As students at KSC get ready for finals week, things like missed assignments, late work and extra credit are brought up. In my opinion I believe extra credit should always be an option. Of course, things are never easier said than done. It wouldn’t be easy to make extra credit an option to everyone because all teachers and classes are different. With that being said, I do believe there is a policy that can fit all class and teaching methods. Something as simple as the teacher putting an outline for extra credit on the syllabus and mentioning it during the first class and if a student feels they need it, then they can take advantage of it. It becomes the student’s responsibility to keep track of their grade, and whether or not they want the extra credit.
The only problem with this is not all teachers offer the extra credit. I find many times it is never even brought up until the last two weeks of classes anyway, but if all teachers offered it, again it would be the student’s responsibility to know what would have to be completed and when it needs to be done by. If it was offered in every class, students would automatically know to look at the syllabus to find the instructions on extra credit.
There are an endless amount of circumstances where a student would need or want extra credit. It could be they have an AB for a grade and the extra credit would get them to an A or it could be the student missed a few homework assignments, got a bad test grade — whatever it is, and they wanted extra credit to boost their grade. What is wrong with that? Now, obviously, there might be some students that just don’t deserve it because they always skip class, generally never do homework, among other things, but that’s for the teacher to determine. That one student should not ruin it for the rest of the class. In my opinion, extra credit should be looked at as a student completing extra work to improve their grade. Unfortunately, it is looked at as students who did not put their full effort forward in class, and are now realizing they need to extra credit to boost their grade.
It would make more sense to offer extra credit in all classes because if students start to take advantage of it, grades would be better at the end of the semester. After all, a good grade is what everyone in college wants. Like I said before, extra credit is never mentioned (in my experiences) until the last few weeks of class. If extra credit was talked about, if students knew it was offered, I believe there would be an increase in the amount of students that take advantage of it. Students care about their grades, extra credit would not be blown off.
Cyrus Lyons can be contacted at clyons@keene-equinox.com
