Callie was first. We are using the forms on Google Documents to send out assignments. She prefers her work to be Internet based. I get her answers as she submits them on a spreadsheet. Nice. So her answers start coming in and unless she has become an astrophysicist, the answers clearly aren't hers. She was finding the answers and cutting and pasting them in. Not a problem, except that I asked her to use her own thoughts after she found the answers. She never read the instructions. Second one, same thing. I asked her if she read the instructions, she said "no, sorry"

Brent wanted a complete to do list of everything. That's his style. Many of the things he was going to be doing were things we would do together. Each thing that was for the both of us was marked, yet he tried to do everything on his own. So cute, but frustrating at the same time.

So we all sat down and had a chat about directions and what to do with them. I'm all for doing your own thing your own way, but we discussed the advantages of instructions when working with other people. Sometimes reading instructions saves time and make the work more efficient. I had provided links to all the websites Callie would need to complete her work in the instructions. She used search engines and it took much longer. I praised her resourcefulness, but it wasn't the goal of the assignment. I also told them if they new a better way, let me know. The directions were more notes from me to help them do what they were working on.

I don't want them to blindly follow directions, I want them to be informed though when they do what they choose to do. Let's see how next week goes.

Funny note: at the winery last night Callie asked to to explain Kepler's Laws to her