Reading Assignment

I have this little column on my syllabus called "Reading Assignment". I have this horribly old-fashioned expectation that people read the chapter before coming to class.

They actually did this the first week, but I have noticed a definite lack of pre-reading, which is noticeable in the mad scribbling down of the exact words of slides that contain definitions taken from the text.

Since they won't admit to not reading, I have a nasty surprise for the lecture today. First block we zipped through the statements in Java, second block we were to do a cute programming exercise together. The reading assignment said: Print out this link to the exercise and bring it to class with you. That's all.

Maybe 1 in 5 actually had it printed out. Some others had computers and were easily able to look up the file. But it was kind of hard to be doing group work on an exercise when no one in the entire row had a copy of the exercise :)

I let them stew for 10 minutes, then I walked them through the solution. Let's hope the shame of having to beg others to let you look on their sheets encourages the one or the other to actually start reading before class!