Thurs. Nov. 23, 2017: Discussion of Answer Expectations

     Today, we discussed assignment expectations. I have pasted all the notes below:

1.      Your work needs a title: In this case “Answers for the Essay” would have been minimally acceptable (giving me the title of the essay would have been a lot better)

Answers for “Science Class…” Essay

2.      You must write in pen!!!!!!!!! (anything but grammar work, multiple choice exams, active reading assignments and your own notes).

3.      Stop writing in the margin!!!

4.      You must put capitals at the beginning of sentences and periods (end-punctuation) at the end of sentences.

5.      Read your sentences over AGAIN before handing anything in. MANY of you are missing vital words.

6.      Read the question over AGAIN and CHECK to see if you have actually answered it!

7.      Look to see if there are any more pages!

What is your response to this message? You can agree, explain, provide evidence or rebut providing evidence. This must be in paragraph form.

 Below is a good example of a stand-alone paragraph. Use this to help you write your own for different paragraph assignments.

In the editorial, “Science Class Questions Earn You Hate, Shame: There are Better ways to get Answers and Respect than Hand-Waving,” by Phil Head, Head is attempting to get readers to understand that professors and students alike suffer from unnecessary class interruptions. He goes on to provide a number of examples of when this happens and who generally causes the problems. His thesis is that there are other ways to get questions answered than to take up valuable class time. I agree with Head. As a teacher, I have often been corrected for misspelling a word on the board that is not necessary to a lecture or have been asked questions that do not tie in to what is being discussed at all. Further, his solutions are reasonable. Like Head, I also have office hours where I can work one-to-one with a confused student. He did mention something that I haven’t tried but will try in the future: I will instruct students to write down questions for discussion at the end of class. All-in-all, head did a good job of explaining the problem, offering up examples, and convincing me that his solutions are reasonable.