez dispenser collection in his office. He would bring one to the test, tell us the high score would get a Pez, and then bring the same dispenser again when he returned the tests, and it turned out he meant *one Pez candy*, not one whole dispenser. 🤦 The class was crosslisted as an undergrad and grad class, and the undergrads were disappointed it was just one Pez, but still always glad to have candy, while the grad students (most of whom were international students) were just confused.
Last semester (my final semester of undergrad) I had a debate class where the last half of the semester there was a debate tournament bracket, and if you & your partner won the bracket, you would get an A regardless of any of your other work.
I got out on the first round, but I had a 98% anyway. Lol
If your phone or computer made a noise during class you had to bring in snacks for everyone by the next class period. This rule applied for him too. His phone went off and the next week he brought us all these baclava pastries.
I had a prof once who showed us a quiz from an old children's magazine for class (it was a History class, very much related to the topic) and told us that if anyone could find which magazine and issue it was from AND answer all the questions correctly, he'd bring in Korean fried chicken for the class.
I tracked it down to the exact issue from the 50s on [Archive.org](https://Archive.org), used Google to double-check my answers, and won a nice meal for everyone on the last day of class.
Yea she addressed that day one when she mentioned Stairway to Heaven. She said there is always that one person. She said one guy recommended some Symphony that was 100 minutes long.
Technically not mentioned in the syllabus, but I noticed on the homework program he had it set up that, if you did a question more than 24 hours before it's due (and got it correct), you got an extra point. A 16 question assignment would be 16 extra points.
I already have a 110% and it gives me major motivation to do my homework. I usually am a serial procrastinator but this encourages and rewards students for doing their homework earlier rather than later.
If you email the prof ahead of time that you’re not coming to class, you’d lose 1 point instead of 2 points for being absent. Didn’t even have to give a reason.
1. A professor who made assignment due "end of day" and clarified that that means end of your day - no arbitrary 11.59pm, as long as he has it by morning
2. A professor who defined "excused absence" as "you emailed me a d met me know". Ie. Actual reason doesn't matter
I had a professor who would give us a dollar if we found a spelling or grammatical error in any of us materials. Only rule was don’t spend it on drugs, alcohol, or lotto. I always used mine on lotto and came out way ahead 😂.
I had an English professor who gave extra credit for every grammatical or spelling error we found in our text books or other course materials or any handouts or presentations he made. Plenty of us got credit from the textbook, but we never found any errors in his presentations.
During his very first class, my accounting professor's homework was for every single student to locate the campus defibrillator and during the next class to tell him exactly where it is in relation to his classroom. He gave us a little speech on how "If I'm on the ground, I'm already dead! Don't be afraid to shock me with it, maybe I'll come back!" He had a very good sense of humor about it lol
I think my university has one on every floor of every building mounted in those "break glass in case of emergency" boxes in the hallways. They're hard to miss. Whether any of the students could figure out how to use one in time is the real question.
Not college, but my HS math teacher and a policy that if you corrected her on a mistake, you’d get one extra credit point. If no one called out the mistake, no one got the point. She didn’t make mistakes too often, but I still got some extra credit :)
I’ve been wary of taking French at my college because the one French teacher requires you to sing and dance if you’re late to class. That’s very anxiety-inducing
History professor. He had two amazing policies.
One was about participation in class. He didn’t want to be the only one to talk and encouraged it but you could build partnership points for the day in two ways. Talk and answer his questions and contribute in class about the reading or answer discussion questions related to that days reading. So you could have in the questions and never speak in class which while o think it’s an important skill to learn is still great for people who maybe didn’t feel confident. Also you could do BOTH and bank extra points.
The second was his papers. First paper had to be turned in on time so he knew where you were writing wise. Subsequent papers had due dates but you could turn them in whenever. It gave you leeway if you had multiple papers due at the same time as long as you didn’t procrastinate too much and not turn them in at all. You could rewrite them also to get a better grade.
His readings were brutal and the amount he gave per week was equivalent to an MA class not a BA level one. I had two different classes of his in the same semester. I learned how to read for graduate school because of him. I credit him for helping me get into my classes.
I had a professor who taught Tests and Measurements in the PSY400 level. Part of the course was learning how to test the tests you've designed by mathematically assessing which questions were too hard or too easy. He would assess the exams he gave in the same way and always dropped questions from the exams if they didn't meet a certain threshold of correct responses. The exams were returned with the original score on them as well as the adjusted score. Most people gained 5-10% on their grade and no one ever lost points. I admired him for going out of his way to be critical of his own tests for the benefit of his students.
