I totally get where you're coming from..... obviously this pattern of behavior has worked for these people on some level before, pity you have to be the one that bursts their collective bubbles!

I teach high school (math) and some kids take their final required course their senior year. Some kids think they'll pass "by magic" just because they're a senior.... then..... "by magic" I have a summer algebra 2 class half filled with very humbled and repentant summer graduates.

It irks me that some educators think they're doing a student a favor by changing an F+ to a D- (or a D+ to a C-) when they have missing assignments, haven't showed up for tutoring, or otherwise taken advantage of what has been offered to them.... grrrr.... <end rant>

Diane,

I too teach college. You may be interested in this article that I upload to my student resource website:
www.philosophicalturn.net/Misc_...ne.pdf
A colleague of mine gives the students a list of excuses for turning the paper in late; such as, “The printer ate it,” “My dog ate it,” “Martians ate it,” etc. Some of them are humorous. He tells them to just write the excuse number on the front of the paper and not waste his time reading e-mails or whatever. Of course he still docs them 10 points per day (not class period) late. I will not accept anything more than three days late; they can turn it in but it is an automatic zero after three days. They can’t do that shit in the corporate world (unless they are a CEO or upper management in some cases).

I too get frustrated with students. I had rampant cheating, technically, this semester. I realize it is because of my pedagogy. What I have noticed in relation to my students is that they are locked into the memorize-recall paradigm of learning. I utilize a KABs/Problem-solving pedagogy. This is education should increase knowledge (K), promote a positive attitude toward the subject (A), and be integrated into the learner's noetic structure (B). Knowledge occurs when the person is capable of utilizing the information (applying it) and not simply able to accurately regurgitate the information on demand.

Students, mine at least, can’t do the application part of learning. When they write their papers asking them to apply the course material to a novel example (we apply the material to multiple examples in class daily), all they are capable of doing is retyping the parts of their notes or passages from the textbook they think are relevant. They can’t apply that material to the new case. (This assessment style is called problem-solving transfer testing.) I had one student whose paper entirely consisted of “my preacher told me....” So sad! She was not even attempting to think for herself but was blindly accepting whatever some preacher told her.

I do not blame the students themselves for being locked into this passive paradigm of learning—where “learners” are viewed as sponges that passively absorb information and “information” is simply a transfer of ideas. This is the paradigm they were subject to in K-12 for the most part. Now they are being asked to think and apply the information not just write down everything said in class that they later study—memorize—and then recall on a test in the exact form in which it was originally given.

I am happy to report that even many of the students who fail the class leave with a greater positive attitude and appreciation for the subject matter. This means they realize that they may not have understood it but that they recognize its importance and appreciate its importance.