Dear students of Biol 4003: Neurobiology—
EXTRA CREDIT? You haven’t even turned in your final lab reports, and you’re already asking for extra credit? This speaks of a serious lack of confidence, and I don’t know that I should pander to your low self-esteem. Tell me instead that your work on the final exam and the last lab report will dazzle me so much that giving you a mere “A” will be insufficient, and I’ll have to come to your homes and clean your house to make up the difference.
Besides, didn’t anyone ever tell you that a cluttered lab is an active, happy lab?
And that tank with the yellowish water in it is actually a dilute bleach solution that I use for sterilizing. It is true that I should flush that and replace it with a fresh solution, though.
So maybe there is a place for having a lab clean-up day. I could make meticulousness part of the lab grade, and dock you all 10% of your score if the lab is in a less than sparkling state at the end of the term. Yeah, that’s what an evil professor should do … I’ll have to think about it.
Ah, the joys of finals week. When all instructors’ inner sadist comes out.
PZ’s only evil because he’s a Darwinist. Christian teachers have the moral framework to give plenty of extra credit.
Oh, snap! Oh, students, students, students…collective bargaining doesn’t work with an effective dictator. You should have learned that in your political science classes!
Sorry students. It looks like you’ll either have to buckle to Prof. Myers’ stringent expectations or stage an effective coup.
I’m praying for you, students!
bahahahaha, as the child and brother of a long line of college professors, I can tell you right now that praying for you will do you as much good as… praying for you! At this point in the semester it’s either Coup or Study. Perhaps you can recruit the TA as an inside operative. They do have TA’s at Morris, don’t they?
Ah, the negotiations have commenced. I look forward to the reply and rebargaining by the students.
Just remember though PZ, students historically have been known to be agitators, revolutionists and general shit stirrers (ah, the memories). If you push them too hard don’t be suprised if you’re first up against the wall come the revolution.
Maybe they could instead go shame some Creationists for extra credit? Arguing with ID’ers might even touch on some relevant course-data.
Whoever gets the worst lab grade gets stuck defrosting the lab fridge and scraping out all the stuck-on ice with a plastic spoon.
Maybe if one of the student’s bought pz this necklace, they’d get some leniency.
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=8150402
Extra-credit. What a strange idea that is. You worked REALLY hard so I’ll give you even more credit an A. Hmmmmm. Nope.
Or, pick the strongest among you and challenge him to a holmgang.
“PZ’s only evil because he’s a Darwinist. Christian teachers have the moral framework to give plenty of extra credit.”
Someone never spent two years at a seminary.
From Bride of Shrek:
” . . . and when the revolution came, all those who said “when the revolution comes all people like you will be put against a wall and shot” were put against a wall and shot. . . “
Besides, didn’t anyone ever tell you that a cluttered lab is an active, happy lab?
Gee, that’s exactly what computer scientists and engineers say B^)
The FBI DNA lab follows the same philosophy.
DLC@ #13
That’s brilliant, please tell me it’ a Python quote or some such!
Ah, but those were not real Christian teachers…
BoS, it’s a classic quote from The Hitchhicker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
The students clearly have no idea how grades are really determined.
Isn’t having a clean lab the point behind the existence of graduate students?
Ah! I see an interesting experiment in game theory is in the making.
I see no squid was offered…
Make it part of the final which, if my finals were any indication, we had two hours to complete.
Yay, evil!!
Bride of Shrek: Kristjan Wager got it right.
I deliberately left off the attribution to see who’d get it.
Okay, so I’m a mean old man.
I laughed my way through Adams back in the 80s, and always remembered that quote.
DLC: are you sure? I thought I knew Adams pretty well and I’m sure I would have remembered that quote. (It’s very good, whoever it is).
The closest I can get is the passage about robots:
“The Encyclopaedia Galactica defines a robot as a mechanical device designed to do the work of a man. The marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation defines a robot as “your plastic pal who’s fun to be with”.
The Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy defines the marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation as “A bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes”, with a footnote to the effect that the editors would welcome applications from anyone interested in taking the post of robotics correspondent. Interestingly, a version of the Encyclopaedia Galactica that fell through a time warp from 1,000 years in the future, defined the marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation as “A bunch of mindless jerks who were the first against the wall when the revolution came.”
ajay, you are quite right, it’s not the exact quote. I should have written “it’s based upon”, but I didn’t. Me bad.
Heliologue
No, no, I for one applaud PZ’s response and in my own classroom try to live up to the Monty Python standard of “cruel but fair.”
Whew. THat’s right PZ – extra credit in college? It belongs in middle school!
Aw, now where would Fleming have gotten without Penicillium landing on some of his messy lab dishes?!
yeah i can’t even begin to tell you what slobs grad students are in the lab. every couple weeks i go through and clean up all their little messes they stick into corners. same thing every year. eventually they move on and become faculty.
I always thought one got docked a grade just for asking for extra credit. Anyway, it’s a useful policy to put in a syllabus.
‘Tis the season to ask for extra credit. I always tell my students to focus on the regular credit, which is available in ample supply for those students who come to class, pay attention, do the homework, and study for exams. Most students asking for extra credit are hoping to get points for minimally relevant projects or nonacademic busy-work (like, say, tidying up a laboratory).
I love having PZ as a reference as to how much worse it could be when my students complain. I already routinely use his “no choice is correct” multiple choice questions he told us about last year as a retort when they complain about my multiple-answer questions. Now I have another example!
For some reason as I read this post I heard it in the voice of Hubert J. Farnsworth. “Good News Everyone!”
