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Comment
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Kate
Unregistered User
(12/17/01 5:43:52 pm)
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Homework
Dear all, students and teachers and writers alike:
This may sound like an odd suggestion, but I wonder if we should try to have people requesting "Homework Help" do so in a certain discussion, perhaps organized into sections such as 'grade school,' 'high school' and 'college.' Then, students can help each other more, too. I feel that at certain times in the year the board gets glutted with this sort of request, and we might better manage them--for responders and askers--in some other fashion.
I think when it comes to homework, it ought to be a given that the student needs to clarify the assignment to query is for (what the class title is, what the assignment is, what the due date is, what his/her plan is for working on the assignment), and come up with a specific topic and set of clear questions for help with. I also would suggest that the responses be limited to answering clear questions directly--reading suggestions are great, as are basic prompts. It is my concern as a teacher that some--I am by no means generalizing here at all!--people who try to get help with essays will merely paraphrase what others say on the board. Or rely on what is said here to replace thinking. Again, I am by no means trying to generalize at all about students. Many of the student inquiries on this board seem sincere and sincerely followed-through-on.
I'm of course speaking here as a teacher . . . who directs her students to discussion boards for help only with the most clear guidelines as to what sort of help is appropriate for them to seek, and also asks them to document their online help with printed copies of any queries and responses they received. But I am also speaking as one who greatly admires the hard thinking that goes into the responses posted on this board--and would like to see them respected. Third, I am speaking as one who really appreciates students' own independent thinking and brainstorming and responding to readings, but understands the limits on what they have time to process. I would rather see a student essay that was full of personal thinking and experiments in analysing works to one where a student relied on what 'experts' told them . . .
Again, I do not mean to imply at all that students in general do not respect this board--students out there, your efforts in reaching this board are admired! And posters, I really admire how much you try to help students. It's just been a concern of mine for a time, that there may be a better (more efficient) way to handle homework requests.
I may be wrong, of course, and again, I don't mean anyone any offense. Anyone!
Kate
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Kerrie
Registered User
(12/17/01 6:44:24 pm)
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Re: Homework
I was thinking the very same thing recently! It may be part of my
list-thinking mind, to have topics in categories and such. However,
I think that even were a separate board started for homework queries,
posts would still find there way here. But I do think it's a good
idea.
Forest frosts and sugarplum dreams,
Kerrie |
Midori
Unregistered User
(12/17/01 8:13:06 pm)
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student questions
I suppose on some level you're right Kate. We are always pushing
the students to think for themselves. But I rather like the really
bland, vague, simple homework questions because they force me to
think--to be clear, concise, not knowing the age of the reader (or
sometimes the original language)--it is an exercise in precision
and exposition for me as well. And many wonderful long, complicated,
nuanced, theoretical, tangential discussions have followed the simple
questions. So I like them, I invite them whenever and however they
show up. Like Jess, sometimes I like to push questions back to the
writer, other times watching my own students sweat with a piece
and knowing that a few suggestions can suddenly open up their perceptions,
I feel entirely willing to respond. In some ways I think I would
be sorry to see these questions organized around a specific catagory
of homework--in part because some people might not feel willing
to throw in their two cents because they don't feel like an expert
or teacher, or because its a "homework" question someone
might not feel free enough to run the topic in another direction.
What has always attracted me to this board is its loose structure
and the sheer breadth of the people who write and respond. My fear
is a "homework" catagory would begin to divide us into
camps and I really like the mishmash we celebrate now. |
Kate
Unregistered User
(12/17/01 8:25:39 pm)
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I don't disagree
Midori and Kerrie,
Thanks for responding. I'm glad you felt the same way, Kerrie. You're right that it all just finds the right place anyway, even if there were a homework string. And I see your questions about the logic of that too Midori.
I, like you, like the simplicity and stark nature of the questions, though I tend only to point out possible places for students to look for more . . The questions are so open-ended I can see why it is interesting to plunge in! It's not the simplicity of the questions that troubles me (and 'troubles me' isn't the right way to say it). They certainly do allow us to think and articulate things we may not have laid out quite that way before. It is just that the requests tend to be rather mechanistic and the responses often so very thorough (and conscientious, and lovely), that I just began to wonder how the responses were being utilized, or if they were, and credited, and such. I know what you mean about having a "homework" string be too restrictive. Probably, it works fine as it is, with people choosing to respond if they want to, and how they want to, and trusting the process. I was just musing, because I've been buried with student papers lately, and thinking about the learning process--how when one seeks help, it usually helps if one participates in the conversation in which one is being 'helped.' . . . often, the questions here are posted and then the poster disappears. It's not a learning dialogue for them, but 'live research.' Or maybe the responses are too thorough for them. In which case, no big deal, it gets people thinking . . .
Do you think maybe I'm just old fashioned, Kerrie or Midori? This notion of 'live research' escaping me?! Oh dear, I hope not . . .I'm not in any way suggesting the board should be restricted to who can post what sorts of questions. Nothing like that, at all. I hope that's clear.
Ah, forget it. I'm just tired, probably, and therefore thinking too much!
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Kerrie
Registered User
(12/17/01 8:34:51 pm)
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Rephrase answer...
Another good point Midori!
