Reminding adult ed students of deadlines
As a new adult education instructor, how do you achieve a balance between reminding students of due dates, etc. to encourage their success but not teaching them to rely on those reminders; instead to be responsible for their own time line as they will be some day in an employment situation where there are no reminders?
Hi Shirley,
What a great way to teach time management, and I like how your participate as well.
Patricia
I have a time management calendar I encourage the students to use on a weekly basis. I use the time management pie and then have them complete their own pie.
I also issue a reminder as a posting in my online classroom for the first assignment. I do provide a class calendar with all assignment dates in my very first session and encourage my students to print it out. Because I am dealing with first session students who may not have been in school for years or even decades, I view it as my responsibility to help them get back on a schedule. When they miss an assignment, I send each one of them a private e-mail reminding them that they are losing points and to contact me if there are any issues. That helps with some but certainly not all!
I use the online shell to issue reminders. This would be similar to an outlook calendar at work (bear with me here) as it requires the student to READ it. Week 1, I send email and post to the announcements. Week 2, I send email directing them to read the annoucements.... Week 3, I start posting only to the announcements. This seems to work.
My experience has suggested that weekly staff meetings are a "reminder". They force staff to report on what has been accomplished and what is coming. Maybe there is a way to incorporate this concept into a classroom....?
Kelly Jo Miller
Hi Wendy,
Tell them on Day 1 they need to get a calendar and write down all due dates and that they will get one reminder per assignment, but it is there responsibility to get their work in within the deadline. You are right, they will not have reminders at work. You are told one time and one time only at work, therefore jot it down so that you can meet your deadline.
Patricia
