Snippets from the Course Syllabus - Lack of Professionalism by Some Students

The last week or two have both overwhelmed me and irritated me by students in various ways performing other than how the syllabus states.  I'm going to put some snips from the syllabus below to make sure we are all on the same page regarding your performance.

On Attendance:

In the last class session on Tuesday, at least 15 students and probably closer to 20 missed the class. None wrote me a note to explain why they had to miss.  More to the point, I don't know whether any of the students made arrangements with somebody who did attend to catch them up about what happened to in class. If that is not happening, there is disconnection with what is going on.  I really don't want to deliver the message I give in class a second time (done online) because students miss class when they very well could have come.

On the Blog Posts:

Many of the posts didn't make the word minimum requirement.  Even among those that did, however, many students didn't get the concept of transactions cost right. It is as if they read the prompt but ignored what else we had been doing (such as in the PowerPoint files on which the Concept Quizzes are based.)  The blog posts are meant for you to make connections among the ideas.  If you don't try to do that, you are defeating the purpose.

On Comments:

The vast majority of students hadn't written a comment in response to my comment before the class session on Tuesday.  I want to add here for those who missed the session on Tuesday that I mean the comments I give to be a kind of coaching and they should tie in with the discussion we have in class.  My mechanism is based on students seeing how this all flows together. 

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Tomorrow I expect to discuss this some, as well as the process students go through in doing the Concept Quizzes.  I sense a lot of surface learning here and if that is right then why bother?   Some students are struggling with math modeling now and I actually applaud their struggle (though I didn't mean this first real Excel homework to be difficult).  I'd like to see students struggle with the blog posts too.  What might encourage that?