Wednesday, March 18, 2009

This is why we don't use Wikipedia

I have a student working on a project on gay rights. The other day I was looking over one of his PowerPoint slides, which had to do with Ellen DeGeneres, and saw that he had written "Ellen DeGeneres is married to Ally McBeal."

It took us a while to sort that one out. Another student was with me at the time and said, "Is Ally McBeal even gay?"

I had to say, "Ally McBeal isn't even real!"

Siiiiggghhhh... Seriously though, I've been thinking and talking to other teachers recently about high expectations. And motivation. I've had a lot of crappy, crappy work recently. My plan is to not accept it - hand it back for no credit. What I haven't totally figured out is the relationship between expectations and motivation. Obviously I haven't motivated the students to do high quality work. How do I communicate that I expect better? And if I give them no credit, what does that do to their motivation for future projects?


Actually I read she's married to Elmo

1 comment:

Wm Chamberlain said...

Obviously, this isn't about Wikipedia it is about the student not understanding that one source of information is just not enough. (Either that, or the student was just trying to get by.)

I have my students find three sources of information that agree. It takes longer, but they understand it is important to get it right.