Saturday, October 1, 2011

Homework, and not doing it

So here in Korea, standards at unis are pretty lax.  As in almost everybody, as long as their mommy and daddy pay tuition will get the degree.  The result is that in my classes, expectations have to be ridiculously low in order to not fail the majority of the class.  And speaking English is not even really a requirement.  Showing up for class and putting forth a very, very minimal effort with studying and doing homework is.

My school has this new online homework thing in the classes that I teach (using Top Notch) because they want to transition to "Blended Learning" (online +classroom).  It's worth 20% of the student's final grade.  In general, I like it and I think the students don't mind it either.  But, there is usually about 1/4 of the class who just straight refuses to do it.  I'm not sure why.  I hold their hand and show them how to sign-in and open the homework and do it and submit it for grading.  And, if you get it wrong, you just have to go back and change the answers to the right ones (it's ridiculously hard to not get 100%).  And I remind them each week in class when the next 2 weeks homework is due.  It's actually a source of major frustration.  15 minutes a week for 10 weeks in order to get 20/100 points in a class?  It's almost too easy and unbelievable to me that students don't do it.

I've become a naggy old crank, hassling my students about homework.  Aish.   Is there a better way?

2 comments:

Selina said...

well it just goes to prove the old adage that you can lead a horse to water but can't make it drink..^^

Eric Matthew Hall said...

Jackie, this is Eric. I do the same routine yet there are some who don't even try. I think walking them through the steps is the best we can do. This is University after all :)