As I always tell my students when it comes to “Extra Credit” – to truly be worthy of credit it has to be something that shows me you learned something. Which means I need to grade it. Which means that “extra credit” is really “extra grading”. Extra grading makes me very grumpy, and having a grumpy teacher grading your final exams is not in your best interests.
OTOH – I teach math and computer science, so there’s no cleaning to be done.
So maybe there is a place for having a lab clean-up day. I could make meticulousness part of the lab grade, and dock you all 10% of your score if the lab is in a less than sparkling state at the end of the term.
Have them write a paper explaining why the lab should be kept clean, with some hypotheses about what might happen if it isn’t.
Some higher level students and post docs and residents still have problems conceptualizing that “other lesser people” won’t show up in elven hoards after they go home and clean up their crap for them. Some need certain non-radioactive and non-toxic leftovers of their messes to appear in their briefcases to get the message.
I have a messy home and far more relaxed than most parents about pseudosanitation mania, but I’ve always been a total and complete clean freak in the lab. Clean and tidy is safe and scientific. That is a lesson that needs to get through early and often!
I don’t think you’re keeping your students sufficiently terrorized. You should have told them that the tank of yellow fluid is what you use to dissolve the corpses of students who don’t live through the final exam.
Dr. Myers, when I grow up and have tenure I want to be just like you.
–B. Dewhirst
I hope there is at least one student in the lot who tried to veto this whole move: using the public forum of Pharyngula to gain the support of readers and hope the extra weight would put pressure on the good Professor to tip his hand if favor of the students? Yikes. I may be wrong, but that’s what it looks like from where I’m standing. A tyrannical boot crushing the proverbial throats of these public panderers is the only way to stave off such moves from future students. Give ’em hell, PZ.
When the revolution takes place
I shall be late and shot as a traitor
Going through life without a timepiece did pay off
If you think that’s a mess, you should see it in here [points at head]
PZ could say :
“This lab was DESIGNED to be the way it is, and who are you to question the thoughts/wishes of the DESIGNER?”
or
“Fools! I am conducting experiments on things that are beyond your comprehension!” (OK, so I’ve been reading a bit too much Lovecraft recently)
The revolution will not be televised:
http://www.gilscottheron.com/lyrevol.html
paraphrased email exchange between my wife and one of her students:
Dear Dr [name withheld], I was wondering if you have any “extra credit” assignments I could do?
Dear Student, I was wondering if you would care to complete any of the assignments to get “regular” credit. I am not sure how I can give you “extra” credit, when you do not have any “regular” credit to begin with. Also, giving you “extra” credit means “extra” work for me.
Hey, now, my students are good people and I’m not really at all peeved with them — there are a bunch there who want to get into med school, so I can understand why they want every point they can get.
The student for whom I have no sympathy is the one who just wrote to me as we’re heading into the last week of classes and asked if there was anything he could do to pass my class…and he hasn’t taken a single exam or quiz the entire semester. I had to just write back and tell him, “No, that is inconceivable.” And I do know what “inconceivable” means.
I had three of those last spring, and two of them went to the head of their department to ask him if he could get me to do anything.
And woe, woe on the scale of the Book of Revelation, to the student who has their parents to complain to me about their grade.
That’s nothing. Years ago, at another university far, far away, we failed a Ph.D. candidate in his qualifying exams.
His mother came down to yell at the exam committee. That poor guy — after that, he didn’t stand a chance of appealing or getting a second chance. Come to think of it, it reminds me of Guillermo Gonzalez.
I can do one better – at my school we sometimes have academic advisors (themselves faculty members) who tell students to go back and ask their teachers for extra credit to raise their grades. Usually this happens near graduation when a student “suddenly” realizes that their GPA isn’t high enough to graduate, and so we get students coming by wanting to know if they can raise their grade a year or two after they’ve taken the class, and when I ask where they even got such an idea they say it was from their advisor.
Parents are easy if they come to the aid of their precious bundle. I point them to the Federal Educational Records Privacy Act and tell them I can’t discuss any student’s performance in my class. Then they usually go away meekly.
“I always thought one got docked a grade just for asking for extra credit.”
My calculus professor threatened to do that to the whole class if we ask again. I’m pretty sure he meant it. But he’s an old cruel Swede who tortures students as a hobby. I’m *sure* PZ, fine humanist that he is, would never do such a thing……
I could make meticulousness part of the lab grade, and dock you all 10% of your score if the lab is in a less than sparkling state at the end of the term. Yeah, that’s what an evil professor should do … I’ll have to think about it.
How… Old Testament… of you, PZ.
The same principle applies to machine rooms. But for some reason, management keeps making us clean up so VIPs can visit.
In my freshman chemistry course, I actually do devote a small portion of the lab grade to what I call “cleanliness and safety”. Basically, it’s a “keep your protective gear on when working with dangerous chemicals and clean up your bench before you leave” grade.
Since the whole lab section gets the same grade each day, it’s fairly effective at making the students watch out for each other while in the lab.
But cleaning up a lab for extra credit? That’s like giving students extra points for putting their names on their paper.
Heliologue wrote: “Christian teachers have the moral framework to give plenty of extra credit.” As a Christian teacher (of biblical studies, even) I must respectfully disagree.My standard answer to students who ask for extra credit is, “Additional poor work now won’t compensate for poor work earlier in the term.”
We had a history teacher in grade 6-9 who did that.
I can see some serious ethical problems with giving students credit for work unrelated to the class. Sounds too much like bribery to me, and it totally defeats the purpose of grades in the first place, which is to encourage the students to learn.
Carlie, you’re not quite cruel enough on those multiple-choice questions.
My auditing instructor (yes, I’m an accountant) would not only make us choose which answer we thought was correct, but explain why the other choices were wrong. And if we were wrong about why they were wrong, we lost marks. ouch.