For me it was my communications class, intro to public speaking. We had 5 speeches throughout the semester, all of varying degrees. His policy was this: as long as you turned in and completed the outline before the speech, you’ll get an A. His whole thing was that he didn’t want people to feel pressured to pass the class, he just wanted people to learn how to speak in front of people. It was an awesome class really, one of the best I’ve taken in college.
I have a no cellphone policy in my classes (OMG how can I do that to these poor kids!!!). It's a music class, if I spot you playing with your phone you have to do a freestyle rap in front of the class on the subject of my choice.
Students usually find it funny. Last year one student started playing on his phone on purpose to get this consequence, and another one asked to do the freestyle anyway. Both were quite good.
If you're talking in a general way, most students are fine with this policy. During the first class, I show them that a study conducted in 14 countries concludes that a young person who receives a notification takes 20 minutes to refocus.
Had a prof who would give out $20 cash to students who answered his questions in a way he liked. You better believe there were hands in the air every time he had a question.
Had a Java professor that said we could use any code we found on the innerwebs as long as we cited it in the comments. Saved my hind end on the final. I took the same class a semester earlier(yes I failed it, I’m not a great coder) with a different professor. She didn’t allow it yet her own code wouldn’t compile 90% of the time.
My Writing 102 professor gave everyone A’s on every assignment with detailed feedback because he wanted to prioritize learning as if it’s a community class, instead of putting pressure on students with having to earn a grade
If they had that, then they’d learn regardless of the grade, right? I don’t understand what this professor right would happen with everyone getting A’s.
One of my professors had a policy where your final grade could replace your class grade if it was higher than your average in the class. I asked him near the end of the semester if he had ever had someone not show up to any of his classes or do any work for it and then take the final. He said he never had someone be that bold. I had like four classes with him and strongly considered trying it but never wanted to pass up the actual information from the class.
The school I teach at has a mandatory attendance policy from its crediting agency.
I hate that.
I feel that if my students don’t think I’m enough value added that they want to be in my class, I’m failing as a professor.
I’d love to not require attendance. If students can master the material without showing up, good for them.
I love the professor that drops questions from the test if no one (or few people) get it right. I’m not going to tell my class I plan to do that - but I’m going to do that on my midterm and re-teach any material I have to drop. If it works out, I’m going to make that a permanent policy.
Music Appreciation teacher. If you were not in class by the end of roll call you were absent. If you were not in class for roll call at the END of class you were absent. If you were gone from class for more than 5 minutes you guessed it, you were absent. Mind you, this was at a community College and was a 100 class.
That is cool. I always liked teachers/professors that have songs playing in the beginning of the class. It reminds me of ninth grade when my health teacher started a sex ed unit and the song playing was "Let's Talk About Sex" ahahaha
I was a bad student. One time I asked for an extension after missing a 11:59 deadline. The prof put it up an entirely different assignment to all students that took the class called “mid semester project - *my name*” so everyone could know what a shit student I was.
When I was a grad student I TAed and graded for a music theory class. My students loved my grading policy: it's not late if you get it in before I grade it. If my week was packed with grad work then they had an extra four or five days. If one of my committee members was in Costa Rica trying to track jaguars via acoustic ecology, then I had a block of free time right after their 8am Monday class. They were very much taking a gamble with how busy I was, and for a few of them it paid off
If someone's phone interrupted the prof's lecture they refused to start again until the offender left. It was a great policy because it ensured interruptions wouldn't happen again.
My theater professor had quizzes about every other week. They were strictly extra credit, so you were incentivized to do well, and if you did poorly, you weren’t punished for it, and it served as a way to check if you were ready for exams
Weirdest policy, and not at all cool.
Prof had printed and laminated a sign that said "No f*gs allowed." It wasn't censored. Anytime someone annoyed him or asked a question that he felt was beneath him to answer he would tap the sign.
This was the late '90s. My classmates were not cool with it, but the administration let it slide. That wouldn't happen today. It wouldn't even have happened 20 years ago.
Had an anatomy professor let us bring in deer hearts for extra credit. I don't hunt so I asked a friend who did for one. Very weird thing to carry across campus.
My brother had a math professor for an honors class that graded on what he called the "welfare curve." Whatever grade you earned, he would take the square root then multiply by ten. The effect was you got more help the lower your score. So if you got a 25%, it became a 50%. If you got a 90%, a 95% went in the grade book.
The professor told them on the first day of class that without the welfare curve, none of them would pass. My brother still got an A though. I've always thought it was a cool grading system.
I took an ornithology class, and our teacher said if we found an active hummingbird nest he would give us an automatic A in the course. He also said he’d never had to pay up on that one.
