Topic: Bang Your Head on Your Desk - the thread of teaching despair!

[the_geneticist]

Got an email yesterday morning from a student who said they were sick (fever, achy) & what should they do.
I told them to stay home, rest, and fill out [absence form].
They emailed back that they felt so much better after eating breakfast that they went class.

Argh!!
If you are sick, then stay home!
I really, really hope they didn't just infect that entire class.

[apl68]

Got an email yesterday morning from a student who said they were sick (fever, achy) & what should they do.
I told them to stay home, rest, and fill out [absence form].
They emailed back that they felt so much better after eating breakfast that they went class.

Argh!!
If you are sick, then stay home!
I really, really hope they didn't just infect that entire class.

Well, hopefully the student was just having a bit of a hypochondriac episode that was fixed by breakfast, and wasn't really sick in the first place.

[ergative]

Stu! I made step-by-step videos explaining the process. Among them I emphasized Thing and Right Way to Handle Thing. I had annotated slides that I presented in class, pointing out Thing and demonstrating Right Way To Handle Thing. Why are you emailing me, to say that you've just observed this odd pattern (which is Thing), and asking if you should proceed in Wrong Way to Handle Thing?

You've struck me as reasonably diligent and attentive in class. How did you miss Thing? Was it a brain fart? Or was it just a new experience to observe Thing in your own data rather than having it presented to you in the teaching materials? Or are you only giving the impression of being diligent and attentive, with all your questions and emails, when in fact you aren't at all?

[Aster]

Nearly half of one class did not bother submitting their online exam this week. And they had three days to do pick a time to complete it. And the deadline for requesting an extension on that exam is this afternoon. And so far, not a single person has requested an extension.

A zero on a major exam makes for an unrecoverable total course grade.

I may end up reporting at the end of the term that most of this class section will not have earned passing marks. The aggregate work ethic in certain types of students this semester is the worst that I can ever recall, even during the height of covid. My introductory courses for 1st-year students almost feel like they're a waste of time to even be offering, with so many of the students not seeming to care.

[FishProf]

It seems the administration's ill-advised decision to allow students to lelct Pass-Fail AFTER the receive their final grade in the previous 3 covid-affected semesters has trained a non-trivial proportion of our students to expect that get-out-of-jail-free option this semester.  That is not coming.

Steep learning curve ahead.

[Puget]

Student emails to ask if they can take their final exam online because flights are cheaper if they leave before our final exam. This is an in person class, all of our exams are in person, and university policy clearly states students need to plan their travel for after their last exam, but sure, why wouldn't I set up a special online exam just for your convenience /NOT.

[the_geneticist]

I'm offering students extra credit if they bring a [thing] for lab.  They have had a week to do so.  There is a box outside my office to put [thing] in.  I sent a reminder with a picture of the box for [thing] saying that they could drop off their [thing] any time before the deadline.  The deadline is today at 4:00 (because I will be trying to leave campus by 5:00).
I got a panicked email from a student saying "You said to bring [thing] Monday at 4:00, but I have class.  What do I do?!?"

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Do I need to write things differently so students don't think the "due date" is the day you do something?

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

Here's a new one. I got an email today from a student, in one of my online labs, who just realized that stu was emailing the WRONG professor about the Midterm exam. Really? How do you not know who teaches your class? Did you miss my name, in all caps, on the syllabus? Or maybe you missed it in all of the Announcements that I've been posting for the past 8 weeks in D2L?

Stu can't get Respondus to work and so can't take the Midterm. We've only had a practice quiz online since the first day of class. I've only been posting announcements about it for the past few weeks. It's only in the syllabus...

Am I expecting too much from them?

And of course, I'm the bad guy in all of this. Banging my head against the wall...

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

Double post.

I swear, I feel like I'm wasting my time with some of these students. I have been carefully scrutinizing the wording that I use so that I am as clear as possible in my announcements, syllabi, communications, etc. and I STILL get an email asking if stu can use lab reports on the Midterm. Um, no, it says, in multiple places, that NO, you cannot use notes, labs, etc. I have a Testing Rules pdf file, it is stated explicitly on the test itself, it's in the syllabus...

I'm so frustrated with some of these students right now.

[mamselle]

Deliberately misunderstanding you may be a way of trying to push boundaries, not the result of illiteracy.

Not much more encouraging, but it gives you the option of misunderstanding them back...

M.

[Caracal]

Got an email yesterday morning from a student who said they were sick (fever, achy) & what should they do.
I told them to stay home, rest, and fill out [absence form].
They emailed back that they felt so much better after eating breakfast that they went class.

Argh!!
If you are sick, then stay home!
I really, really hope they didn't just infect that entire class.

Hmm, well if they actually took their temperature and had a fever that morning, obviously should stay home. Pre-covid, I sometimes had mornings where I wondered if I was coming down with something, but realized after breakfast and a cup of coffee that I was just loggy.

It can be easy to forget that students often have limited experience with being an adult human and deciding whether they are actually sick or not. I also vaguely recall that the 18-23 period was weird physically. If I tried to live the way I did then, now, I wouldn't make it, but I couldn't just ignore my body in the way I could when I was 16. At 16 I could get 3 hours of sleep, stagger to class and then just move along with the rest of my day. By 20, that didn't really work anymore. So, its possible your student finished a paper at 2 in the morning, then polished off a six pack with their roommates, got 2 hours of sleep, woke up not feeling great, and concluded they must be getting sick.

[Langue_doc]

Double post.

I swear, I feel like I'm wasting my time with some of these students. I have been carefully scrutinizing the wording that I use so that I am as clear as possible in my announcements, syllabi, communications, etc. and I STILL get an email asking if stu can use lab reports on the Midterm. Um, no, it says, in multiple places, that NO, you cannot use notes, labs, etc. I have a Testing Rules pdf file, it is stated explicitly on the test itself, it's in the syllabus...

I'm so frustrated with some of these students right now.

It's a combination of Stu using a phone for the course, not reading the announcements, and deciding that it doesn't hurt to ask just in case the instructor caves to these demands. I once had to use the analogy of a five-year-old repeatedly asking Mom for something that Mom had explicitly refused earlier. The students in this class had a sense of humor, so no one was offended when I pointed out that this sometimes works with Mom, but not with a professor.

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

Just got another email asking about extra credit to raise a 77% to a B. Nope. Sorry. That's not how it works.

I have noticed that a lot of these emails I've been getting are from high school kids taking college courses. Did they learn somewhere along the way that extra credit will save the day? SMH.

[Caracal]

Just got another email asking about extra credit to raise a 77% to a B. Nope. Sorry. That's not how it works.

I have noticed that a lot of these emails I've been getting are from high school kids taking college courses. Did they learn somewhere along the way that extra credit will save the day? SMH.

Remember that the students who bother you with this crap are a tiny percentage of the total. Most of them are just there doing their work, accepting their grades and letting you do your job.

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

Just got another email asking about extra credit to raise a 77% to a B. Nope. Sorry. That's not how it works.

I have noticed that a lot of these emails I've been getting are from high school kids taking college courses. Did they learn somewhere along the way that extra credit will save the day? SMH.

Remember that the students who bother you with this crap are a tiny percentage of the total. Most of them are just there doing their work, accepting their grades and letting you do your job.

Point. I've just been really stressed the past few weeks, so the little stuff is getting to me.