•Late work: Student work is not penalized for lateness. Late work is viewed as a behavioural issue, not an academic one.
•Plagiarism: This is also seen as a behavioural issue, and usually does not result in any academic penalty, even in a grade 12 University level course.
•Evaluation: Policies are moving away from grades being derived from an average of all student assignments in favour of a more general approach that reflects "most recent and/or most consistent" achievement.
•Lower limits: Students getting failing grades are assessed by this policy which requires teachers to give a mark of 30 to students who are, on paper, achieving anywhere from 1-29 per cent. This is designed to 'give them hope' of success.
•Credit rescue/recovery: A policy designed to give students who fail a course the opportunity to make up key missed work with the goal of achieving a passing grade.
•Memorization: The idea of students actually memorizing material is viewed as "old fashioned" and is rejected in favour of "inquiry based learning'."
The world of the university student is decidedly different, as evidenced by their policies.
•Late work: Most courses do not accept late work. Period.
•Plagiarism: This is viewed as academic dishonesty, and harsh academic penalties are in place.
•Evaluation: Most courses feature few evaluations that are weighted heavily, and grades are based on the average of all assignments.
•Evaluation: The move toward knowledge-based evaluation is epidemic. Exams, even in courses like literature studies and philosophy, are commonly multiple choice and short answer exams.