Students really annoy me sometimes! I got this email today:
Hello Dr Arnold,
I had a little panic this weekend when I was going over my syllabus. I completely forgot about the research proposal portion of the syllabus. There has been no mention of it since we submitted out research questions. I was wondering if we could possibly have an outline of what is expected of us. How long should it be? What exactly you want us to show? Will there be a presentation? When is it due? I am feeling a little over whelmed and when I realized this is 15% of our grade that we have not discussed in depth I was a little nervous. Any help you can provide would be wonderful.
Thank you,
Student X
A few week into the term, I had students turn in a list of potential research questions they are thinking of using for this assignment. Reason: to push them to get started on this assignment. The syllabus also includes a lot of information, including what this student is asking about in this email. So this student forgets about an assignment and it's my fault because "there has been no mention of it since we submitted out research questions" and "this is 15% of our grade that we have not discussed in depth"!?!? I can't help you if you can't read the syllabus and remember to work on assignments.
After that, I continued to work my way through my inbox. Lo and behold: another email from a student, sent at 7:30 on Sunday evening. He was asking me to bring a projector for his group's presentation TODAY. I don't work on the weekends, I am not on call for you. ARGH!!!!!
1 comment:
This all sounds too painfully familiar! I keep saying to myself that part of a college education is to teach our students responsibility and independence. But it's not my favorite part of the job.
Post a Comment