Promoting Integrity at the Classroom Level:
Explain Purpose of Assignment
As a faculty member, have you ever been surprised because your students did not know something that you considered to be common knowledge?
Sometimes the same type of thing can happen with an assignment. Because we intuitively see the very clear connection between an assignment and its educational purpose, we are sometimes baffled when a student views the same assignment as busy work. I know that I have had students blow off very significant assignments because they did not consider them to be important; students who set themselves up to fail the course because the assignment was that important.
I have come to realize that it is my responsibility, as a faculty member, to help students understand why I am giving a particular assignment in my course. And if I can not come up with an acceptable justification for the assignment, maybe I should not be giving it.
Several years ago, I was having a discussion with someone who was complaining about the poor state of education in our country. He had even heard about a college professor who had purchased crayons for his class. "Image that nonsense!" he proclaimed.
I could imagine such nonsense because I had just purchased new boxes of crayons to begin the academic year. However, unlike the individual to whom I was speaking, I intuitively knew how crayons could be relevant for a college class. For example, the Star Diagram uses crayons while helping students students get research ideas.
We know that one of the guidelines for creating assignments that discourage plagiarism is "Assume Nothing." This guideline is as true for the rules of documentation as it is for the rationale behind each assignment.