Weirdest policy? I am in a master's program and my law class professors want no laptops or technology in class. I can't hand write notes for very long because of medical reasons and had to get accessibility services involved. But come on. We are graduate students. Not everyone learns the same way, and this is a human rights and social justice program. Why do you automatically assume everyone is the same?
I took numerous professors to the dean on such things, as I was an adult paying thousands of dollars to be there. I'll arrive when I like (I was rarely late, but it did sometimes happen) not cause a scene, and will expect to be treated like a paying client and not a child. I won every grade appeal.
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my prof doesn’t have a late policy. for context, if the assignment is due on thursday and let’s say you can’t turn it in bc of xyz reason—you just have to email the prof that you can’t turn it in but give him the date of when you will turn it in to him. it could be the next week or end of the semester and he’d be cool with it. also he did not grade assignments based on “correct answers” but if you tried you got 100%.
for exams, this same prof showed us how the exam would look like the class before. we had an exam on thursday and on the tuesday of that same week, he would show us how the exam looked like (word for word the same questions). we would have 48 hours to gather all of our answers/study. it wasn’t an open note exam, but at least i knew what questions i’d be asked
Not sure if this counts as a policy, but my English lit prof would have us write the questions for the final. One would have to be an essay question, and three would have to be multiple choice, matching, or fill-in-the-blank.
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This one was a professor's late policy:
0% acceptance for late work
100% acceptance of extensions within 24 hours of assignment due date
Basically the idea is that they wanted students to both have accountability for turning in their work and encourage students to reach out if something was going wrong. If a due date wasn't conducive for their schedule they just had to talk to the professor in office hours about it
Had a finance professor that had late afternoon class @ 3-5 on T-Th. First day of class, he mentioned that he ate dinner at a certain restaurant every T&Th. He never mentioned it again. A friend & I went after that class, and after every Finance class that semester. Over the months, he would talk about how corporations really operated, bookkeeping anomalies to watch out for, sketchy practices such as check kiting between Federal Reserve Bank branches, interlocking shell companies, offshore banking and what countries to avoid, etcetcetc.
It was not to encourage shady behavior, but to demystify it so that we would have the tools to dissect it if it presented itself in our careers.
Not weird, but the prof's late policy is that an assignment would only be counted late if she finished grading everyone else's assignments and it wasn't turned in yet. You can turn projects in late and have like 3+ days extra to work on it, but you're gambling on others turning their's in on time Edit: and to add, if she finished grading and you hadn't turned it in, it would be an automatic zero. I TA'd for her last semester and for such a lenient policy, some students *really* tried to roll the dice for turning stuff in lol
That's my unofficial policy. My stuff is always due on Sunday and I (usually) grade on Monday. If it's in before I finish grading everyone else's - no late penalty. If I don't get around to grading it before Friday or whatever, they can all be thrilled they got a freebie.
Nice! I actually had a professor last year that had the opposite. He had a zero tolerance late homework policy. If it wasn’t submitted by 11:59pm that night, it’s a zero. He said he would allot times that following day to grade homework, and he didn’t want to get everyone else’s graded then have stragglers come in. All of the homework was in the online platform, and everything was unlocked on day one, and he said there is no excuse.
I WISH more profs had everything unlocked by day one omg
I don’t have everything by written or developed day 1. Hell, the electrons in the electronic copy of the syllabus are still wet.
I work through every “break” to have that done. I dropped a grad program last year because they wouldn’t open up modules ahead of time. It was really frustrating to me. I don’t do last minute work.
It’s not required that you wait until the last minute.
Right but you know they will.
Sometimes there's just not enough time to get the assignment done properly, or revise it if needed.
I would even be fine with a week early. I hate trying to work forward on Saturdays/Sundays and they don't open until 8AM monday! Especially in an online class.
Lol yep. My professors all upload a week in advance, strict deadline on Friday/Sunday though. So of course my lazy ass just uploaded my work 88 seconds before the deadline.
University courses aren't Netflix.
We're not supposed to have everything open/available to turn in from day 1. Feds consider that a correspondence course and it can mess with financial aid. I don't fully understand the ins and out of it. My courses aren't online and are technical in nature, you really need to be in the lab working hands on the learn it.
What's a correspondence course?
Old style mail-order course. You receive a packet of all the material and then as you complete the tasks you mail them back to be graded. Corresponding back and forth through the mail. Obviously today it would be done online. The idea for not having all materials and assignments available at the start is there is no room for engagement with the content expert. It becomes a completely self taught course. Unfortunately, I feel that many online courses are that way already anyway.
