Image via WikipediaSummer term has ended, and Rhonda actually managed to get almost everything done. As you can tell from her postings, she stalled out on her journal. If you're a teacher, this won't surprise you; if you aren't, it probably seems strange. The research journal, at least in my classes, is an ungraded assignment. This means that all that matters is quantity. The students are free to discuss their projects and problems without worrying about the quality of their writing hurting their grade. It's worth 10-15% of their course grade, and it is possible to get full credit even if you are a lousy writer: all you have to do is submit the maximum number of entries. You'd think that all of them would be sure to max out on this, since it often means the difference between passing and not passing, but the truth is that around a third of each section (class) turns in the minimum or less. Even more strange is that some of these students are actually very good writers, suggesting that it would be easier for them to keep the journal up to date, but they don't care, I guess, and this often brings them down an entire letter grade for the course.What a waste!
The flipside of this situation is that those who do max out their journals usually make comments in them near the end about how much having to do the journal helped them keep on track and think through what they were trying to do with their projects. And this is true for students across the board.
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