Sunday, April 18, 2010

Email as a Crutch


Increasingly, I find that some students use email as a way to get my approval for all creative decisions they have to make for their assignments. Obviously, we didn't have email when I was in college, so I have taken the emails for granted as a logical technological development. But now I'm paying more attention and putting my foot down at this abuse of emails. Students need to think for themselves, make their own decisions, and be prepared to face consequences. I don't think this warrants any new policy on the syllabus, but rather a deliberateness in my response. Instead of approving particular decisions, I'm going to respond to these questions with one of my own: What decision are leaning towards and why? Also, why are you hesitating? I can then focus on whether or not they are thinking about the subject on the right terms, but still require them to come to their own conclusions.

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