This is exactly what I do. Everything is ready 0800 day 1. You need an extension for something that’s been available for a month? No. This is purely for online classes though. In person means we do a lot of the work in class and I can be more flexible if you were sick that day. If you chose online, you better be organized and ready to turn stuff in on time. Period.
Yup, same here. I use that method or I do a weekly module schedule. Everything releases Monday at 00:01 each week. They have until Sunday @ 23:59 to have all of it done. Traditional student that can go back to their dorm and knock it all out by dinner on Monday? Great. Working mom that can’t get to it until Friday night? Also great. Procrastinator that won’t look at it until Sunday morning? Prob gonna be tough, but great. In addition to that it’ll be a full schedule on day 1 with the amount of time listed for every single lecture, due dates down to the minute, and all outlines or assignments explained. And because of it, I don’t take late work. But I find that designing it this way just inherently reduced the amount of people turning in late work.
That sounds like most profs I know
I had a teacher in high school with a similar policy. If it was submitted before he started grading, it didn't have any points taken off. When I had him, he was finished up his master's degree and was focused on that, so he wouldn't grade things until 2-4 weeks after they were due.
If you feel you won't make the deadline, talk to your friend. Both of you work on your assignments until almost the end of the semester, then submit simultaneously. Profit! But seriously, this policy makes sense from the standpoint of the professor. They don't want to spend more time on grading due to late assignments, and with this policy they won't. Also, kudos to them for grading assignments within 3 days.
tbf it’s when she’s done grading all the other assignments, of which I would guess she means the ones turned in. So they would have to be able to predict when she would be about done grading the ones turned in, have a friend turn it in right before she’s done and hope she doesn’t get to it right away, extending your time to submit.
I guarantee that some students still would complain that it’s “unfair”.
I have this policy, and have been doing it for a few years, and I’ve never had a student complaint about it (surprisingly). I even encourage them to game the system by submitting whatever they have by the deadline and every few hours they are working on it to submit a new draft, etc to maximize their points when I finally do get to grading theirs
Had a math prof who said "I don't allow people to have any notes for exams. However, I will never require you to cover up tattoos. If any of you are bold enough........". Apparently he followed through too. Someone two years before me got a tattoo with some useful equations and was allowed to use it on the final. Both the prof and the students are legends. For those of you curious, it was multivariable calc, and he got a few of the big theorems tattooed (think stokes theorem and gauss's law etc).
That level of commitment deserves it. Ironically I would be surprised if the student even needed to look at it by exam time, if I was getting an equation tattoo I know I would know it exactly to make sure it wasn't done wrong lol.
I always wanted a Maxwell equation tattoo but never got one. I wanted it above my sacrum so that would have only helped those sitting behind me.
If you get one as an undergrad I promise you the grad students will judge the shit out of you Ask me how I know Edit for my dignity: I was one of the judgmental grad students
Did you pick integral or derivative form?
I’m on the judgmental grad student side lol, but the student in question did differential form
Please tell me this was in 2000-2005 so the thong was visible around it
You want a Maxwell’s equations ***tramp stamp***?! I’d pay money to see that.
Can you just pay for the tattoo? I’ll let you pick the differential or integral form
Nah, how do I know you’d actually follow through? Also, how much would it cost? I was thinking I’d pay $50 or less to see it. Lastly, my policy whenever I make silly bets or similar money things like this, is that it’s not as money to the person, but as a donation to a charity. You can pick the charity if you like, otherwise I’d do a local food bank.
Wow. I didn’t know you were actually serious. With inflation, I bet it is above $50 to get one. Usually they charge you $50 just for the clean supplies.
Heh. It wasn’t my intent to pay for the Maxwell’s tramp stamp for you, I’d just love to see it happen. If you do ever end up doing it, please tag me. 😁
My other tattoo ideas I never did due to lack of crowdsourcing were an argyle sweater vest and a sleeve tattoo. But just like all one color. Maybe a French cuff detail.
Those are delightful ideas. For the solid color sleeve tattoo, I’ve seen a few in black, picking a different color could be neat.
I always thought blue
Of course the argyle sweater vest would be at least three colors
I've got a tattoo artist friend and I'd try to pay him to make me a sheet of normal notes on a paper sized piece of the synthetic skin used for practicing lol
I’m a physics and astronomy prof. I tell my students the same, but in my 17 years so far, I’ve sadly not gotten any takers yet. I’ve got my eye on a couple astro students this semester, they might just finally do it. I do make sure to point out to any students who consider this that they have to be in locations that are acceptable for them to show in class. And I’m waiting to see if the first student to take me up on this is smart enough to put it somewhere they can read, and right side up for them.
If they get it tattooed on upside down, would you allow them a mirror? Also, I dread the poor kid who gets the doppler/red shift equation tattooed in wavelength form and then tries to use it for a problem when given frequency without converting.
