Author: Sheri Dean Parmelee

My college’s website is down. What do I do now??????

Posted on by Sheri Dean Parmelee

Hello everyone:

Yep, it happens. College websites crash, leaving online students in the lurch. You have deadlines and limited time available to do your work, so what do you do now?

Well, do not panic, for one thing. Do all the work you can without the website. Write essays and discussion boards that are due (hopefully, you did not wait until the last minute to look at the instructions) and prepare to copy and paste them into the class page, once the website comes back up.

Unless it is the middle of the night, your instructor probably knows that the website is down because he or she can’t get online either. Because we understand your situation, we are probably going to adjust the due date of an assignment accordingly (this is not a guarantee, so don’t procrastinate on doing the assignment, feeling that you have a few days leeway- your instructor might only give you the number of hours that the website was down and where would that leave you???).

Once the service is restored, write a very nice (and calm) note to your instructor, stating the issues that you faced and asking for an adjusted due date. Students who fly off at the handle are less likely to get the desired extension. Do not pull an Eddie Haskell on the instructor (this is a cultural reference to the television show Leave It To Beaver); we can see right through false sincerity, even on a computer screen.

How have you handled a crashed website in the past? Was the result you attained the one you desired?

Best,

Dr. Sheri

Help Me Help You

Posted on by Sheri Dean Parmelee

Hello everyone:

I was contacted by a student recently; she had a question about an assignment. The challenge was that I teach multiple, different courses and she did not identify which course she was taking. She asked for insight into an upcoming assignment, but did not say which assignment she was talking about.

Another student had a query about a discussion board assignment. She asked me to clarify the assignment, without specifically saying what she didn’t understand.

Folks, please help your instructors help you. When you send us an email, specify what class you are taking with us and what assignment you are talking about and what it is that you don’t understand.

In the first student’s case, I guessed at what the problem was and answered her email. I may not hear from her until tonight, but I don’t answer my email at night so she won’t get her answer until tomorrow afternoon (instead of this afternoon). By the time she figures out what is expected, her assignment may be late.

In the second student’s case, she was online at the same time I was. I answered her email and she was able to turn the email around at once and explain exactly what she didn’t understand. I was able to respond immediately and she had her answer.

Have you found that some of your classes need assignments clarified? Keep in mind that I am not a mind-reader. You need to tell me what you don’t understand so that I can guide you. How do you handle your own interaction with the professor?

Best,

Dr. Sheri

Using in-text citations

Posted on by Sheri Dean Parmelee

Hello everyone:

How often do you think that an article starts on page one of a journal? It doesn’t. [There are all sorts of things that appear first, like the title page and Table of Contents, to name two.]

The surprising thing to me is how often students will cite page one as their go-to page for an in-text citation. Just this past week, I asked two different students to put page numbers with their direct quotes in two different papers and both students cited page one for all of their in-text citations for the entire document.

Did they think I didn’t notice??????? Come on, people. Your laziness or lack of intellectual integrity is showing! This told me that neither student read any further than the abstract, so it was impossible for them to have any depth of understanding of the article that followed.

Maybe you are rushed for time….I understand that, but I will mark you down for this type of thing, and I will make a note in my personal grade book that I will have to keep an eye on you for the rest of the term. That means everything you write for me will receive additional scrutiny.  Be forewarned.

What is the stupidest thing a friend of yours has done academically? I would love to hear that story, to share with my readers.

Best,

Dr. Sheri

But professor, I intend to write a good paper

Posted on by Sheri Dean Parmelee

Hello everyone:

I got a very interesting comment from a student lately. The assignment was to write an outline for the paper that would be the major assignment for the whole semester. I gave an example of the proper format for a sentence outline, using Roman numerals and 1,2,3 and a,b,c. I did not give a specific example of the words to put in the outline, just a sample for formatting purposes.

One student, who is in graduate school, turned in a 3/4 page document with things like the following:

I. Introduction: I will write an introduction that introduces my three main points.

II. This is my first main point, where I will quote from the articles I read.

1. This is sub-point one.

2. This is sup-point two.

3. This is sub-point three. I will have three sub-points for each main point.

III. This is my second main point, where I will cite some additional articles.

IV. This is my third main point, where I will quote some more articles.

V. This is my conclusion, where I will summarize what I said in the paper.

Folks, I am not kidding. After this wonderful excursion into Outline Hades, the student attached a Reference page with 15 articles that were not mentioned once in the outline. When I flunked the assignment, the student emailed me to say that she/he (I know which sex the student was but chose not to share this information) had intentions of writing an excellent paper and that I should have seen that when I read the Reference page. Really? What grade do you think the student deserved on this document?

What examples of student-understanding challenges have you heard about or experienced?

Best,

Dr. Sheri

Asking for grace versus making excuses

Posted on by Sheri Dean Parmelee

Hello everyone:

Life happens. Sometimes we have to work late, have a sick relative, or experience some other life emergency. As a college professor, I see it happen all the time.

