Author: Sheri Dean Parmelee

Keeping the professor informed

Posted on by Sheri Dean Parmelee

Hello everyone:

I have three students who were trapped on their street by snow recently. They let me know, so guess how many points they lost for not being in class? None.

I have a student with a deadline this weekend whose husband was taken seriously ill this week. She emailed me this afternoon, to let me know she was struggling with getting her homework done in the face of her hubby’s hospitalization. Guess what she got? An extension of the deadline.

I have another student with the “excuse of the week..” In an eight week course, she had reasons every single week for why she was late on posting her assignments. Guess what she got? No extensions after the first two weeks of excusitis and no letter of recommendation saying what a wonderful student she was, because she wasn’t.

When H1N1 was a big problem, I had one student who got it 5 times…or so she said. She actually never got it at all but her symptoms always occurred when we had a major assignment due. Guess what she got? A poor final grade.

Problems arise.  Life happens. Make a Plan B so that, if Plan A fails, you have something to fall back on. Do keep your professor informed but don’t take advantage of him or her. It’s like losing your electricity. We lose ours every once in a while, so I have a Plan B, Plan C, and a Plan D, if my normal Plan A isn’t working.  Food for thought.

Best,

Dr. Sheri

 

Planning ahead can mean a weekend off

Posted on by Sheri Dean Parmelee

Hello everyone:

In one of my classes, I have a rough draft that was due yesterday. I have several students who did less than the bare minimum, and one actually posted the wrong assignment just so he could say he posted a rough draft.

That’s pitiful.

I have another student who turned in a rough draft that shows he cared about the assignment enough to do it extremely well. He did it so well in fact that I graded his rough draft, noticed he had already done his discussion board postings for the week, and told him to enjoy his weekend off. It’s a holiday weekend that he can spend with his family, instead of spending it at his computer. He won’t be using up family time this weekend with class work. He is well-organized and used his time very wisely.

Who planned ahead the best? You guessed it. Why spend a lovely spring holiday weekend staring at a computer screen when you can, by planning ahead, take that time to be with friends and family? It’s a no-brainer in my book.

Best,

Dr. Sheri

Making the differently-abled feel more abled

Posted on by Sheri Dean Parmelee

Hello everyone:

Do you know anyone who requires care? Maybe this person has a caregiver who accompanies him or her everywhere he or she goes. A common reaction to the disabled person is that he or she is ignored or overlooked while folks carry on a conversation with the care provider.

This disabled person could be elderly person who is demented or a fairly young person who is in a wheelchair.

Would you like to be a blessing to both the caregiver and the person receiving that care? Talk to the care receiver.  Do not do it in a demeaning way, but actively listen to what the person is saying. If you can’t understand a word, act as if you do. Make that person feel important, valued.

If you approach someone in a wheelchair, get down on that individual’s level, which may mean you have to sit down. Talk to the person as if he or she is important- because disabled folks are just as important as those who are not.

Whether or not someone is able to respond as he or she once was, everyone likes to feel like what he or she says is important. By showing that person is valued, you bless not only the disabled individual, but you bring joy to the caregiver, as well.

Do you have a special way of showing others they are special? I would love to hear your story!

Best,

Dr. Sheri

Read before you post

Posted on by Sheri Dean Parmelee

Hello everyone:

Do you know the easiest way to catch errors? Read your document OUT LOUD before you submit it for grading. I recently read my novel’s manuscript (90,003 words) out loud and was amazed at what I caught.

The thing is, some students ignore that advice and post some really awkward sentences. They apparently also ignore the spell check and grammar check on their computers, as well. Please, if you value your grade, do not post some of the following sentences:

Weather or knot he goes, I will bee their.

The birds our flying overhead.

Makes the thing I do easy when I can just stop by and grab something knowing for  a fact its going to bee in the same spot ready to go (note the lack of punctuation in this wanna be sentence.)

Just a good vibe to sea when you walk in the building (again, no punctuation is just one of the problems here. Add in slang and a misspelled word and a sentence fragment and you have a combination worthy of a poor grade.)

IT Jones making to chief and start ordering people to get qualification when she did not have any as a IT.

Due to IT nickel accent from his culture it create miscommunication because his worker could not understand his instructions.

The first two I made up, but they have their basis in a freshman writing course I taught. The rest came from junior/senior level writing papers in the past two weeks.

Best,

Dr. Sheri

Being penny wise and not pound foolish

Posted on by Sheri Dean Parmelee

Hello everyone:

I met up with a former high school teacher a few years ago, running into him at the mall. After asking what he was doing now, he told me that he was back at the same high school after a five-year break.

He immediately (and voluntarily) launched into an explanation, telling me that he had met a wealthy, older widow a few years before and that she had taken him into her home (and her pocketbook).

Over a period of a couple of months, she began giving him lavish gifts; her financial advisor cautioned her repeatedly that she was running through her estate very quickly, but she told him to mind his own business.

One day, she asked her counselor if she should marry her much-younger boyfriend and she was told, “You might as well. You’re spending all of your money on him.”

They got married a short time later and their spending increased. He told me that they thought nothing of taking friends to Paris for the weekend or going to New York City for lunch.

He said that they had spent money like drunken sailors on shore leave, until one day when they found out they were broke. They were forced to sell her gorgeous house and their numerous expensive cars.

When I ran into him, they were living in a very modest home with economical cars. He said, “I spent all of her money and now we are back to where I was before I met her.”

To his credit, he did not divorce her and move on, he was actually taking care of her, albeit at a considerably lesser lifestyle than they had become accustomed to. His hard-earned advice: Be careful with your money and spend carefully!

