Coursework advice.

[sister_luck]

For the student:

Don't choose The Personal Computer as your topic, just because you like playing computer games.
Don't underestimate your teacher's knowledge and research abilities in that area.
Choose your sources carefully and if you 'translate' a badly-written presentation by another German student which you found in some homework database, don't put it in the list of references.
Don't use a list of "famous misjudgements" about computers which you found on a webpage full of "fun stuff".
Do use footnotes occasionally.
A book for children (8 upwards) shouldn't be your only non-internet source.
Don't tell me that computers became easy to operate only after Windows 95 was introduced.
Don't tell me that Word 1.0 was a precursor of Windows XP.
Do try to explain what an operating system is. Mention one or two besides Windows.
Don't tell me that IBM built the Altair 8800.
Do find out the correct English terms and don't write about "large calculators" when you mean mainframe computers. (It's easy if you use the German wikipedia site and then click on the link to the English article.)
Don't trust a run-of-the-mill dictionary, because most people will prefer "data storage device" to "data medium".
Listen to your teacher when she tells you that the topic you selected is too broad.
Also, try to find at least one definition for Personal Computer.

For the teacher:

The blank look you got when you suggested a paper on why Microsoft managed to become so successful should have prepared you for the coursework you're now reading.
If your student keeps on telling you that he knows loads about computers and where to find out more and doesn't listen to your constructive criticism, then there's not much you can do.
Don't feel terrible about giving a bad mark.
Next time be even more insistent when you try to steer your student in a different direction.
Next time provide more help with research.

Comments

[kazzy-cee.livejournal.com]

Ah - I am writing very similar feedback to my students who are studying research.

*sighs*

[sister-luck.livejournal.com]

At least my students don't use txtspeak. I am grateful for that.

[gillo]

That is so horribly familiar.Sometimes they just won't listen, however much advice you try to give. This student seems to have been particularly, one might say spectacularly, determined to shoot him/herself in the foot.

[sister-luck.livejournal.com]

You're not wrong there, but I think the student who included a multiple choice quiz, presumably to make her coursework consisting of not even half the required amount of pages a little longer and more interesting, deserves that prize, or as we say in German: she shot the bird down - aprt from shooting herself in the foot.

[gillo]

Eek. Mind you, I've had similar. Last year a student opted to do costuming as her nominated skill for a Theatre Studies exam. She wrote three pages (none full) and included eight photocopies of dressmaking patterns.

None of which she had used.

[frances-lievens.livejournal.com]

Don't feel bad. Being more insistent probably wouldn't have worked either. Sometimes you have to say that they can and should be grown-up about their course work and should know certain things without you telling them every other day.

[sister-luck.livejournal.com]

You're right. Sometimes you just have to let them go and make their own mistakes. I'm sure this student actually put quite a lot of effort into his essay - he even included lots of unsourced pictures illustrating the different components of a computer. And he probably thinks it's great.

[gillo]

It's funny how often they think a picture will make all the difference, relevant or not.