Students have responsibilities in learning

© Sue Ann Miller

Downhill snow skiers and snowboarders invest a lot of money in a ticket that provides them a ride up the hill, so that they can spend more of their energy on the downhill fun. A student's investment in college tuition could be viewed in a similar manner: a student pays for facilitation of learning, but the quality of the experience will depend on how much effort the student puts into it to develop skills. In each case, personal responsibility is part of the price of the ticket.

To help make the point of student responsibilities in learning, I borrowed the format of the legal admonitions of ski lift tickets to construct the following:

Notes

  1. Asking to miss one class to study for a test in another class is not a good study habit and does not favorably impress professors who must write letters of reference that address a student's work habits. "Robbing Peter to pay Paul" is simply not good policy in any context.
  2. Reading lab procedures/material for the first time just before you start a lab is a sign of poor preparation and poor study habits.


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This page last modified: June 2016