My students must take all of my exams including a cumulative final and all grades count. I reschedule makeup exams within a week of the exam. That way the student is not unduly punished (by having to wait until the end of the semester, which I think would be quite stressful) and I can figure out how the student is doing in my class (allowing me to help the student correct problems in studying along the way). Not that many students miss exams (maybe 5%) and my classes are small.
The much more difficult problem with administrating exams has to do with accommodations. If the accommodation require time-and-a-half or even double-time I cannot have that student take the exam in the classroom. Instead the center on campus handling this has to get the exam (much earlier than I would usually have it ready) and instructions must be given to the staff there. I think it sometimes disadvantage the students (who has legitimate accommodations) to not take it with his/her peers and the student misses out on the opportunity to ask me a question about the exam (during the exam). The number of students who require accommodations has increased dramatically in the last year or so with many more students needing note takers, reduced distraction environment, record the lectures, etc. etc. It is great if these steps help students who otherwise could not be in college. It is a significant time commitment – much more than make-up exams. Marie From: Wuensch, Karl L [mailto:wuens...@ecu.edu] Sent: Sunday, September 07, 2014 1:25 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: RE: [tips] scheduling makeup exams I do basically the same thing, but the makeup exam is a comprehensive exam that is not otherwise required. I do allow those who have missed no exams the option of taking the comp exam to replace their lowest other exam score. I get those spam/phish alerts for TIPS mail from .edu senders too. I suspect it might, in part, be due to the fact that the header indicates that the sender (the listserve) and the “From” do not match. Cheers, [Karl L. Wuensch]<http://core.ecu.edu/psyc/wuenschk/klw.htm> From: Beth Benoit [mailto:beth.ben...@gmail.com] Sent: Friday, September 05, 2014 4:59 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: [tips] scheduling makeup exams There has been some interesting discussion about deceased grandparents, missing tests and how makeups should/should not be handled. We've discussed makeup tests in the past on TIPS, but it's been a while and we do seem to have some new people. When it was previously discussed I offered something I picked up at an APA poster session some years ago. The poster discussed a paper that was done about how best to handle makeup tests, and the conclusion of the author was that it worked well for both students and instructors to give all makeup tests - regardless of reason - on the day of the final exam. So that's what I've been doing and I don't have to waste any time weeding through whether or not a students reasons for missing are valid. (Sadly, and with much embarrassment, I have lost the name of the presenter so can't give credit.) Here's how I go about it: I have the student take the final exam (my university typically allows 2 1/2 hours, which is much, much more than is ever needed for my final exams), and after the student has completed the exam, I give him/her a sheet with questions (different from the original test which was missed) for each test that was given. I usually have about ten essay questions for each test. The student then answers questions for the test(s) missed. My experience has been that the makeup tests tend to follow about the same grade pattern the student has had, so there doesn't seem to be any particular advantage or disadvantage to doing it this way. It also saves me the time it takes to schedule and supervise a separate time for a makeup test after every test. Incidentally, I continue to see some kind of "this might be phishing" or something like that or my posts, as well as others who use gmail. I haven't figured out how to get around it, and hope that I haven't lost too much by people who are leery of opening an email from me. I'm toying with the idea of removing my TIPS gmail address and using my school email address. Perhaps that will solve the problem. Any other advice? (I love my gmail and it's faster than my school address.) Beth Benoit Plymouth State University Plymouth NH --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: wuens...@ecu.edu<mailto:wuens...@ecu.edu>. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13060.c78b93d4d09ef6235e9d494b3534420e&n=T&l=tips&o=38226 (It may be necessary to cut and paste the above URL if the line is broken) or send a blank email to leave-38226-13060.c78b93d4d09ef6235e9d494b35344...@fsulist.frostburg.edu<mailto:leave-38226-13060.c78b93d4d09ef6235e9d494b35344...@fsulist.frostburg.edu> --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: helw...@dickinson.edu<mailto:helw...@dickinson.edu>. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13234.b0e864a6eccfc779c8119f5a4468797f&n=T&l=tips&o=38261 (It may be necessary to cut and paste the above URL if the line is broken) or send a blank email to leave-38261-13234.b0e864a6eccfc779c8119f5a44687...@fsulist.frostburg.edu<mailto:leave-38261-13234.b0e864a6eccfc779c8119f5a44687...@fsulist.frostburg.edu> --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=38263 or send a blank email to leave-38263-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
