Posted on 05/19/2006 4:07:43 PM PDT by Republicanprofessor
This is a plea to educators, parents, home schoolers, and even the general public: please pay attention to the following tips to fully prepare children for college. Each semester, as we hand in grades, my husband and I are amazed at the students who blow off a great proportion of their grades.
1) Turn in all the work. This seems obvious, but I have gaps in my gradebook every semester for papers that just were not written. True, a 5% or 10% paper may not seem like a big deal, but what it means is that the C student has just become a D student.
2) Take all the quizzes. My husband has weekly quizzes online, through Blackboard. If students do not take the quizzes, or take only some of them, their grade is affected by 25% or more. Again, B students become D students.
3) Hand in work on time. Some professors (like me) are softies and would rather not flunk students if I can finally get the paper. But others, like my husband, are ruthless. Hand it in on time or else….
4) Learn the math to understand what happens to your grades if you do not do the work. (Actually, I would love to hear from other math professors to hear how they would like their students to be better prepared.) If the three papers that you do not do total 35% of the grade, you will flunk. (It is not the A students who space out their papers….duh.)
5) If students miss class, they should check (and study and learn) any notes the instructor has posted in regard to that class. They cannot simply b.s. their way through exam questions if they have not tried to catch up with what they missed when they skipped class.
6) Learn to write. Writing is a way to communicate how you think. Yes, college papers may be boring, but you will need to gain the skills to write in your future job. To write a good paper, you need to
a) Use an introduction and a conclusion, with the body of the paper (and your ideas) in between.
b) Learn to break up the paper into paragraphs. This is not a joke, but some of my “honors” students have just submitted essays in one long paragraph. Argh!!
c) Learn the difference between the possessive and the plural “s” at the end of the sentence. Apostrophe before an “s” means a contraction (it is = it’s) or possessive (Sarah’s dress). The simple s means a plural (chairs). No, I am not joking; every semester I have to correct this on papers.
d) Learn the difference between there, their, they’re; where and were. My children are learning this in elementary school. College students should know this; but again, every semester a good number of papers miss this basic knowledge.
e) Learn to back up your ideas with specific examples (in my case, specific works of fine art) with details.
7) Learn to document all ideas that are not your own. That means to give credit (with the book or web citation) for all ideas gleamed from that book or web site.
Now, it is true that I teach at a state college, in the northeast. But it is pathetic that our public schools do not teach these minimum skills.
BTW: a hint for parents. Grades are often posted online on a gizmo called Blackboard (or its competitors). If your children have received low grades and won’t let you know why (or badmouth the hard-working professor), ask them to show you their grades on Blackboard. If the grade is blank, the work was not turned in. Now you can yell at them.
Thank you for your help.
Great Post! RP.
So... is this going to be on the mid-term?
I had a teacher once who told the class on the first day to read everything posted on the bulletin board at the entrance to the room. Important stuff would be there.
Two weeks into the semester, he popped a quiz with some of the most bizarre questions, such as "What is my dog's name?" and "How many chapters are in the Old Testament?". Those who had read all the answers, which had been posted since the class began, passed easily. Those that didn't had to write an essay on how listening and following instructions personally benefited them.
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