Final Blog

In regards to the first rule, I only have two classes that does require attendance and they are Business and Technical Writing (BTW) 250 and ECON 198. BTW 250 is about professional writing as a “business analyst trainee” at a fictional consulting firm and assignments in BTW 250 are memos, business letters, and reports. ECON 198 meets only four times a semester, the first Wednesday of every month, and missing one class puts you at risk of failing the entire course. I despise both courses for different reasons. For BTW 250 lectures focuses entirely on explaining the layout of the next assignment that is due. Over the course of the lectures the feeling I get is similar to that of playing a game with a young child who keeps on making up rules as the game progresses. The assignments are unnecessarily complicated as I likely have multiple windows open to reference the notes for the assignment, the assignment email from my fictitious boss Alex Nazdrovia, the assignment’s Wiki page, google tabs, etc. The assignment notes, the boss’s email, and the Wiki page are inconsistent with each other hence the need to have all of them open. I dislike BTW 250 mandatory attendance because I think I will likely never use most of this class’ material after the course finishes. For ECON 198, I dislike the mandatory attendance for lectures because the lectures go over extremely basic topics like how to write a resume, LinkedIn, cover letter writing, it just feels like a waste of time to attend lectures. I think mandatory attendance is unnecessary in college courses because at this point in a student’s educational career they are old enough to understand their actions and should be able to make the decision of whether or not to attend class. I stopped attending class because the dialogue we had during lecture did not help me connect with the material in blog posts or excel homework. If anything, the dialogue only confused me more as it was very unclear to me how our discussions related to the material. I think this rule affected the class in a similar fashion as the majority of students stopped showing up to class shortly after the semester began.

For the second rule regarding soft deadlines, I really like this rule as it eases the amount of stress I have because of my courses. Sometimes I forget to check the calendar or mix up due dates. The soft deadlines gave me room for error and allows me to complete assignments at a more convenient time. For the concept quizzes and excel homework, I would attempt to complete them on the set deadline as they are relatively straightforward but would always leave the blog posts until Sunday because writing is very difficult for me. I do not know when my classmates complete their quizes or homework. I think the majority of blog posts are posted by Sunday afternoon. With this, I believe the class is appreciative of soft deadlines as they provide room for error.

If I were to modify these rules to produce better outcomes, for the first rule about non-mandatory attendance I would not make any changes to the rule itself. I believe the low attendance rate is due to the in class dialogue being unclear as to how it relates to the week’s material. I stopped showing up to class because the class dialogue was not helping me to understand the material better. I think a mix of the dialogue the class has now with how lectures are regularly taught at UIUC with a slide show will improve class attendance. The slideshow would remind students of what is being discussed/provide a point of reference to the material while the dialogue will keep the students engaged. For the second rule, I would make it more clear as to when the soft deadlines end or when an assignment absolutely has to be completed by. I like how the quizzes where completing them before the written deadline gives you five points extra credit otherwise you only get the points you earned. All college students like extra credit.