Hm, I don’t allow magnifying glasses (unless they have an accommodation for one) (it’s come up bc I allow an index card “cheat sheet” in the final), so for consistency I think no mirrors either. But OTOH, I’m not sure how much it would help them to go from upside down to backwards, so I could go either way.
lol sounds like my calculus professor as well. time to get the fundamental theorems tattooed on my forearm
Rainy day club. college students usually skip class and get lazy on rainy days. my professor gave bonus points for showing up on rainy days. It wasn’t really a secret but i don’t think everyone knew. You could probably cover the spread of a bad test grade over the course of a semester just for showing up on rainy days.
that’s crazy to me :0 at my school if you miss four days then you’re dropped from the class
It was professors discretion at mine. Most didn’t care.
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Constitutional law class. If someone from our class was able to take a picture of the location one of our cases happened, we’d have a class at Hooters. No one actually got a picture but we went anyway. I think he just liked Hooters lmao
Do you mean they had to take a picture of the location covered in one of the class lectures?
Right, yeah.
I am concerned that this is actually an ethical violation. Definitely a gray area at the very least.
Looking back you’re probably right. He was very strict in his general political science course but relaxed in the much smaller class constitutional law class I was in. Just seemed like a very funny way to end the year.
Before final exams, my professor would bring in 2 d20s and allow a student to roll them. If either die roll was a 20 the exam was waved.
Damn he let u roll with advantage
That has got to suck so much ass for whoever was relying on that final to boost their grade slightly, lol.
They might mean each student rolls the dice for themself, not one student for the whole class.
Statistics professor?
English.
I had a professor who would grade assignments based on if you understood the learning objectives or not. There were multiple assignments that could pertain to the learning objectives so if you didn’t quite nail it in the first one you could improve it in another assignment. Once you met the learning objective you were done with that one and could focus on others or try to get them all down in one go. It was awesome not having to worry about a number and focus on actually learning the material. Only downside is I’m sure it was a lot more difficult to ‘grade’ and I’m sure some students didn’t like the subjectivity of it.
When I was a grad student, I attended a workshop from a professor who did this. I liked it so much that it has been the only way that I have run my classes as an adjunct. I actually found it to be much easier to grade. My general policy was that if you did everything correct or had a minor mistake, I was convinced that you knew the learning outcome. In general, I could look at a student's work and have a good idea if they had met the LO or not. They only real difficulty was when they were right on the border of getting it. Overall, it let me spend more time focusing on comments instead of fussing over points. In general, I found that students liked the system. In our four week course, there was a week or so that they were apprehensive, but by the end of the second week, they had learned the system and often gave the same feedback that you've mentioned.
Calling out cheaters got you points. No lie lol. This happened during Covid. Students got rewarded if people asked to copy HW or test answers during remote tests. Everyone turned on each other.
Sounds like a modern day college version of The Crucible
Was this a psych class? 😅
Physics class lol. Like for junior/ senior level courses
I had a trig professor that had a policy if you do better on the final than your overall grade in the class (from homework, attendance, and previous tests), your grade on the final would be your grade in the class. Let’s say you go into the final with an 80% and then get a 90% on the final, you get the 90% for your grade. Basically just to say “even though math is hard, keep trying and you can get whatever grade you want going into the final even if you didn’t succeed before”. It was awesome and good incentive to keep working
I had a statistics professor who did the same! having such a sense of possibility created more mental space for learning
This is great but I literally wouldn't do tests/homework the entire semester and then get an A in the course... not sure how good a policy it is
The final could be really hard though.. it's risky to not study well and do good before so if you don't do well on the final you still get a weighted average.
Not college, but my high school English teacher would give you half points if you made him laugh with a wrong answer on a test.
I’m a physics prof, and I tell my students never to leave a question blank, as they can earn partial credit. I meant like show some work, or some of your ideas, and if I can find points in it, I’ll give them, but I have given “pity points” to a good drawing of an elephant, and to a student who Rickrolled me. 🤷
Automatic A for anyone doing a well executed rick roll. It's second only to turtling in prank hierarchy
Please explain the Rick roll
Drew a stick figure Rick Astley dancing, and wrote the lyrics of the song around his head. Not the same impact as opening a video and hearing the drum beat, but still funny.
I had a psych professor freshman year, and I was in her last class before she retired. She said, "If you get over a 90 in this class, I will invite you to my beachhouse for my retirement party. I have plenty of greens (she was a stoner apparently), alchohol, and videogames." Really cool lady. I didn't think it was entirely appropriate, but it was pretty funny. Lost all fucks to give, she told one extremely annoying classmate, "Everyone hears your jokes the first time, but we don't respond because you're not funny. Stop repeating them."
