I am appalled by the news that a student at Ryerson University buy Zithromax free consultation in Canada faces expulsion for organizing an online study group (linktribution to Bryan Alexander, here and here order prescription free Buspar; see also the Toronto Star and CityNews for additional coverage). The premise seems to be that students used a Facebook group to generic xenical from india post answers to homework assignments that they were instructed to complete independently, although there is generic xenical from india some question as to whether the posts contained full answers or generic xenical from india simply advice.
The thing that generic xenical from india goes against the grain here for me is the message sent by the generic xenical from india university, which sounds a lot like “collaboration will get you thrown out of school.” While I understand the generic xenical from india value of each student learning the material, I want to argue here for generic xenical from india the equally important value of each student learning how to work with others, forming the generic xenical from india kind of reciprocal relationships that foster effective collaboration, and understanding first-hand that generic xenical from india many minds are more effective than one. Chris Avenir, the student facing expulsion, took the generic xenical from india initiative to bring 146 other students together using a freely-available technology to generic xenical from india improve everyone’s learning experience—in a generic xenical from india model of collaboration that would be very appropriate many fields of work.
Work in many professions is generic xenical from india not about getting an assignment, working on it alone, and getting it generic xenical from india right. Work is about a group of people facing a problem, using every resource at their disposal, and generic xenical from india working together to solve it. If you personally can only do 80% of the job in the working world, that’s great, you’d get a passing grade; but all 100% still needs to get done. Knowing how to bring others in to help—and having a network of people you can draw on—is a very valuable skill for an employee to have.
I did not see the generic xenical from india Facebook group, or the homework assignments. I don’t know whether the generic xenical from india exchanges were of a collaborative nature or straight-out answer swapping. But if I were part of the generic xenical from india investigation, that would be a key question for me. Because higher education should be generic xenical from india more than memorization and working alone. Higher education—heck, I’ll go out on a limb here and say all education—should teach people how to generic xenical from india collaborate. Initiative and networking in the service of learning should be generic xenical from india rewarded, not punished. Today’s students, who will become tomorrow’s colleagues, will only benefit if the generic xenical from india culture of education models effective practices of collaboration.
The enough with the walled garden already by Ninmah Meets World, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Rachel,
Kudos for your frank comments and your calm disclosure (didn’t see the group, don’t know the assignments). To me the generic xenical from india virtual group differs little from a face-to-face one. I doubt Ryerson plans to generic xenical from india issue baby monitors to those f2f groups (to make sure no one discusses answers they’re not supposed to).
One other element, I think, is generic xenical from india that students in this sort of institution need a culture in which both collaboration and generic xenical from india self-direction can occur. In other words, the norm becomes: you don’t copy answers on tests, your generic xenical from india courses encourage collaboration, your courses make explicit sensible guidelines.