This year I have begun to wonder if my students can read? I had a most annoying exchange with a student today. The students were turning in their first labs today. They are to turn in a cover page with them. This tells them what they will earn points for and it make them easier to grade. One of my students showed up early today and said, "Do I have to hand in my notebook pages?" I said something about if he had a cover sheet; the cover page says you earn points for your notebook pages, so yes, if you want to earn the points, you need to hand in the notebook pages. He said, "No it's not on the webpage!" (In a somewhat hostile manner, in fact.) I had someone (no this same student, thank goodness) email me on Sunday night saying they couldn't find the cover sheets. So I double, triple checked to see that it was there and gave them specific directions for what they need to click. Students think they are web savy, but our class webpage isn't complicated, so I beg to differ. It was there - I'm super careful making the webpage to make sure that everything is there and is accessible. I was so frustrated because he was so sure that it wasn't. Once I opened the lab (after taking a walk around the building to cool off). I pulled up the webpage right away and opened the folder and tada there is was. He said, "Oh there it is..." Like it hadn't been there before. My frustration about all of this was that he was blaming me instead of admiting that he couldn't find it. I'm happy to help if you don't understand or can't find some bit of information. But I give them most of the tools they need to find things.
I've had some issues with another student recently who took two weeks to report to me that he couldn't find any information about the topics I had asked him about. We check in each week, but he had requested an extension last week, which was convenient for me too. No longer. I've decided we will meet every week no matter how inconvenient it might be for me.
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2 comments:
I think I would have asked him to whip out his laptop right then and there (or gone to the most conveniently located computer) and asked him to navigate to the page himself to see how he was trying to find the information, instead of navigating there yourself and then showing him. After all my years of help desk work, it's still amazing to see how people approach things in ways you never would have imagined. And other times, when users explain to me how they are trying to do something, they realize on their own what they are doing wrong. Others will just never "get it". Maybe I'll email you about this...
Thanks for your comment... it's a good suggestion, for sure. But my not very careful typing didn't give the full story. I should have typed that I asked him to pull up the blackboard page once I opened the lab. Because I did have him do it since I hoped he would be more likely to be able to do it in the future if he'd already done it once. But it was funny because once I told him which was the correct folder (only one folder beneath the surface, so it wasn't like those crazy phone trees you get when you need service from your electric or cable company), he saw it right away. Don't know if it was me hanging over his shoulder, or what, but he found it.
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