Assignments

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

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

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

You weren’t given this assignment for my health

Posted on by Sheri Dean Parmelee

Hello everyone:

Let’s say that you are in a writing class that has four major assignments. You have completed assignments one-three fairly well, though you are fond of “blazing your own path” and ignoring most of the directions.

Here you are at the end of the semester, with one assignment left. Since you are in college, please do not think that you can copy and paste assignments one-three into a single document and be done. Even if assignments build on one another, in a college class, you are expected to have some new information in the final document.

Yes, someone really did ask me about this today…….please, please, please, follow the directions that you are given and please realize that the final assignment (which probably carries the most weight of the entire term) is probably NOT a copy and paste assignment.

Have you run into situations like this as a student? BTW, please use my name or refer to something in the blog posting when responding to my posts- I am getting a lot of spam recently and am just deleting replies that do not remark specifically about the posting they are commenting on.

Best,

Dr. Sheri

Oh, no I missed an assignment! What do I do now?????

Posted on by Sheri Dean Parmelee

Hello everyone:

Has it happened to you? You have been a studious person all semester long, when suddenly you realize that you missed an assignment. Before you run outside and tear out your hair, let’s take a look at how you should handle this.

First, look at the syllabus. Does your professor have a policy regarding missed assignments or turning things in late? What is it? Do not ask for an exception this ONE time because it has been my experience that a student who does this is merely setting me up to turn everything in late because, after all, I accepted an earlier assignment late without penalty, right? Nope.

Next, email the professor, explaining that you understand the policy that he or she has, that you appreciate the opportunity to turn the assignment in late (but with a penalty), and that this was an oversight, not a case of your blowing off the assignment. Assure the professor that you are working on the document and that you will turn it in as soon as possible.

What have you done by doing all of the above? You have assured the professor that you are not blaming someone else for your mistake, you are accepting responsibility for your own education, and you are informing the professor that the assignment will be turned in soon. This is a good thing.

Finally, complete the assignment to the best of your ability and without panicked emails to the professor asking for an explanation of the assignment. Panic does amazing things to your ability to read. It destroys it and makes the simplest of instructions seem daunting. Breathe, folks. take a good look at what you should have done and calmly begin doing it.

Have you ever missed and assignment during your college days? How did you handle it?

Best,

Dr. Sheri

Don’t re-invent the wheel or color outside the lines

Posted on by Sheri Dean Parmelee

Hello everyone:

Today’s blog is geared to help you get ready for mid-term or final projects.  Let’s say that you have been in a writing class (mine, for example) for the past seven weeks and it is time for either a mid-term or final project. We just took the time to learn how to write a memo, a modified block formatted letter, and/or an Executive Summary. I download your project and find……..a memo hybrid letter and an Executive Summary that is two paragraphs long, double-spaced, with three inch margins. Aughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

What have we accomplished this term? Go back to the basics that we spent weeks on and look over the format. There is a reason why I taught you how to do headings on your memo and how to align the information in those headings so that they look like the buttons on a shirt (translation: they are straight, not jagged all over the page).

Your modified block letter should not have spacing gone wild, with quadruple spaces between the return address, the date, the addressee’s information, and the salutation. I got one of these yesterday; the text of the letter was three two-sentence paragraphs that started in the lower 1/3 of the letter. We have had seven weeks worth of my reminding students that their paragraphs needed to be five sentences MINIMUM. Each. Suddenly, that was thrown out the window as the student decided to re-invent the wheel with a six-sentence letter.

Folks, if you have a writing project that builds on itself all semester long, that’s a good thing, but do not copy and paste all of your old papers into the final report and think you are finished. Especially, do not turn in the old stuff as a new project without making the changes your instructor requested on the feedback you received when she graded your earlier work.

Another student turned in a really nice project rough draft but only used 2 out of the 7 sources she was required to have. She told me, “I’m not quite done with my research yet.” I have a feeling that there will be some source dumping going on in the next few days, since she now has to find someone, anyone, who agrees with what she already wrote. My educated guess is that she will then shoehorn the sources into one page (out of 12 pages) and consider herself done. Friends, do your research FIRST and then write. [Note: Professors do not enjoy source dumping, where only a couple of paragraphs out of the document have all the sources.]