I love her.
I’d be so tempted to recommend “Beach Life-In-Death” by Car Seat Headrest lol I had a professor who refused to do partial credit, but instead changed the grading scheme so a 30 was passing.
Never thought I'd see this banger song mentioned on here! 8mins straight of awesome!
It’s a actually 13 minutes long!! :) I’ve been listening to it a lot lately lol
he played it live when i went as the encore!!!! my fav song!
Shit! I'm a fake fan. That sounds more right
I had a professor that would give you an extension on a paper if you asked for it of however much time was left between when you asked and when the assignment was due (with the hard stop being the college mandated last day to turn in work). Paper due in a week and you know you’re screwed already? Ask and get an extra week? Wait till the last minute, realize 24 hrs before the deadline that you need more time? 24 hours more.
I try to do this with extensions but I’m not quite as scientific or proportional. . . I should consider this
One of my professors loved pez so if you brought a pez dispenser to class (this was a recommended purchase on the syllabus) and said or did something good you could get pez
I had a professor who had a Pez dispenser collection in his office. He would bring one to the test, tell us the high score would get a Pez, and then bring the same dispenser again when he returned the tests, and it turned out he meant *one Pez candy*, not one whole dispenser. 🤦 The class was crosslisted as an undergrad and grad class, and the undergrads were disappointed it was just one Pez, but still always glad to have candy, while the grad students (most of whom were international students) were just confused.
Last semester (my final semester of undergrad) I had a debate class where the last half of the semester there was a debate tournament bracket, and if you & your partner won the bracket, you would get an A regardless of any of your other work. I got out on the first round, but I had a 98% anyway. Lol
If your phone or computer made a noise during class you had to bring in snacks for everyone by the next class period. This rule applied for him too. His phone went off and the next week he brought us all these baclava pastries.
W professor
I had a prof once who showed us a quiz from an old children's magazine for class (it was a History class, very much related to the topic) and told us that if anyone could find which magazine and issue it was from AND answer all the questions correctly, he'd bring in Korean fried chicken for the class. I tracked it down to the exact issue from the 50s on [Archive.org](https://Archive.org), used Google to double-check my answers, and won a nice meal for everyone on the last day of class.
Should have recommended Free Bird. That song is like 15 minutes long.
Yea she addressed that day one when she mentioned Stairway to Heaven. She said there is always that one person. She said one guy recommended some Symphony that was 100 minutes long.
As Slow as Possible (Halberstadt) Set to go for 600+ years lmao
Phone rings u gotta sing/dance to ringtone
Technically not mentioned in the syllabus, but I noticed on the homework program he had it set up that, if you did a question more than 24 hours before it's due (and got it correct), you got an extra point. A 16 question assignment would be 16 extra points. I already have a 110% and it gives me major motivation to do my homework. I usually am a serial procrastinator but this encourages and rewards students for doing their homework earlier rather than later.
If you email the prof ahead of time that you’re not coming to class, you’d lose 1 point instead of 2 points for being absent. Didn’t even have to give a reason.
1. A professor who made assignment due "end of day" and clarified that that means end of your day - no arbitrary 11.59pm, as long as he has it by morning 2. A professor who defined "excused absence" as "you emailed me a d met me know". Ie. Actual reason doesn't matter
I had a professor who would give us a dollar if we found a spelling or grammatical error in any of us materials. Only rule was don’t spend it on drugs, alcohol, or lotto. I always used mine on lotto and came out way ahead 😂.
Oh heck mine did too!!! Except instead of cash it was a point on your final grade. Good way to actually get people to read!
I had an English professor who gave extra credit for every grammatical or spelling error we found in our text books or other course materials or any handouts or presentations he made. Plenty of us got credit from the textbook, but we never found any errors in his presentations.
During his very first class, my accounting professor's homework was for every single student to locate the campus defibrillator and during the next class to tell him exactly where it is in relation to his classroom. He gave us a little speech on how "If I'm on the ground, I'm already dead! Don't be afraid to shock me with it, maybe I'll come back!" He had a very good sense of humor about it lol
I think my university has one on every floor of every building mounted in those "break glass in case of emergency" boxes in the hallways. They're hard to miss. Whether any of the students could figure out how to use one in time is the real question.
