THE PROFESSOR'S RESPONSIBILITY IS TO SAY NO AND UPHOLD STANDARDS.

That's been a regular Cold Spring Shops theme from the beginning.  Disregard it at your peril, as a contributor to Inside Higher Ed figures out.

Last week, when I returned the latest batch of assignments in a short story class, the inevitable happened. A student approached me and asked, “Can I do extra credit?”

This request flummoxes me more than it should. It’s not that uncommon these days, and on the surface it sounds reasonable. Given the confines of the course, why not push the boundaries and go deeper or broader? Do something extra special!

Of course, that’s almost never the underlying impulse, as any educator knows. As we discussed extra credit—which is to say, as I tried to explain why that wasn’t an option in this class—the true motive emerged: I’m not happy with my grade, and this will improve it.

Why the house organ for all wokeness, all the time in higher education is providing links to older posts, in this instance one from October 2023, I do not know.

The problem with granting students requests to do "extra credit" is that it leads to some students being graded by different standards.  The way for the serious students to end the practice might be to earn their A according to the criteria spelled out in the course outline, then appeal the grade upon discovery of a fellow student who wheedled that A using the extra credit dodge.

The column, by a writing professor called David Galef, might be a lament for the old days, when there were teachers who would make the "extra credit" mandatory by policies that bestowed at best a C for doing the required assignments and making available "extra credit" tasks to dig deeper into the material.  That might have been a way to reduce the time spent to grading, but it brought perverse incentives with it.

A host of issues clouds the subject of extra credit, but let me begin with what I remember when I was a student. Once upon a time, the students who wanted extra credit were overachievers, an annoying term levied on excellent students. They engaged with the material and wanted to show that they were capable of something more. Given the chance, they pursued special projects, did independent research or took the initiative in some other way. One extra-credit essay I recall from a literature survey took three of the authors we were studying, absorbed their writing styles and engaged them in dialogue. How do I know this? The teacher was so impressed, she had the student read part of it in class.

That approach undoubtedly ran afoul of any number of egalitarian stipulations.  A few cropped up deeper in the essay.

In fact, to offer extra credit is elitist in a class where some students with jobs or family commitments are doing all they can just to get through the required material. Those who can afford to take the extra time will get the credit; those hard-pressed will not.

Perhaps that sort of accommodationist stance (the first-generation, non-traditional, working adult rhetoric) at the institutions practicing that stance contributes to those U.S. News guides being sold. 

But I digress.  Extra credit requests are the slacker's way out.

But the students who ask for extra credit now don’t seem the type for intellectual inquiry, at least not judging from those I’ve dealt with. They’re students who aren’t doing as well as they’d like, trying to make up for their performance by doing other assignments. They assume they’ll do well on them, or at least get an E for Effort.

From the teacher’s perspective, here’s where the feelings of guilt start. How can I deprive these students of the chance to excel? They’re actually asking to do more work! They want redemption. And I can assuage both my guilt and their anxiety over grades just by assigning some extra work.

There's a reason "on time and under budget" is a Good Thing.  Yes, there's a tension between standards and second chances, and yet, someone with a habit of doing slapdash work is simply going to submit more slapdash work.

But suppose the student doesn’t do well on the extra assignment. Should that grade count? Yet no one’s thinking that way. The extra credit the student demanded—it was more than asking—was to revise her essays for a better grade.

The secret, dear reader, is to build the opportunities to improve into the course structure in the first place.  Then say no and uphold standards.  Professor Galef offers a response that Adults In Charge all ought know, and rely regularly upon.  “Sure, but then why don’t you work more on the assignments you do have?”  There's a corollary question a colleague frequently used.  To the student who lamented, "I have never been good at math" he'd respond, "What have you been doing to get stronger at math?"  He also notes, “Extra credit? You didn’t even make regular credit!”  I will confess to having used a variation on that on occasion, or perhaps a sharply worded "Grow up."