Perhaps it's not so much an organization of the posts here as it could help in the archiving of old posts? Perhaps those that were specifically related to homework could be gathered later or duplicated in a folder of common homework questions? Or maybe we could have a set of guidelines for homework queries posted somewhere, at least for starters? I don't know, I'm rambling. Make any sense?
Forest frosts and sugarplum dreams,
Kerrie
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Kate
Unregistered User
(12/17/01 8:42:33 pm)
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That's a great idea.
Kerrie--that is a good idea, actually. I wonder if it's feasible.
I do still wish students would tell the board more about what the class has been doing, what the assignments ask for, more specifically, even where they live! --not least because I'd love to hear what's going on in classrooms nationwide, in terms of fairy tales . . .
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janeyolen
Unregistered User
(12/18/01 4:45:19 am)
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homework
I, perhaps more than others on this board, am constantly getting private emails that purport to be a student just asking me "a few questions" but are really totally undisguised attempts to get me to simply do their homework. I mean they don't even rephrase the questions. What I get are things like: "How does the author use irony in . . .?" and "What do you think the author's intent was in. . .?"
So perhaps I am a bit short when I see some of the same questions popping up here.
Jane
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Carrie
Unregistered User
(12/18/01 7:58:36 am)
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class
I have all the admiration for anyone that can teach. I tried during my first semester in grad school, thinking if I couldn't make it writing I could teach or at least have some steady income while following my passion. But (it was a Humanities 101 class) when I found my students were terrified of me and when I turned in grades and only gave 3 A's in a class of 147 -- I knew it wasn't the job for me. A friend of mine laughed when I first thought of teaching. It appears she was right. These "college" kids couldn't even construct a simple paragraph. Outrageous! I sent more than half of them to the writing center -- refusing to even give them a grade on their papers until they rewrote them. So I can understand any brusque replies. These kids need to learn how to read and write and research. And I'm stuck having to make my way in the world as a writer without a steady backup. Wish I had some patience -- any fairy tales I could read to help me out there? I can't think of any of the top of my head -- probably because I'd be to stubborn to recognize the lesson.
Cheers.
Carrie
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Jess
Unregistered User
(12/18/01 8:27:54 am)
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Homework
Hi,
I come to this from a different perspective, but I whole-heartedly encourage everybody, student or otherwise, to first think for himself. If one consults the experts too soon, he can't have the confidence to forward a new theory. I am about to add a long quote from Steinbeck so please feel free to skip it, but it is an eloquent statement of my point:
The process of rediscovery might be as follows: a young, inquisitive, and original man might one morning find a fissure in the traditional technique of thinking. Through this fissure he might look out and find a new external world about him. In his excitement a few disciples would cluster about him and look again at the world they knew and find it fresh. From this nucleus there would develop a frantic new seeing and a cult of new seers who, finding some traditional knowledge incorrect, would throw out the whole structure and start afresh. Then, the human mind being what it is, evaluation, taxonomy, arrangement, pattern making would succeed the first excited seeing. Gradually, the structure would become complete, and men would go to this new structure rather than to the external world until eventually something like but not identical with the earlier picture would have been built. From such architectures or patterns of knowledge, disciplines, ethics, even manners exude. The building would be complete again and no one would look beyond it - until one day a young, inquisitive, and original man might find a fissure in the pattern and look through it and find a new world....
Thus, we should let our young people think first - look for fissures in our thinking - not just feed them what they could otherwise find themselves with a little effort.
I agree with Carrie that most people have not been taught to write. It is frustrating, but who can write before he has even thought about what he wants to say? Lots more to say about writing, but I am out of time and room.
Jess
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Kelly
Registered User
(12/31/01 9:50:18 am)
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homework
Hello there,
I have posted a question on this board which was related to homework, and have become more of a reader now. Anyway, I am an undergraduate psychology student at Manchester Uni (UK) and for my dissertation I decided to write about something that i loved so that I would do all the reading happily. So fairytales and childrens literature it was, my problem has been keeping it psychology based. I read most of the discussions and I have ideas of my own having read your suggestions but i think it is all down to confidence, I feel too scared to put what I think down on paper, especially in a marked peice of work for fear of being wrong. Another problem with topic is I dont really have a title, as we can choose anything to write about and I chose this but I cannot decide whether to write on the morals of fairytales and bring in disneys versions as not so moral teachers or whether to write about how we use fairytales to get through life acknowledged or not. There is just so much I could write about but not enough time to read it all to become an expert enough to have my own points. Is any of this making sense?
Back to the point about homework pages, I like the way that I have read the posts and then I think about wot people have said and then think about my opinion and how it relates to my dissertation, for example I loved how there were completely different interpretations of beauty and the beast on anther topic. Anyhow, if there was a homework folder I think it would be all too tempting for students to write what others have said and not think for themselves. We need to be taught to have confidence in our own ideas afterall everyone starts some where. Reading lists are fantastic except all the books, it seems those especially relevant to my dissertation are very hard to get hold of, if not impossible for students who have not got the money to buy every book they need to read!
Anyway, this is a bundle of thoughts that have been locked in my mind for a few months now, so I apologise if they have come out a bit muddled!
Also just like to take this opportunity to say what an amzing board this is!!
Keep safe and all the best for the new year!
Kelly
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