Banas makes much of students' apathy, and presents a solution proposed by Ellen Glanz. Check out Education Week Online for articles, current and archived, that discuss apathy (student and teacher). (At the time of this writing, "apathy" yields 3 current and 86 archived articles.) Choose an article that presents both an analysis of the cause of apathy in the classroom and a proposed solution for it. How does the analysis/solution differ from Banas/Glanz's?

Service learning and community affairs instruction are two commonly proposed solutions to student apathy: sites such as the National Service-Learning Clearinghouse and Current Links in Education: Enhancing Citizenship in America's Youth discuss these approaches. Do you think these approaches address the core of the problem? If so, argue for introducing one of them into the curriculum at your college. If not, argue for another solution.

The problems of cheating--which include plagiarism--have taken on new dimensions with the advent of the Internet. (Check out Tracing Web Plagiarism: A Guide for Teachers by David Allen Black of Seton Hall University, which discusses the problem from the teacher's point of view.) Should sites that sell term papers be regulated, or even outlawed? Should students' access to such sites be otherwise limited (as by software that screens them, preventing access from school computers)? Are the concerns of educators legitimate, or are they overstated?