Home-Worked It

(I have the same student for an intro computer college class that I had for a nearly identical class that she aced in high school. It’s the day of the final project and she hasn’t done any homework since the first week of class, but she has been at every class and helping other students.)

Classmate #1: “Hey, [Student], how do you make a graph in Excel?”

Student: *shows them*

Classmate #2: “Miss [My Name], can you help me add a picture to my project?”

Me: “One moment, let me just finish with [another classmate].”

Student: “I can help.” *shows them*

Classmate #3: “Can I put a YouTube video in a PowerPoint?”

Me: “I don’t think so? At least, I don’t know how to do it.”

Student: “I do.” *helps [Classmate #3] and several others*

(All the students present projects except for Student who tells me that she got distracted and didn’t do one.)

Me: *after most of the class has left* “[Student], you know that I should fail you, since you haven’t done any homework, right?”

Student: “Yeah, I know. But it’s just so boring! I already know this stuff.”

Me: “But you’ve proved you know your stuff. I didn’t even know you could embed a YouTube video in a PowerPoint. So I’m going to give you a 90%, but in the future, you really do need to do your homework. Some teachers would fail you without a worry.”