Best,

Dr. Sheri

Develop a thicker skin for criticism

Posted on by Sheri Dean Parmelee

Hello everyone:

I got an email today from a student who was very upset about the feedback I gave her on a document she had written. She called me a variety of things, none of which were very flattering. At all.

The interesting thing was that the document she had written was worth a low C. If she takes the advice I gave her, she might pull an A on the document.

So what’s the hassle? Does she object to an A? I would have thought she would be grateful. I told her exactly what was wrong and why and I told her how to fix it. She seemed to have a specific problem with subject/verb agreement, putting single nouns with plural pronouns, and using the possessive “‘s” when she meant plural.

I suggested that she visit this blog for an in-depth discussion of these issues. She was mad because I did not take the time to explain them to her personally, but that I asked her to visit this site.  There were 15 other students with similar problems today, and I suggested they all come here. That way, I told her, I did not have to repeat myself.

She thinks I am lazy and was very put out at the whole feedback idea. Folks, I do not get paid anything for this blog. In fact, it costs me time and money to maintain it. I do this twice a week, and have done so for the past two years (this August) because I sincerely care about helping my students. Even ones like her.

I hope you enjoy my blog postings, and hope you get a lot of help out of our time together.

Best,

Dr. Sheri

Team work can make the dream work or it might be a nightmare

Posted on by Sheri Dean Parmelee

Hello everyone:

Sometimes it becomes necessary to work in a team. Maybe your professor requires it or maybe the creator of the course you are taking thought it would be a good idea. The bottom line is that you have to do it, so how do you get through it?

You could do all the work yourself, but that’s not really teamwork by any stretch of the imagination. You might actually lose points for taking that approach, so watch out.

You might also have a teammate who thinks they could do the work better than the person who dominates the team and tells you that he or she WILL be doing all the work. Again, this is not ideal.

Here’s some ideas for picking a teammate (or teammates) if you have a choice in the matter:

What is your idea of getting something done “on time?” If you are a Last Minute Lewy, then you don’t want to be on a team with Get It done Glenda.

What is your goal grade for the project? If you want an A and your teammate is fine with a C, you will drive each other nuts.

What is your idea of “doing research?” If you check out the resources of school library and your potential teammate is fine with googling everything, pick another group, especially if you are in graduate school (I’ve seen it done!)

The bottom line is to be careful with teammates. Your grade depends on the work you are doing as a team, so you have to be vigilant. I was on a team in graduate school once where I had a real nut job on the team of four. This gal was demanding, obnoxious, and weird. When the semester was over, she gave us all very low ratings (the students were allowed to grade each others’ performance and it would be deducted from their final grade, if the review was negative). She gave each one of us a 2 out of 20, which would have lowered our final grades by a full letter. Fortunately, the instructor was keeping an eye on things and he gave us full credit.

So, they say that “teamwork makes the dream work” but it can be a nightmare, like I found out the hard way.

Best,

Dr. Sheri

Before you submit it, read it out loud

Posted on by Sheri Dean Parmelee

Hello everyone:

Today’s blog posting is about a great way to proofread your work: read it out loud.

My son recently published a book that was over 120,000 words. He read each of them aloud before posting the book. I had a 400 page dissertation that I sent to a proofreader BUT did not read out loud before signing off on it. I caught 12 errors in the published version. Oops! (I figured that the paid proofreader, at $800, would have caught everything. She didn’t.)

You will be amazed at the grammatical and punctuation errors you can catch by taking the time to read the document before posting it.  Don’t skimp here, folks. The extra few minutes you spend will pay off in a better grade, which could affect your eventually getting into graduate school!

Have you had any embarrassing mistakes in a document, that you would have found otherwise? Oops, gotta run. I have to read my 90,000 word novel out loud, so I can prepare to send it to my agent.

Best,

Dr. Sheri

Last minute Lew makes a bad impression

Posted on by Sheri Dean Parmelee

Hello everyone:

I got a flurry of documents from a student yesterday. He had only turned in one thing all semester long and then suddenly turned in all of his other assignments on the last day of class. Poorly written, the wrong assignments, copied and pasted from each other….the list goes on.

Last minute Lew did not make a very good impression. He offered no reason for being MIA all semester long and did not follow the directions when he finally, at long last, turned something in.

I received an email from Last minute Lucy a couple of weeks ago. She was also MIA for the entire semester, after the first week. She had been “busy” and unable to get around to doing her homework, so she wondered if she could make it up in the last week of class.

I told Lucy that my syllabus clearly states that I don’t accept any document more than two weeks after it was due. She had missed every discussion board posting; my policy is “you snooze, you lose” because discussion boards cannot be made up. That was 20% of her grade, so now she would have an 80. Two of her documents were more than  two weeks late, so that was another 20% of the grade. Now she would have a 60% or a D. If she missed the other two documents by even one point, she would have an F. I told her to do the math. She sent me a reply saying, “I did the math. See you next term.”

What about Lew? Well, he missed a “Failure for Nonattendance” grade because he turned everything in on the last day of class. One of his documents was more than a month late, so it got a zero. Another document was almost three weeks late, so it got a zero. The one thing he turned in on time was very poorly done, and he  lost points for not turning in two rough drafts. Long story short, he got the same grade Lucy would have gotten, if she had turned things in at the last minute.

The lesson here? Don’t be Lew or Lucy. Show up for class, turn things in on time, and pass your course.

Best,

Dr. Sheri

P.S. The names in this blog posting have been changed to protect the guilty.