What happens when you simply haven’t planned ahead well enough? Like to old saying kind of goes, “Failure on your part to prepare does not constitute an emergency on my part.” I had a student recently who wanted an extended deadline because he was working full time, taking several classes, and wanting to attend his sister’s birthday party. For this reason (which he somehow thought was my fault), he wanted a one-week extension on the due date for an assignment. After all, he couldn’t miss his sister’s birthday party, could he?

Well, I assume that she has had other birthdays in the past, so he knew it was coming. He probably also knew that he worked full time, so that shouldn’t have been a surprise. He also had access to his classes before he signed up for them, so he knew what the work load would be.  I’m still trying to figure out why I should cut him a break.

This week alone, over three classes at two colleges, I have had students whose bosses made them work overtime, a brother in an accident, and a sister-in-law who went into labor because her hubby had an accident. The last two issues were something out of the student’s control, but we all have to work overtime from time to time.

How do we prepare? Well, knowing the kind of boss you have before you start the class means that you work ahead so that you are prepared for the overtime he or she will probably insist you do.

Last semester, I had a student whose baby was due shortly after the class began. What did she do? She got the book early, looked at the syllabus as soon as she could, and began doing the research and preparing the documents she had to write. The baby was born at some point in time, but her work never suffered at all because she was so far ahead (I release discussion board topics one week ahead of time, so that a business trip or baby won’t keep you from getting behind).

As grace is concerned, I usually give my students one excuse per semester. After that one, you better be prepared or get ready to fail because you have excuseitis, probably not a legitimate problem.

Best,

Dr. Sheri

Negotiating a Grade Change

Posted on by Sheri Dean Parmelee

Hello everyone:

A former student of mine needed to pass her math course in order to graduate from college. She had a job all lined up, the family was preparing to move across the country so that she could start the job, but ….she was apparently failing her math class….or so it seemed. No degree would equal no job……

She wrote a very impassioned letter to me (I teach public speaking at that college), asking me for help. Rather than  correct the letter itself, I suggested that she submit it to the professor as-is because it wasn’t a bad letter and her situation really shone through in the letter exactly it was. I also suggested she contact the department chair and the head of academic affairs, if she could not get satisfaction from the instructor. The good news was that he responded to her plea, realized he had not counted her extra credit that she had done throughout the term, and adjusted her grade to a C.

Keep in mind that most professors do not get joy from flunking a student and teachers sometimes forget to add in extra points. We are human, so write that impassioned letter and you might just get the results that you are seeking. (Or not, if you messed up all term and waited until the last minute to ask for extra credit……..I had a graduate student recently who lazed around the whole term and then asked for an extra assignment on the last day of class. That did not happen, folks!)

Best,

Dr. Sheri

The devil is in the details: Proofread before you submit

Posted on by Sheri Dean Parmelee

Hello everyone:

Have you ever submitted a document for grading, only to have the instructor ask you what in the world you are saying? That probably means that you did not proofread the assignment before you turned it in.

For example, today I read a discussion board posting by one of my graduate students where the individual spelled Friedrich Nietzsche’s name as “Frederick Niche.” Nope, a “niche” is a special segment of the marketplace. For example, I write another blog on being unexpectedly unmarried. My “niche” group is people who have lost their spouse. If you have never been married, you are not in the niche group that I am targeting for my series on being Suddenly Single.

Another student of mine has now written the same discussion board posting incorrectly for the second time. When an instructor gives you feedback, pay attention. We are not doing it for our own health, but for your growth as a student. Like the title for today’s blog, the devil is in the details. You can improve your grades if you just pay attention to the instructions and follow them.  This is not rocket science, unless you are in a class for future rocket scientists. In that case, it is!

If you have questions for your instructor, ask! A question that is not asked will never be answered, I guarantee it. BTW, when you ask, please tell us which class you are taking and the section you are in (if that is relevant), so that we can look at the right syllabus as we answer your query. Like many instructors, I teach a variety of classes each term and it really speeds things up if I don’t have to look up which class you are taking.

I hope this helps. Do post a comment if you have any questions or concerns about the details of an assignment. I would love to hear from you!

Best,

Dr. Sheri

Making sure you meet the assignment’s requirements

Posted on by Sheri Dean Parmelee

Hello everyone:

Have you ever worked on an assignment, only to discover at the last minute that you did the wrong assignment? Maybe you wrote a wonderful treatise on the role of tiddly winks in today’s culture. Perhaps you waxed eloquently on the job of belly button lint in the overall scheme of life. Perchance you discussed Shakespeare’s wife’s personality as it related to his writing in a Midsummer’s Night’s Dream.

Then, just as you got ready to hit the “submit” button, you realized it was the wrong assignment. What do you do now? Go ahead and submit the document, hoping against hope that the instructor will not notice????? Bad news, folks, unless we have just been hit by a tidal wave, we will notice that you wrote the wrong document.

I actually had this happen to me once (I wrote the wrong assignment, not that I got hit by a tidal wave!). What did I do? I went back and looked over the instructions and then I took a deep breath and re-wrote my essay so that it fit into what was required. Fortunately, I always prepared my essays with enough time for one more look-see, so I had 24 hours to fix it. It worked about just fine, though I did do some major league scrambling!