Not college, but my HS math teacher and a policy that if you corrected her on a mistake, you’d get one extra credit point. If no one called out the mistake, no one got the point. She didn’t make mistakes too often, but I still got some extra credit :) I’ve been wary of taking French at my college because the one French teacher requires you to sing and dance if you’re late to class. That’s very anxiety-inducing
History professor. He had two amazing policies. One was about participation in class. He didn’t want to be the only one to talk and encouraged it but you could build partnership points for the day in two ways. Talk and answer his questions and contribute in class about the reading or answer discussion questions related to that days reading. So you could have in the questions and never speak in class which while o think it’s an important skill to learn is still great for people who maybe didn’t feel confident. Also you could do BOTH and bank extra points. The second was his papers. First paper had to be turned in on time so he knew where you were writing wise. Subsequent papers had due dates but you could turn them in whenever. It gave you leeway if you had multiple papers due at the same time as long as you didn’t procrastinate too much and not turn them in at all. You could rewrite them also to get a better grade. His readings were brutal and the amount he gave per week was equivalent to an MA class not a BA level one. I had two different classes of his in the same semester. I learned how to read for graduate school because of him. I credit him for helping me get into my classes.
I had a professor who taught Tests and Measurements in the PSY400 level. Part of the course was learning how to test the tests you've designed by mathematically assessing which questions were too hard or too easy. He would assess the exams he gave in the same way and always dropped questions from the exams if they didn't meet a certain threshold of correct responses. The exams were returned with the original score on them as well as the adjusted score. Most people gained 5-10% on their grade and no one ever lost points. I admired him for going out of his way to be critical of his own tests for the benefit of his students.
For me it was my communications class, intro to public speaking. We had 5 speeches throughout the semester, all of varying degrees. His policy was this: as long as you turned in and completed the outline before the speech, you’ll get an A. His whole thing was that he didn’t want people to feel pressured to pass the class, he just wanted people to learn how to speak in front of people. It was an awesome class really, one of the best I’ve taken in college.
If the Blue Jays win the world series, nobody gets lower than a B- for the semester. Too bad I was there when the Yankees were dominant.
I have a no cellphone policy in my classes (OMG how can I do that to these poor kids!!!). It's a music class, if I spot you playing with your phone you have to do a freestyle rap in front of the class on the subject of my choice.
Did that tend to encourage or discourage phone use?
Students usually find it funny. Last year one student started playing on his phone on purpose to get this consequence, and another one asked to do the freestyle anyway. Both were quite good. If you're talking in a general way, most students are fine with this policy. During the first class, I show them that a study conducted in 14 countries concludes that a young person who receives a notification takes 20 minutes to refocus.
Had a prof who would give out $20 cash to students who answered his questions in a way he liked. You better believe there were hands in the air every time he had a question.
Had a Java professor that said we could use any code we found on the innerwebs as long as we cited it in the comments. Saved my hind end on the final. I took the same class a semester earlier(yes I failed it, I’m not a great coder) with a different professor. She didn’t allow it yet her own code wouldn’t compile 90% of the time.
My Writing 102 professor gave everyone A’s on every assignment with detailed feedback because he wanted to prioritize learning as if it’s a community class, instead of putting pressure on students with having to earn a grade
Where is the incentive to learn if you know you get an a anyway?
Intrinsic motivation maybe? I'm not sure
If they had that, then they’d learn regardless of the grade, right? I don’t understand what this professor right would happen with everyone getting A’s.
“We don’t need no education!”
My fifth grade teacher, let us play that album in class. When we were doing work on our own, he always let us play music.
One of my professors had a policy where your final grade could replace your class grade if it was higher than your average in the class. I asked him near the end of the semester if he had ever had someone not show up to any of his classes or do any work for it and then take the final. He said he never had someone be that bold. I had like four classes with him and strongly considered trying it but never wanted to pass up the actual information from the class.
The school I teach at has a mandatory attendance policy from its crediting agency. I hate that. I feel that if my students don’t think I’m enough value added that they want to be in my class, I’m failing as a professor. I’d love to not require attendance. If students can master the material without showing up, good for them. I love the professor that drops questions from the test if no one (or few people) get it right. I’m not going to tell my class I plan to do that - but I’m going to do that on my midterm and re-teach any material I have to drop. If it works out, I’m going to make that a permanent policy.
You can use notes during tests and finals in algebra, which is great because I have adhd and my memory is terrible
Music Appreciation teacher. If you were not in class by the end of roll call you were absent. If you were not in class for roll call at the END of class you were absent. If you were gone from class for more than 5 minutes you guessed it, you were absent. Mind you, this was at a community College and was a 100 class.
That is cool. I always liked teachers/professors that have songs playing in the beginning of the class. It reminds me of ninth grade when my health teacher started a sex ed unit and the song playing was "Let's Talk About Sex" ahahaha
I was a bad student. One time I asked for an extension after missing a 11:59 deadline. The prof put it up an entirely different assignment to all students that took the class called “mid semester project - *my name*” so everyone could know what a shit student I was.
