What Was He Thinking?

I just passed on to my dean a request from a student last semester--which I had rejected.

The student had missed two quizzes in the online course because he was out of the country during his university's break, which differed from ours. He had wanted me to make an exception for him; I had refused, explaining that the generous extra credit option was an alternative that would more than compensate for work that expired during his absence. Then, at the end of the semester he skipped several tasks that would have moved him up a grade; instead, he asked that I just GIVE him the points from those quizzes.

What was he thinking? Obviously, he was not thinking of us as his school. Problem 1. Secondly, he was not thinking of the quizzes as any sort of preparation for the major paper they were attached to. Despite the explanations in the syllabus, he was not thinking of the writing process in any way shape or form. As far as he was concerned, class was all about collecting enough points to "get his grade." The irony is that he HAD a passing grade that would transfer to his home university, and a higher one wouldn't have transferred into a higher gpa anyway.

This sort of situation brings home the difficulty of online instruction. I would almost like to include a wildcard that allows me to judge whether or not students comprehend the discourse-level aspects of a course. Of course, in this case, I think the student did, but he elected not to engage himself more than absolutely necessary. I wonder how much of his behavior was based on the assumption that we would be easy because, after all, we are "just a juco."