The "short-cut" strategy of study in an education programme

The "short-cut" strategy of study by students in an education programme is for busy students who just want to get a pass with all the subjects they need to study.


I. The main tactics by the students are as follows:
1. Ask for very clear information, preferably answers from teachers, to cope with course assignments. Keep ask for it from the teachers; if teachers do not provide highly relevant "advices" that can be readily inserted in the course assignments, lodge a complaint to the school, saving that the teachers are not responsive.

2. Keep sending your quickly revised drafts based on the quick feedback from your teacher, to obtain an assurance that your report will at least get a pass.

3. Produce assignment reports that have a  similarity index below the university's tolerance limit. Sacrifice report quality, if necessary, in order to achieve that.

4. Forget and ignore teachers' advice on good study practices, if you have already done steps 1 to 3. If you are not happy with the subsequent assignment results, just complain that the teachers have not given sufficient briefing on  assignment requirements.

5. Ask the teachers not to use textbooks for course teaching; just focus on explaining examples and exercises that will come up in exam in a very similar format and with very similar content. If the teachers do not do so, complain to the university about the teacher's teaching style and approach.

6,  Request the subject teachers to set exam questions that are very similar to exercises and examples covered in the lectures. If not, complain to the university that exam papers do not closely match with materials covered in lectures.

7. Always request the teachers to be concise and academic result-oriented in their teaching; if they don't, complain to the university.


II. The basic message is: you are busy; school fee is expensive and you just need a pass.  These concerns should be borne in mind when (1) designing course materials and (2) teaching the subjects.


III. What students expect from the university are:
1. Fire the teachers if they are not responsive.
2. Make sure the university knows that they (students) need a lot of help from the university (and the teachers).
3. Make sure the university knows that students always need to be leniently treated. If students happen to do poorly in their study, teachers should be requested to be be more helpful.



IV. As quite some local universities receive a recent surge of complaints from students, it appears that this "short-cut" strategy of study is becoming more prevailing among the local students.


V. Since this strategy of study is not compatible with my teaching/ intellectual learning philosophy, I try my best to avoid serving this education market segment. This is primarily a matter of my personal preference on teaching job selection. The rest is quite out of my scope of personal consideration or personal influence.