[Air-l] laptops and Internet access in class

[T. Kennedy]

... not everyone's parents pay for their adult children's education (some
just can't whereas others won't), which means that many students have to
work part time (sometimes full time) in order to pay for their schooling.
No offence Mark - but if I saw this on the syllabus "Someone is investing
large sums of money in you so that you may attend this college. Therefore,
maximizing the benefit of this opportunity should be your primary occupation
during your time here." I would be offended.
On several occasions I have had students approach me to say that they will
be absent from class because of work obligations (and I am aware that they
are doing so in order to pay tuition - which I might add, has increased
dramatically in Canada over the last 10 years). It's a catch-22 as they need
money to attend class, but need to attend class to get their grades. In some
cases I've offered other ways to participate in class - such as blogs/web
work or in class presentations etc etc. 
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for attendance - F2F interactivity is very
important, but there are reasons for occasional student absences and other
ways to participate and be interactive.

"my goal is to instill a work ethic that privileges the academic over other
aspects of college life." 
Sounds Calvinist and strangely Weber like - but what other aspects of
college life do you think are prominent? Partying?

Tracy 


-----Original Message-----

The main reason I include such a category is because I came late in life 
to academia, and in the work world expectations about showing up on time 
and being engaged in the tasks at hand are not at the discretion of the 
employee. While I'm sympathetic to the idea that our students are adults 
who can make their own decisions about what is helpful or not to their 
education, most people in our society aren't afforded that degree of 
freedom. The employers these students have upon graduation will not 
allow them to show up when it suits them. Nor would I expect that the 
students' mommies and daddies, who are shelling out big bucks for the 
students to be here, would agree with that approach.

My syllabus says, "Most classes involve group interaction and/or 
projects, and you cheat your colleagues out of part of the interactive 
experience when you are not there. Someone is investing large sums of 
money in you so that you may attend this college. Therefore, maximizing 
the benefit of this opportunity should be your primary occupation during 
your time here." So while attendance is not a problem, my goal is to 
instill a work ethic that privileges the academic over other aspects of 
college life.

-- 
Mark D. Johns, Ph.D.
Associate Professor and Head of the
  Department of Communication Studies
Luther College, Decorah, Iowa USA
http://academic.luther.edu/~johnsmar/
-----------------------------------------------
"Get the facts first. You can distort them later."
     ---Mark Twain
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