ss up" to teaching or tolerating it. :-)
|
| I try, mostly in vain, to have my students detail what
| specific part of their inherent erroneousness are they
| talking about? "So what specifically did you do wrong this time?"
|
| I feel you pain and frustration.
I try to get them to specify exactly what they meant. Was it an
identifiable blunder? Why did they allow that to happen?
If it was simply something like, judging the position of the lens when
the image was in focus had inherent human error, I'd want them to
quantify that; e.g. I notice I could move the lens up to about 2mm and
still claim the image was in focus.
Only in the above circumstances, if they did such things, would I allow
it without penalty. Mind you I rarely get such responses. I think the
most frustrating thing is that you have been docking points all semester
for this and they still are doing it!!! What does this tell us?? I
don't understand. I similarly have had the problem of students not
putting the various sections of their write-up in the order that I
specify. And at the end of the semester they are still doing this,
despite significant points being docked.
I don't know what to do if people don't follow instructions. I do know
in highly competitive situations (applying for jobs) the inability to
follow instructions can carry a heavy penalty as committees are looking
for any excuse to eliminate candidates. So it certainly is a quite
relevant skill.