One point that came up over and over during my faculty orientation was the fact that TempCollege students need incentives in order to complete work. Assign problem sets without potential for collection? Don't expect the work to get done. Have 100 pages of reading without a graded quiz? Don't expect the work to get done. Put it another way: there needs to be consequences if work is not completed.
Some of my fellow new faculty initially were taken aback by this. "TempCollege students are top students! They are smart! They will do the work on their own!"
That got me thinking. In the "real world", most people only rise to the expectations set for them. When people go beyond their job requirements, others are surprised (and occasionally perplexed!). Job descriptions, policies, and deadlines are employed for a reason.
If many so-called adults need consequences to get the job done, should we really find it that surprising that our students need similar motivation?