If your instructor has given you examples of formatting for your documents, please use them. Part of going to college is learning to follow directions. Basically, you are learning to color inside the lines. While you may think that coloring all over the place is more creative, it frequently leads to a mess (and a lower grade). Your call.

Best,

Dr. Sheri

Group work can be a pain in the …..well, you know

Posted on by Sheri Dean Parmelee

Hello everyone:

Have you ever been assigned group work in your academic life? Well, then you know it can be a great experience or …..not. Here are some tips to help you become the teammate from heaven versus the teammate from….well, you know where.

First, try to be evenly matched. That does not mean that you team up with your best friend in the class. I give my students a Work Ethics quiz that is not graded and they do not hand in. The quiz asks things such as, “What is your idea of turning something in ‘on time’?” If you get one person who says “If it’s due at 11:59, I turn it in at 11:58” and someone else who turns things in two days early, they will kill each other or, in the very least, drive each other mad!

The quiz also asks what grade they want to achieve on the assignment. Yes, some students are perfectly happy with a C, while others strive for nothing less than an A. It is a poor pairing to put an A with a C.

They are asked what their idea of “doing research” is. If they google everything and are happy with newspaper articles, they should not be on a team with someone who looks through scholarly journals.

Second, exchange contact information right at the start, figure out your time table for getting things done, and coordinate when you will have team meetings outside of class. You need to know the other team members’ most-used email and cellphone information. Trading never-used email addresses is pretty worthless. You also need to work backwards from the due date, so that you know when various aspects of the project must be complete. Also, even if your instructor lets you meet during class time, you will still need to meet in order to work out final details and polish the assignment.

Keep in mind that, the smaller your group, the easier it will be to meet. While you will both be doing more work if you are on a two-person team, a three-person team frequently someone is a free loader. A three-person team I was on once had a fellow whose total contribution to a 42-page paper was “nice job, guys” and “my name is Stephen with a “ph,” not a “‘v’.”  Yes, he was really helpful…..

Next, communicate with the instructor to let him or her know if you are having challenges with a teammate. I permit my teams to “fire” an unproductive member, after they discuss it with me thoroughly beforehand. Do NOT complain and try to fire someone who has missed one minor deadline. I have had individuals whose teammates did not respond to an email within minutes turn around and complain to me about their partner. It takes me about 24 hours to get back to you, so give the person some leeway for responses. Talk to the individuals on your team and explain how important it is to you to keep on track. Life happens, but don’t accept repeated excuses for why the work wasn’t done this week, either.

Finally, do not wait until the last minute. The instructor gave you weeks to work on the project for a reason. If you wait until midnight the night before it is due, don’t expect a good grade. If you are in my class, I will let you have a “free feedback” opportunity, provided you bring the assignment to me one week before it is due. I will glance over all parts of the assignment and give you feedback that you can take home and use to correct the document. Ask your professor if he or she is willing to do the same for you. While we don’t catch everything with a quick glance, we can tell you if you are on the right track!

Best,

Dr. Sheri

Free feedback on college assignments

Posted on by Sheri Dean Parmelee

Hello everyone:

If your college instructor offers you the opportunity to get free feedback before you have to turn in an assignment, take it! Every semester, I offer my students the chance to show me assignments one week before their due date and I will give them information on how to improve the document for a better grade.

Do you know how many take me up on that offer? Usually, I get 1 out of 5 students or fewer. Why do you think that happens? I am not asking for the entire assignment in perfect readiness for grading, just a rough draft. It’s nice to make sure that students are on the right track for a document, and this gives me the chance to assure them that they are or to wave them off if they aren’t.

Do you know what the average grade is that a student who asks for feedback usually gets on a document that I have previewed? It doesn’t happen 100% of the time, but the students normally end up with an A on the assignment. With the odds in your favor, why wouldn’t you use the chance to do better?

I am curious about your “take” on this idea of free feedback. Would you use it, if you were offered this chance? What would you have to do in order to be prepared enough to take advantage of this type of opportunity? I look forward to reading your thoughts.

Best,

Dr. Sheri