The Fora: A Higher Education Community

If you're going to send me an email requesting that I overrride the course cap so you can enroll in my incredible popular humanities course, then the least you could do is spell my name correctly. The answer would still be "no," but then I wouldn't be posting in the "favorite student emails" thread.

I have a student who is sending me multiple one line emails. I'll get 3-4 within a ten minute span, all about the same topic. It's like Stu is not gathering their thoughts before firing off the email. Stu, this is not a text chain, pause, think, write, then hit send. Also, the fact that you can't seem to write more than one cogent sentence at a time or place thoughts together might account for your poor grade in this course.

Quote from: artalot on July 25, 2023, 11:21:53 AMI have a student who is sending me multiple one line emails. I'll get 3-4 within a ten minute span, all about the same topic. It's like Stu is not gathering their thoughts before firing off the email. Stu, this is not a text chain, pause, think, write, then hit send. Also, the fact that you can't seem to write more than one cogent sentence at a time or place thoughts together might account for your poor grade in this course.

With that kind of student, I wait 24 hours before replying, and then give one overall reply.

Students,
When your instructors ask for a "medical note", they just need something with your name, the date, and when you can return to class.  Everything else is private & you do NOT need to share it.
That includes the "reason for visit".

Please do not email your instructors images of your lacerated finger/smashed ankle/infected eyes!
I have a very large computer monitor.  I don't need a close-up shot.
Just the note.

We are in the midst of a reply all fiasco-- haven't had one of those for awhile, but someone evidently forgot to lock down an email list, and now a student has emailed managers_group@university with their request to change their shift in the library tomorrow and it has gone to every single person with at least one direct report in the whole university, and now a bunch of those people are sending confused emails saying they don't know what the first email is about to the whole list. Make it stop!

QuoteHi Para,

When will you be posting the grades for Quiz 1? It took place on July 23.

Thanks,
Student

I've bolded the important bit. It is the 27th today.

Yes, so the 23d was four days ago.   How long does it take you to correct a 'quiz', and how many students do you have in the class?

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on July 27, 2023, 04:52:28 PM

QuoteHi Para,

When will you be posting the grades for Quiz 1? It took place on July 23.

Thanks,
Student

I've bolded the important bit. It is the 27th today.

Quiz was on a Sunday?  I'm guessing Stu got the date wrong and/or didn't take the quiz and/or doesn't realize that 0 is their score

Quote from: kaysixteen on July 27, 2023, 08:48:27 PMYes, so the 23d was four days ago.   How long does it take you to correct a 'quiz', and how many students do you have in the class?

Not long, but I do have to get to it. I have two classes of 40 at the moment, and the quiz consists of several multiple choice questions and a short answer (i.e. paragraph) question. As far as I'm concerned, a week is perfectly reasonable turnaround.

Quote from: the_geneticist on July 28, 2023, 07:25:33 AMQuiz was on a Sunday?  I'm guessing Stu got the date wrong and/or didn't take the quiz and/or doesn't realize that 0 is their score

Oh no, that's right. The quiz has been available since the first day of class, but closed on Sunday night.

I think "When will you be posting the grades?" is a reasonable question. The answer: "I aim to have the grades posted within a week." Sometimes students did badly and worry about whether they should drop the class before they forfeit the tuition money. Sometimes they're just worried. And sometimes professors take a r-e-a-l-l-y long time to post grades, leading to anxiety among students generally. We had one prof who posted all the grades only at the end of the semester (which I think is egregious, but he argued that he was under too much stress, etc.), and another who took 2 months to post them, which I also think is egregious (but she had excuses/reasons too). But it's that kind of thing that makes students worried that the grades will not be posted in time for them to make further decisions.

I probably contribute to the problem as well, as all my quizzes are graded instantly by the LMS, so they're used to getting their grades as soon as they finish.

Ok, I do see  your point... provided that quicker feedback on the quiz would not be necessary to allow the students to adequately hope to proceed in their learning for the course.

Class presentations are tomorrow.  There is a rubric, videos of how to [analyze baskets], presentation guidelines, students have been building pieces of this all quarter, and we gave them most of class last week to work on this.

Got this gem late last night:

QuoteHi [first name]
I'm having trouble finding [information on my basket pattern]. I also had questions regarding whether this information would be useful to add to our presentation.

Fantasy reply:
Nah, it's totally optional.  I just made the videos and included that portion as busy work!  Go ahead and skip it for no penalty! 

Hi Fishprof,

To my understanding the following assignments are due  september 27, the ones with due date september, 20 are no longer available.

[Screenshot of Schedule of Topics from syllabus].

[Stu]


Is there a question here?

I may have finally hit rock-bottom - at least, I hope it never gets worse than this:

"I need to leave in about 5 minutes to go to my tutoring session."

That was the email in its entirety - it was sent about halfway through lecture!  At least now I know why the student got up and walked out.

Suggestions for responses are welcome, b/c I'm struggling....

Perhaps leaving in the middle of class for a tutoring session is the reason you need a tutoring session.