This conversation took place late last night on Slack:
Student: Bruce I see you the Sublime Text editor.
Bruce: I have tried many of them out and prefer Sublime.
Student: I want to be a professional web developer one day. I also have some questions about the assignment that’s due tomorrow.
Bruce: A professional web developer wouldn’t start a project the day before it was due.
Student: Only the good pros do.
Bruce: It better be perfect then.
When an assignment has been available for 2 weeks and you ask for an extension on the day it is due isn’t cool.
Read through the assignment in its entirety. Read through it again and maybe a third time. If you only use the grading rubric to go by, you will possibly miss key elements of the assignment.
Continuing on from my list of “College Student Worst Practices” post:
Worst Practice No. 4:
Waiting until the day an assignment is due to ask the instructor for assistance. As soon as an assignment is announced or made available, read through it in its entirety at least once and maybe twice. Don’t simply do the assignment to hit the rubric marks as quite often there is more to the assignment than what appears in the rubric.
Worst Practice No. 5:
Expecting to learn everything you need to learn during class. Also, expecting to finish your work in class.
Worst Practice No. 6:
Not reading the syllabus. A course syllabus is a contract between the instructor and each and every student. It contains all of the things that a student will need to know about assignments, exams, late work policies, how a student’s grade will be determined, a statement about procedures and school policies for students with disabilities and much more. Neglecting to read it at the beginning of the class and every now and then is also not a good thing to do.
What does the syllabus really say? All of the things that you are going to ask tomorrow.
Worst Practice No. 1:
From an email sent to students: “If you have read this far and want 3 extra credit points, send a message to me by Tuesday at noon.” 5 days later and only 2 people replied.
If your teacher/instructor ever offers you extra credit points for reading a weekly announcement email, respond to them as soon as you read the words “extra credit”.
Worst Practice No. 2:
Don’t wait until the assignment or exam due date to ask for an extension. It’s ok to ask for an extension (in my classes). Communicate early and often. It’s ok. I’m human and sometimes life happens and I get that.
Worst Practice No. 3:
If you are the smartest person in the classroom, and you know more than most people, don’t use that as the platform to challenge or prove that the instructor is dumber than you or that you are smarter than everyone else, use it as an opportunity to help others in the class that may be struggling.
Registration for Clark College summer and fall quarters is now open! I’m teaching HTML Fundamentals (CTEC 122) this summer, and in the fall, Intro to Programming and Problem Solving (CTEC 121), PHP/MySQL (CTEC 127) and Business Web Practices (CTEC 165). If you are interested in taking any of these classes, please let me know.
Please share this with your friends who might be interested in taking any of these classes.
Did I mention that I’m approaching 3.5 years of teaching at Clark? Man, how the time goes by…
