Class Update

Well, the trend did not continue and there were three people who did not bother to turn in their assignment from Friday. One states that she dropping the course and the other two, who knows? I am suspecting that at least one of them will be dropping as well since he has not posted other assignments. Still overall, much better activity than my last class. They have their first written assignment due this week so we will see how that goes.

I am getting smarter about posting all the requirements (Yes, they should already know.) such as the paper has to be in APA format, you have to write in Word, you can't use Wikipidia or Ask.com for a source, and you have to use information from human services organizations since this is a human services course. (I know I am a mean old witch with a hat . . . . . ) This way when they don't do these things, I can just tell them to please reread the post rather than get in a big argument. Plus if they file a complaint, Academic Affairs will see my post and tell them, "Hey stupid! Read the information regarding the assignment." and I get left alone. Basically, if they were warned, they have no legitimate reason to complain, even though I know some will try. This is something that I have learned from other faculty members that save a lot of headaches from "problem" children who like to find any reason at all to file complaints to get faculty in trouble when they don't get an "A" just because they are who they are and so what if they turned in a crappy assignment. I'm learning!

I also read the student's survey results regarding my last class. All of the comments were positive, which is kind of funny since they have to fill them out before their final grades are posted. I wonder if the results would have been different if they were able to fill these out after they received their final grades? Granted only 7 out of the 14 completed the surveys, but hey I will take what I can get! It's kind of funny since one student accused me of being prejudice against here after she found out she got an "F" for the course. She even went so far to say that her getting an "F" couldn't possibly have anything to do with her not turning in her final. Ummmmm . . . . guess what?! This is also the same student who turned in a paper that was taken word for word from another website, but I wasn't able to turn her in for plagiarism since she had referenced where she had obtained the information. (I have since found out that I should have turned her in and she would have been suspended.) At least I know I am not alone. I have read what other teacher's have gone through and know that every teacher gets at least one. It definitely keeps life entertaining!