Realizing that we really need to help college students reset their expectations of what they should do if they’re missing class — I think that’s a pandemic effect. They used to know! Not so much these days!
I’m seeing a lot more students — generally bright, hard-working students — who just assume that nothing significant was covered in class, and then they’re in trouble later because they’ve missed things they didn’t realize they missed.
Going to plan to incorporate this into my start of the semester expectation setting going forward:
- if you’re missing class (just like if you’re missing work), in my class, I’d appreciate a note. (This is not necessarily the case for large lecture classes with 300 students! But in a seminar class, if half the class is down with the flu, and I know that in advance, I’m going to adjust my teaching plan.)
- BUT, you shouldn’t then ask me what you missed (or worse, say ‘did I miss anything important?’) — you’re basically asking me to teach the class to you again, all on your own. Instead, in the first few weeks of class, we’ll make sure you have ways to contact classmates, and if you miss class, please contact a classmate to find out what you missed.
This message brought to you by the paper that was overall very good, but had a new paragraph every 2-3 sentences. Clearly, this student missed the class where we reviewed paragraphing and structure!