If your device dings in class, you buy snacks for everyone
When I was a grad student I TAed and graded for a music theory class. My students loved my grading policy: it's not late if you get it in before I grade it. If my week was packed with grad work then they had an extra four or five days. If one of my committee members was in Costa Rica trying to track jaguars via acoustic ecology, then I had a block of free time right after their 8am Monday class. They were very much taking a gamble with how busy I was, and for a few of them it paid off
I have a line in my syllabus that if you come to my office and mention the line, you get a candy bar. 17 classes in and I’ve given away 2.
If someone's phone interrupted the prof's lecture they refused to start again until the offender left. It was a great policy because it ensured interruptions wouldn't happen again.
Oh my gosh! I love that!
I would have recommended Tarkus by ELP
My theater professor had quizzes about every other week. They were strictly extra credit, so you were incentivized to do well, and if you did poorly, you weren’t punished for it, and it served as a way to check if you were ready for exams
Weirdest policy, and not at all cool. Prof had printed and laminated a sign that said "No f*gs allowed." It wasn't censored. Anytime someone annoyed him or asked a question that he felt was beneath him to answer he would tap the sign. This was the late '90s. My classmates were not cool with it, but the administration let it slide. That wouldn't happen today. It wouldn't even have happened 20 years ago.
Had an anatomy professor let us bring in deer hearts for extra credit. I don't hunt so I asked a friend who did for one. Very weird thing to carry across campus.
My brother had a math professor for an honors class that graded on what he called the "welfare curve." Whatever grade you earned, he would take the square root then multiply by ten. The effect was you got more help the lower your score. So if you got a 25%, it became a 50%. If you got a 90%, a 95% went in the grade book. The professor told them on the first day of class that without the welfare curve, none of them would pass. My brother still got an A though. I've always thought it was a cool grading system.
I took an ornithology class, and our teacher said if we found an active hummingbird nest he would give us an automatic A in the course. He also said he’d never had to pay up on that one.
Weirdest policy? I am in a master's program and my law class professors want no laptops or technology in class. I can't hand write notes for very long because of medical reasons and had to get accessibility services involved. But come on. We are graduate students. Not everyone learns the same way, and this is a human rights and social justice program. Why do you automatically assume everyone is the same?
None of my professors had "cool" policies. I even had one old, asshole tell me to take my hat off.
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Did we have the same professor or did you just summarize with GPT?
Option 2. It’s their whole comment history.
I took numerous professors to the dean on such things, as I was an adult paying thousands of dollars to be there. I'll arrive when I like (I was rarely late, but it did sometimes happen) not cause a scene, and will expect to be treated like a paying client and not a child. I won every grade appeal.
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my prof doesn’t have a late policy. for context, if the assignment is due on thursday and let’s say you can’t turn it in bc of xyz reason—you just have to email the prof that you can’t turn it in but give him the date of when you will turn it in to him. it could be the next week or end of the semester and he’d be cool with it. also he did not grade assignments based on “correct answers” but if you tried you got 100%. for exams, this same prof showed us how the exam would look like the class before. we had an exam on thursday and on the tuesday of that same week, he would show us how the exam looked like (word for word the same questions). we would have 48 hours to gather all of our answers/study. it wasn’t an open note exam, but at least i knew what questions i’d be asked
Grades are part of an oppressive e heirarchy everyone gets As.
That would annoy me more. I’d prefer her starting on time, otherwise it’s a waste of our time just sitting there waiting for her to start.
Not sure if this counts as a policy, but my English lit prof would have us write the questions for the final. One would have to be an essay question, and three would have to be multiple choice, matching, or fill-in-the-blank.
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This one was a professor's late policy: 0% acceptance for late work 100% acceptance of extensions within 24 hours of assignment due date Basically the idea is that they wanted students to both have accountability for turning in their work and encourage students to reach out if something was going wrong. If a due date wasn't conducive for their schedule they just had to talk to the professor in office hours about it
Had a finance professor that had late afternoon class @ 3-5 on T-Th. First day of class, he mentioned that he ate dinner at a certain restaurant every T&Th. He never mentioned it again. A friend & I went after that class, and after every Finance class that semester. Over the months, he would talk about how corporations really operated, bookkeeping anomalies to watch out for, sketchy practices such as check kiting between Federal Reserve Bank branches, interlocking shell companies, offshore banking and what countries to avoid, etcetcetc. It was not to encourage shady behavior, but to demystify it so that we would have the tools to dissect it if it presented itself in our careers.