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And I'm back with some more tales from the various departments I assist in within the college. There are some utter doozies here. Hoo boy...
Note: terms are kept generally vague for identity reasons.
Check your "sent" box
One from our student wellbeing meeting this week: student made a request to withdraw from the course. OK, fair enough, reasons were fairly sound.
Except that she had apparently asked to withdraw last year via email...
.
Cue the relief course head flipping through the student's file and finding no such email existed. Course head opts to inform student of this. Student insists that she sent the email last year...
This would have made sense, if the student's email address wasn't one which can easily be accessed via a web browser - in other words, the "sent" email would STILL BE THERE.
That's NOT the most mature response...
This one came from our conversion course I help out with.
Background: So this semester, we're slowly switching to an online version of the feedback forms we give to our students out on placement after their mentor visit. Previously, the mentors would write in a book we gave the student, then they'd send us a brief email informing us of the student's progress. This form more or less consolidated the two together and also meant that we could deal with student issues when they arose, rather than after the fact. Students who struggle both on-campus or on-placement can be given a "Homework Contract" whereby they have an extra task or two to do to improve on something they're struggling with and this gets checked at a later mentor visit. /end background.
We had about 3-4 students fail their halfway assessment visit last week for various reasons. Normally, this is a wakeup call for said student and they appreciate any extra support they get and most of them go on to pass their final assessment (halfway assessment is more a case of "if today was your final, this is what your grade will be, you have <x> weeks to improve."). Most of our current crop of students took the news well and I've made sure that they get some good mentors for support. Enter Sucky Student.
Sucky Student decided that instead of reflecting on where they went wrong during their halfway point assessment and figuring how to improve, they would instead use the opportunity to give reflective feedback to complain at length about one of our mentors.
This wouldn't have been so bad, except that due to us setting up the reflective feedback as an online form, it also went to the mentor who assessed that student. (That mentor thankfully has a flawless track record so no action will be taken against them, particularly because the feedback given during the assessment was in line with the feedback from previous weeks. They were very upset though
)
Sucky Student is going to get a huge reality check though - they has a new mentor this week who does not take any shit from students and will be conducting their final assessment.
And this is even worse...
The above story also reminded me of an even older case of a student who did not act maturely when given negative feedback. This was from last year, when the feedback was still handwritten.
The student in this case had not been doing so well during their placement. This was one of those cases where they'd failed their halfway assessment, then proceeded to fail their final assessment as well.
Their response upon being given their final grade however? To throw a childish tantrum in the foyer of the facility they'd been allocated to, right where the residents, visitors and staff could see. And this was a full-blown, throwing herself on the floor, screaming and thrashing type of temper tantrum as well. Unsurprisingly, the student appealed that grade and complained about the mentor arrangement. The copious notes given however, along with several emails from me outlining the process for scheduling however, resulted in both of those being dismissed.
Sadly, this resulted in the mentor who had to give the grade to the student being left quite shaken, to the point where a rule was put in place that if she had to give another fail grade to a student, she'd teleconference us in first. (we were happy to accommodate that request. Generally we don't fail students out of the blue, if there's considerable evidence to show that they're struggling, they'll likely fail. This was one of those cases.)
You had an extra week to prepare: WTF?!
Across the college, if you are going on any sort of field placement that requires police clearances, immunisations, extra training or similar, your paperwork has to be verified by "authorised personnel" before you're allowed to set foot on your placement.
In one of the cases, students were given an extra week to prepare due to some unintentional scheduling issues.
Come the day that the personnel were due to come on campus to check the paperwork and we still had students who were NOT ready for their paperwork check.
These students were given WEEKS to prepare. W.T.F.
Note: terms are kept generally vague for identity reasons.
Check your "sent" box
One from our student wellbeing meeting this week: student made a request to withdraw from the course. OK, fair enough, reasons were fairly sound.
Except that she had apparently asked to withdraw last year via email...
. Cue the relief course head flipping through the student's file and finding no such email existed. Course head opts to inform student of this. Student insists that she sent the email last year...
This would have made sense, if the student's email address wasn't one which can easily be accessed via a web browser - in other words, the "sent" email would STILL BE THERE.
That's NOT the most mature response...
This one came from our conversion course I help out with.
Background: So this semester, we're slowly switching to an online version of the feedback forms we give to our students out on placement after their mentor visit. Previously, the mentors would write in a book we gave the student, then they'd send us a brief email informing us of the student's progress. This form more or less consolidated the two together and also meant that we could deal with student issues when they arose, rather than after the fact. Students who struggle both on-campus or on-placement can be given a "Homework Contract" whereby they have an extra task or two to do to improve on something they're struggling with and this gets checked at a later mentor visit. /end background.
We had about 3-4 students fail their halfway assessment visit last week for various reasons. Normally, this is a wakeup call for said student and they appreciate any extra support they get and most of them go on to pass their final assessment (halfway assessment is more a case of "if today was your final, this is what your grade will be, you have <x> weeks to improve."). Most of our current crop of students took the news well and I've made sure that they get some good mentors for support. Enter Sucky Student.
Sucky Student decided that instead of reflecting on where they went wrong during their halfway point assessment and figuring how to improve, they would instead use the opportunity to give reflective feedback to complain at length about one of our mentors.
This wouldn't have been so bad, except that due to us setting up the reflective feedback as an online form, it also went to the mentor who assessed that student. (That mentor thankfully has a flawless track record so no action will be taken against them, particularly because the feedback given during the assessment was in line with the feedback from previous weeks. They were very upset though
)Sucky Student is going to get a huge reality check though - they has a new mentor this week who does not take any shit from students and will be conducting their final assessment.
And this is even worse...
The above story also reminded me of an even older case of a student who did not act maturely when given negative feedback. This was from last year, when the feedback was still handwritten.
The student in this case had not been doing so well during their placement. This was one of those cases where they'd failed their halfway assessment, then proceeded to fail their final assessment as well.
Their response upon being given their final grade however? To throw a childish tantrum in the foyer of the facility they'd been allocated to, right where the residents, visitors and staff could see. And this was a full-blown, throwing herself on the floor, screaming and thrashing type of temper tantrum as well. Unsurprisingly, the student appealed that grade and complained about the mentor arrangement. The copious notes given however, along with several emails from me outlining the process for scheduling however, resulted in both of those being dismissed.
Sadly, this resulted in the mentor who had to give the grade to the student being left quite shaken, to the point where a rule was put in place that if she had to give another fail grade to a student, she'd teleconference us in first. (we were happy to accommodate that request. Generally we don't fail students out of the blue, if there's considerable evidence to show that they're struggling, they'll likely fail. This was one of those cases.)
You had an extra week to prepare: WTF?!
Across the college, if you are going on any sort of field placement that requires police clearances, immunisations, extra training or similar, your paperwork has to be verified by "authorised personnel" before you're allowed to set foot on your placement.
In one of the cases, students were given an extra week to prepare due to some unintentional scheduling issues.
Come the day that the personnel were due to come on campus to check the paperwork and we still had students who were NOT ready for their paperwork check.
These students were given WEEKS to prepare. W.T.F.
years ago.
He kicked it, screamed at it, and bashed dents and windows with the bat.
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