All Posts Tagged With: "homework"
10 things to ban (instead of bottled water)
These things annoy Prof. Pettigrew far more
Photo courtesy of Sergey Vladimirov on Flickr
Last week I wrote that banning bottled water from universities was environmentally sensitivity gone too far. I hinted that there were other things much worse, and if we are going to start banning things, water should be way down on our list. Just to show that I am not entirely a spoil-sport when it comes to forbidding things, I offer 10 other things that I would rather see disappear.
1. Cheap cologne. While cheap perfume for women seems to be on the decline, cheap cologne for men seems to be making a comeback. Bottom line: I don’t want to smell you. Period.
2. Asking a professor where another professor is or when another professor will be back. It’s always the same: student arrives at Professor Hallcross’s door and knocks. No answer. Knocks again. No answer. Comes to my door: “do you know where Professor Hallcross is?” No. How would I know? Do you think we professors have some kind of universal academic GPS? Do you think I have a magic map showing his footprints moving through the Hufflepuff common room?
3. Non-specific email help requests. EG: “I don’t understand the assignment you gave us. Can you explain it?” No, because I don’t know what course you are in, which assignment you mean, or what part of it you don’t understand.
4. Pretending you didn’t know plagiarism was wrong. You cheated. You got caught. At least own up to it.
5. Walking in large groups slowly down the hall. Some of us have places to be. And for that matter, don’t you have somewhere to be? The library? Class?
6. Doing homework from one class in another class. You’re missing my thoughtful comments on Oscar Wilde, and I’m distracting you from memorizing brain anatomy. Why bother?
7. Asking what you need to do to pass the course after the course is more than half over. Think back to the beginning of class and you’ll recall that I told you what to do to pass the course…
8. Asking for a higher grade so that you can keep your scholarship or get into a program you want to get into. Those scholarship and admissions committees rely on me to let them know how you’ve done. If I raise your grade to the line they have set, it defeats the purpose of the line.
9. Bird courses. If there’s no way a student can try hard and still fail, then it’s not a serious course. This is mostly the fault of professors, but hey students, don’t feed the birds! Challenge yourselves.
10. Asking your course adviser which profs are the “good” ones. I don’t know what you think a good prof is. Do you mean funny? Conscientious? Easy grader? And even if I did know what you were looking for, I don’t see other professors in the classroom. Most times I don’t know if they’re what you’re looking for. Even if I did, I’m not going to bad mouth my colleagues. Well, except one.
Once we’ve gotten rid of all these things, then you can talk to me about water.
Is homework dead?
Without homework, where will students learn to do work they can’t do at school?
Homework, that fabled warrior in the fight against ignorance, is on the defensive these days. Students, have always reviled it, of course, parents have feared it, and teachers have accepted its rule as necessary if unpleasant.
But more and more one reads stories like this one, which recast the image and utility of homework. Where it was once seen as a vital chance to practice important skills, it is now increasingly seen as a needless burden that, if anything, actually impedes learning by stressing out the kids, and the parents, too, for that matter.
Fair enough. If elementary schools can teach kids more effectively without homework, who am I to say nay? Or yea. Or whatever. But as a university professor, I worry about what happens down the road. If homework can’t be justified in grade eight, say, how is it justified in grade ten, especially if those grade ten students have never been expected to do it before? Won’t homework in high school be even more stressful to those who have never had to do work out of class before? Will high schools ban homework, too? If they do, what will become of assignments that cannot be done during class because they require long periods of time to do properly? That is, what will become of the formal essay, that mainstay of education in the humanities and social sciences, and bedrock assignment in most university arts programs?Some high schools have already dropped formal essays in favour of in-class exams with essay questions, and university-bound graduates of those schools are already disadvantaged when they are asked to write real, university-level papers. The ones where you have to, you know, do research and write multiple drafts, and use a computer.
In other words, while homework may not be a help to elementary school students immediately, it may help in the long run by helping establish in them the discipline needed to work on learning outside of school hours. Has anyone studied whether developing the habit of doing work outside of school is valuable in itself? If not, we may be asking the wrong questions, and if we are, our misguided answers may leave us with students who are even less prepared for university than they are now.
First step: Learn to use the library
Ten tips for the common sense student
Lest we forget, going to university actually includes doing some homework. And as Todd Pettigrew pointed out, high school doesn’t always leave you prepared for what awaits when the mid-terms start popping up in October.
The work will be more difficult, generally, but first and foremost it will be different. The way classes are structured, the papers you are expected to turn in, and the marking schemes probably won’t be what you’re used to. And in order to avoid that reality-check (slash soul crushing) grade on the first assignment, there are a few basics tips I think can help you get prepared.
Now, these won’t ensure you pass your exams, nor will they even tell you how to write one. They’re just tips to cover your basics in the first couple weeks (particularly if you’re in arts), and they will seem like common sense – but it’s the kind of common sense I wish had occurred to me a bit earlier in my first year!
Step 1: Learn to use the library.
Unless your parents are librarians and you were reared on the Dewey decimal system, you will probably take a little while to get used to your school library. The trick is to do this early, not the day before your first paper is due.
You can get an upper-year student to show you how the library works, or you can ask a librarian (but be wary, the kindliness of university librarians is never a guarantee!) However, in many cases, you will just have to wander around for a while becoming steadily more impatient, frustrated and possibly sweaty, until the little numbers on the books mean something to you.
This means practice. Pick some books you actually want to read, and go find them. (Trust me, this will save you much first paper anguish.)
Step 2: Learn to use online journal databases.
This is just as important as the library these days. If your professor or the library holds an information session on how to find journals, or provides hand outs, pay attention. If you’re on your own, it’s time to ask around and do some digging on the library’s website (usually links are well marked or under FAQs.)
Unfortunately, if you go to say, Guelph, I can’t tell you where to look. I can just tell you it’s important that you find out.
Once you’re in to the journal database, try sites like JSTOR to help you find articles in multiple journals at once.
Step 3: Learn how to source your research.
This is a big one in university, and not only do you have to keep meticulous records of where ALL your research comes from you have to be able to reference them properly.
The two sourcing methods are APA and MLA. Before you ever write a paper, buy a basic book on essay writing, or print guides off the internet. For each essay, find out which one your prof prefers, and stick to it!
Here’s one to know before your prof tells you: never, ever use Wikipedia as a source!
Step 4: Go to every class. Sit near the front.
Technically, your professors are not taking a record of your attendance. That’s because you are the only one who will suffer if you don’t go. You may be tired, sick, or hung-over – but you’ll learn more just being there, even if you’re half asleep and drooling, then you will from the power point slides or some other kid’s notes. Because most of the time these won’t be legible, or will be full of unexplained graphs.
Back to school.
The three most hated words by students everywhere
When I first realized I have less than a month of no homework and sleeping in left, my last three weeks of summer vacation instantly got sucked down that Back-to-School preparation drain.
I started playing a kind of switching game in my head.
Reading a good book. Switch that with a two-inch psychology textbook.
Sleeping in until 11 a.m. Switch that with standing at the city bus stop at 7 a.m.
Doing whatever I want, whenever I want. Switch that with a rigorous study schedule, attainable only through a strict eight coffees a day regimen.
I found it hard to enjoy anything I did because I couldn’t help seeing it through my I-won’t-be-able-to-do-this-once-I’m-back-in-school filter.
But yesterday I suddenly phased back into my summer vacation. And that’s because I really thought about what I was going back to this September.
University.
There are no bully students. There are no bully teachers. You’re in charge of your educational plan. You’re going to a place that’s built for you. University is an exciting place to be.
Maybe going back to school isn’t so bad after all.
