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[quote=Anonymous]R2 prof here.  Here is where I really notice changes in student academic readiness over the last 20 years.

1.  Reading.  Students have more and more trouble now reading to retain information (even just for discussion in class) and especially reading for key concepts.  It is hard for them to distill a summary of an argument or even the key points of a historical narrative from a textbook.  They confuse reading for recreation (feet up, nothing in hard but book or device) with reading for study (active engagement, taking notes or writing summaries).

2.  Ungraded preparation - or lack thereof.  Students become stressed when 'homework' takes more than 2-3 hours, and they tend not to prepare for class unless that preparation involves a graded deliverable ( = advance reading or ungraded exercises often do not get done).

3.  Resource possession vs. engagement with material.  Students tend to assume that if they have a PowerPoint and a study guide, the work is already largely over, and what they need to do is consult those things ahead of an exam, rather than reading before, taking notes during, and asking questions after class.

4.  Resilience and ownership.  Students unfortunately tend to assign blame to what they characterize as their natural or inborn traits as students (or worse, people) if they do not do well, rather than assessing their choices and adapting.  They tend to see their academic success almost as something predetermined by their personalities, and therefore largely out of their hands.  (They also - so very, very many of them - have a habit of automatically saying, "I take full responsibility" when they make a mistake, as if that phrase alone is supposed to end any conversation about the problem at hand.)

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