Like Ricki, I HATE that phrase. Hate it.

But EVERY student, without exception, seems to utter it at one point or another during the semester. And they'll go the extra mile to get it, too. Troy University Professor Richard Scott Nokes writes:

Why is it that students who wouldn't scratch their bottoms to get a final exam grade will do anything for extra credit? Last week, I had midterm exams, and many students put, at the most, an hour's worth of effort into the take-home project (worth 25% of their grade). This week I gave an opportunity for extra credit, worth only a tiny fraction of the midterm, and the students are meeting after class and going to the Writing Center to work on it. Maybe I should start calling my regular assignments "extra credit."(h/t Prof. Taylor)

Interested, I decided to see if anyone has written a scholarly article on extra credit, and the psychology behind why students prefer it over just doing their work.  A quick google search turned up page after page of syllabi with possible extra credit assignments from psychology classes at universities all over the country.

There are only a few articles looking at extra credit, and those look at it as a motivating factor, not why it is preferred.

(I put the rest of what turns out to be a longer piece than I had planned to write below the jump!)
I think students prefer extra credit for one simple reason:  They can't lose.  That is, if they do the work, they will either turn it in and be ahead a few points, or not behind at all.  They see no penalty to losing points on an extra credit assignment, because lost points don't count against them the way they would for a traditional assignment.  For example, if I give an exam worth 100 points, and a student scores 98/ 100, the student feels like he/she has "lost" 2 points from their grade.  If I give an extra credit assignment worth 5 points, and the student earns 3, he/she doesn't mourn the 2 points lost, but rather celebrates the 3 points "gained".

What students don't seem to realize is that even if they "win" a few extra points doing an "extra credit" assignment, it isn't enough to cover the potential shortfall of "losing" MANY points by doing the EC instead of whatever the syllabus SAYS they are responsible for.  Which includes making time to read and study.

I don't generally give extra credit, and when I do, it's only available to students who have demonstrated an ability to be responsible and do the work I've asked them to do, even if they haven't done it well.

I mean, it's hard enough to get a kid to think critically and explain that life isn't fair, and yes, they need to work harder.  If I help them out with a pile of extra credit, they're just going to drown all that much faster at the next level.  Which is Medical School for many of my students.

I like to use the analogy of the express train with them:  The train leaves the station at the appointed time and arrives on time.  It does not stop in between.  You have to ride along or jump off. The train can't wait for you to catch up.  If you can't keep up, you better jump off, get it together, and wait for the next one.  Rest assured the "Med School" train runs faster than the one I'm driving.

I tell them, "You'll be surprised just how many of your "crises" you can cover for if you feel like you have to."  And, "You make the choice, you set the priorities.  You.  Not me."  And, "Figure it out.  Intellectual laziness is no excuse.  What if I asked you to come up and teach the class?  You'd have to learn it well, then, huh?"

My best student is a full time student, but she also works and she has a two year old daughter.  I am constantly amazed by her.  Sure, she's bright, but I've seen her work, I've seen her study.  She prioritizes and puts in the time.  She does the work.  No excuses. And she hasn't yet asked me for extra credit.

We talk a LOT in my class about the metacognition of learning, ways that people learn and motivations for studying.  We also talk about test-taking, and how to figure out what are the MOST important nuggets of information.  We probably spend TOO much time talking about these things.  But I want them to get a sense of what they're doing and why, what's really important to know cold, and what you can look up later.  How to think about new information being presented to them.  This is a generation (5-10 years younger than me!) with no metacognitive skills or insight about learning whatsoever.  They know the buzzwords ("But I don't know what type of learner I am") but they lack the ability to apply that knowledge to their own lives.

I had a student look me in the face yesterday and say, "Hey!  I get it.  We're doing these labs to reinforce what we learned in class.  It's the same information".

This is in week 8 of a 15 week semester, folks.

It was all I could do to be encouraging and not laugh in his face.  He's a bright guy.  He just doesn't have the tools to THINK about what he's doing.

Interacting with my students makes me reflect on my own path.  Twelve years of study in my field isn't what makes these things easier for me than for them.  A lot of what I'm teaching this semester (fossils, protists, cellular respiration) are things I don't know much about, and in fact many are concepts I learned just to teach them.  Sometimes, I only really "get it" as I am in the middle of the class, trying to explain it to the students.  What makes it easier for me is that somewhere along the line I learned HOW to think about what I'm studying, how to organize that information into important and unimportant, and my students just don't seem to have those tools.  I try to model my own thinking and learning, but they can't see what I'm trying to do.

It's incredibly frustrating.

Now, before you start wondering what this has to do with extra credit, I think that their lack of cognitive and meta-cognitive skills also pushes them towards extra credit, which is supposed to be "easy", right?  Studying is hard.  Learning how to think a different way is harder still, and by comparison, "extra credit" is a walk in the park.

As instructors, we get to go to all of these "professional development" seminars. We sit around for days and discuss learning theory and pedagogy and all this other jargon crap which really boils down to: How do we get the little trolls to learn?  And of course, the answer is "You just make them".  Which is increasingly difficult in these days of entitlement and reduced consequences.

So we give them extra credit to make up for their shortcomings, and our own guilt and frustration.

Posted by: caltechgirl at 12:05 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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