Thing 16: Assignment Calculator

Funny how some people are naturally organized and love to check off the steps on their planning calendars. However, those who are not naturally organized are usually the most resistant to preparing and following plans. Miss Shelved fears that assignment planners wind up being the same kind of tool as diagramming sentences: those who understand love doing it; those who really need the exercise usually avoid it at all cost.

On the other hand, the planner (or even the simplified version: the what to do when you're running out of time) would be EXCELLENT for use by Special Ed. staff for use with students with IEPs. Rarely do classroom teachers really break up assignments in a way that special learners require, and many special learners have particular difficulty seeing both the "big picture" and the steps involved at the same time. Thus, a "map" with this kind of specificity is incredibly useful. Having the steps set up by date is a huge boon: one would love to see more teachers require students to report in at various stages. This might help avoid the "all-nighter" and the resulting temptation of plagiarizing. Of course, at the college level, such babysitting is unlikely -- which makes it all the more desirable that research coaching occur before that time.

In sum, Miss Shelved feels there is little here that we don't already know and try very hard to practice (now it's just in an on-line version). Will this give us and our colleagues the time to teach and model all these steps for each of the gazillion students who pass through our hands in any given academic year? For, really, it will not do simply to hand students the URL. Nothing will replace the time required to sit and work with a student who needs support.