Homework

Ordinarily, I wouldn't assign homework.  They have a book, they have lectures.  If they wanted practice for the exams, they are welcome to do as many or as few problems as they want.  But the department requested that I assign homework, to help keep the different sections of calculus somewhat in line with each other.  I didn't fight it too much, as I saw the potential for fun to be had.

I know that more and more these days teachers are moving to online assignments because the grading is all done automatically.  But I prefer using a real grader, and not just because I am an old man who resists change and technology.  I love the fact that the grader's allotted time on the clock each week is limited, so for a class of this size, he only has the time to grade about ten problems from each assignment.  This gives me the delight of giving them large assignments, but only a handful of the problems are graded, and they never know which ones.  The problem that took them hours to work on could be skipped entirely, or the simple problem at the end they skipped could be graded in detail.  There are so many ways this can frustrate the students.

I also enjoy denying the students the ability to waste my time.  I suspect they come into this class from a high school experience where everyone held their hand and made sure they turned in everything and any little tiny hitch in their schedule was met with exceptions and special treatment.  Last week, when the first assignment was due, I must have had half a dozen students come to me wanting an extension on their homework because their financial aid hadn't come through yet, and so they weren't able to get their book.  I told them that not only was the book on reserve in the library, but they were sitting in a room of a hundred people who had their own books, and surely some of them would have been willing to share.

The look of dejection as reality sunk into their thick skulls was delicious.