Sometimes students write a discussion board posting that does not meet the requirements of the forum. For example, my writing classes  always have to post two five-sentence paragraphs on every single discussion board for the entire semester. This is a MINIMUM requirement that is mentioned in the syllabus and in the individual discussion board instructions. Just today, I had a student who posted two replies: a three-sentence and a five-sentence posting. Does she think I don’t care or that I won’t notice? Hint: I do notice and she got very low grades on those discussion boards.

So, the point here is to always, always look over the instructions more than once and to write the correct document. Do you have any special times when you messed up? What was your solution to the problem? I look forward to hearing from you!

Best,

Dr. Sheri

Just for fun: The Twilight Zone Flight

Posted on by Sheri Dean Parmelee

Hello everyone:

Yesterday afternoon, I was scheduled to take a flight from Florida to Baltimore. We got on the flight at 5 pm, with a scheduled departure of 5:30. [Sit down and fasten your seat belts.] Well, the departure time came around and we noticed that a technician had boarded our plane because of a seat belt that wouldn’t buckle and a tray table that was unwilling to get into “its full, upright, and locked position.”

The captain came on and told us there would be a “brief delay” while this situation was remedied. In the meantime, we couldn’t have much air conditioning (in Florida, on a hot day) because it would take too much fuel. After about 30 minutes of sweating, the techie left and we backed away from the gate. We thought that, once we were on the tarmac, the take off would be happening shortly. We were wrong.

The next announcement from the captain came a few minutes later. The airport in Baltimore was having weather problems and planes were backed up and in holding patterns all the way to the Carolinas. The good thing was, according to the Man Up Front, that we hadn’t taken off because he didn’t have enough fuel to circle that far away from where he planned on landing and he would have had to “divert the flight.” [Translation: He would have needed to take us somewhere no one on the flight wanted to go and leave us there!]

A collective groan arose from the passengers who then realized that a diversion would still have been better than running out of fuel at 35,000 feet. [Are you seeing a “we-don’t-have-much-fuel-for-this-flight-and-are-you-sure-you-really-want-to-go” theme here?]  A few minutes went by and the captain came back on with “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but air traffic control at BWI has closed the runways so we have another 45 minute delay. On top of the other 45 minute delay. That means we will have 1 1/2 hours to wait and we will need to get more fuel” [I don’t think they refuel domestic commercial flights at 35,000 feet]. His plan was to turn back to the gate, where he promised to let us off the plane. Oops, some other plane was already in our former spot. That’s a no-go, folks.

Five minutes elapsed when he announced “Baltimore is open” – hold on, we’re next in line for takeoff!” [Wait a minute- what about the fuel?] We took off, with the pilot having promised to “fly slowly” so that he could avoid the backup of planes needing to land. [Wait a minute, WHAT ABOUT THE FUEL????]

With a Reader’s Digest Condensed Version of this tale of woe, we landed a couple of hours later…….only to find that all of the gates were full, so we had to park on the tarmac and wait for an empty gate…. and wait…….and wait….. for about 20 more minutes on a warm plane, unable to stand for the last 4 1/2 hours……..

As this story played out to its uncomfortable end, I turned to the man seated across the aisle and asked him if he’d ever seen The Twilight Zone. I informed him that this was the show enacted in real life. They let you on the plane, but they never let you off!

I would love to hear your tale of woe regarding air flight! What has happened to you in the attempt to go where your ticket permitted but the airlines or the weather seemed destined to prevent?

Best,

Dr. Sheri

Avoiding the Freshman Fifteen

Posted on by Sheri Dean Parmelee

Hello everyone:

Today’s blog is on avoiding gaining the weight that you might otherwise pick up in college. They traditionally call it the “freshman fifteen” but I didn’t find it until graduate school.

You know how it goes- you are busy working and studying; shopping and preparing nutritionally-sound food seems out of reach for your hectic schedule. Or perhaps you are busy studying and trying to stay awake, so you reach for the goldfish or Twinkies. Stop right there, my friend! Hold it!

When you go to the store, please buy apples or oranges or something that will give you the immediate gratification of eating, without the calories. Yes, the local food store on campus has shelves and shelves of candy and chips and ice cream treats and a myriad of other delectable goodies, but what will eating them do to your shape?

Instead of indulging while studying and adding on the pounds, take the time to get healthier snacks. It would be ideal to not eat in between meals at all but I know that, when you are reading a particularly dull chapter in a textbook that bores the daylights out of you as you study this lower level core class that you never wanted to take, it can be soothing to eat something, but try to not eat excessive calories. After all, reading is not an active sport! Reading one chapter does not immediately equate to burning the bazillion calories that the treat you are looking at in the school vending machine will add to your diet.

In other blogs, I have talked about using note cards to study. If you have some prepared, take them and go out for a walk rather than reaching for the gummy bears or pizza. I prepared for my qualifying exams for months. During that time, I printed out a 16 point font copy of my notes and taped it to the wall in front of my treadmill. That allowed me to study, stay awake, and burn calories rather than consume them. Food for thought, my friends.

I would love to hear from you as you share your ideas on this topic. Please use my name in your comments, so that I will know you aren’t spam and can pass your wisdom along to others.

Best,

Dr. Sheri