The Fora: A Higher Education Community

December Goals

• Finalize book revisions and responses to reviewer comments by December 12

I made good progress on book revisions so far, and have this week and next to finalize them before I leave the country for break. I do not plan to do any other scholarly activities this month.

Graduate student: I need to jump on a call with you about the major assignment due tomorrow. I do not understand anything and do not want to make a costly mistake.

Me: I offered time in our in-person class for students to ask questions about this assignment and you did not. The only costly mistake is working on it at the last minute, and I am booked with meetings today. If the assignment directions are not clear [insert rehashing them here], perhaps contact one of your classmates.

*Note: three students already submitted this project early, and with phenomenal quality, so I hope this confused person asks one of them. Also, the student did this same thing on a previous assignment, did not take any information I provided in our last minute call, and wanted a chance to redo it after receiving a poor grade. Sigh. Yes, this is a second year masters student.

Thanksgiving followed by Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, and Giving Tuesday.

How about leave me the fvck alone Thursday.

We have one cat that LOVES to terrorize one of the other cats.  They have mostly divided the house into separate territories.  Izzy kitten gets the bedroom, two chairs, and the associated end table.  Lady Jane gets the kitchen cart, new couch, and top of a particular bookshelf.  The rest of the house is neutral-ish.
We also actively discourage Izzy if we notice her getting ready to pounce at Jane. Nothing violent yet, but mostly because Jane is reluctant to be near Izzy, let alone touch her or give her a swat.

Thanks, Geneticist. I appreciate it. Luckily, we already feed them separately and have several litterboxes, so that makes keeping them separate for a while easier.

Quote from: apl68 on Today at 07:57:59 AM

Quote from: the_geneticist on Today at 07:42:42 AMI wish I could give a raise or bonus to my awesome TAs. And insist on some sort of remedial training for the ones who simply refuse to be prepared.

Does your institution give them much chance to train for their work?  We had almost none when I was a TA in the 1990s.  There were a few pointers on paper grading, and that was about it.  I guess it wasn't that bad, since we didn't yet have course-management software to worry about.  It still makes me suspect that a lot of teaching assistants don't get much preparation for their jobs. 

We have a 2 hour weekly meeting where we go through the entire lab protocol for the next week, discuss any common issues/questions, etc.. There is an agenda & assigned preparation tasks for me and for them. 
They also have required classes & seminars (not sure how good they are).

This TA is just not bothering to use any of the resources provided.

Quote from: bio-nonymous on Today at 06:42:05 AM

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on November 27, 2024, 10:55:52 AM

Quote from: bio-nonymous on November 27, 2024, 07:06:10 AMVehicle transmission stopped functioning in the middle of a super-busy intersection during rush hour last night. Ugg. Now the shop tells me they can't even look at it until next Thursday. Oh well. I keep trying to find the bright side in everything but I can't help bitching about all the things that went wrong over the past few days, this breakdown was just the icing on the cake. At least I am still alive! :)

Ugh, that's awful. It happened to me and the hatchling last year. I somehow managed to get the car parked on the side using just my momentum (I was going uphill when it happened, and I noticed before I started going back). It ended up having to get rebuilt, which was hella expensive.

Update! They got my vehicle in early to diagnose and sure enough I need a new (rebuilt) transmission. $7000.00! VENT #45^&#, %^$#!!!@ Vent!

Happy holidays mechanics. Gulp... Oh well, I keep telling myself thank goodness we are in a position where I can get it fixed, but I am alternating with feeling sorry for myself. There are so many other things I would rather spend that money on... :)

Yeah. It made sense for us, because although it's a 20 year-old car, it only had about 150k km on it at the time, so buying a new used car would have cost the same but would have come with more kilometres and possibly other troubles.

Your mileage may well vary though! There's no shame in putting that 7k into another car instead.

Quote from: poiuy on November 30, 2024, 03:42:16 PMI am grading the final paper for the class, a lightly scaffolded assignment that had some earlier pieces to turn in so that students could stay on track and not do everything at the last minute.
I have language in my Syllabus that no AI is to be used in the class.
There is a generous submission window, and most students will nevertheless wait until the deadline of 4th December.
But .... out of the 8 papers turned in, I have one with glaring AI use. I will turn them into Academic Integrity on Monday, but dread that there may be more.
(I already had 3 cases for the smaller writing assignment in the earlier part of the semester).

Update: I met with the student, who insisted they only used AI to format citations. When I pressed, they said they drafted the paper, and their parent, who is one of the highest ranking admins in another campus (if the student is reporting accurately) went through the draft and assisted them to improve their language and meet the word limits, etc. I cannot even ....

All concerned should have known better. I keep reiterating to students that a flawed good faith effort is better than a high standard achieved through non-allowed methods, but I guess the pressure gets the better of many of them.

I am going to report to student integrity today and let the cookies crumble where and how they may. Sigh ...

December goals:

• Work on book (would be nice to actually finish a chapter or two.
• Finish a chapter of T5.
• Work on T4 intro.

That ought to be plenty, given how much marking I have to do. It'll be nice to get back to work after sacrificing it all to moving.

Today: maybe some T4/5.

Quote from: the_geneticist on Today at 07:42:42 AMI wish I could give a raise or bonus to my awesome TAs. And insist on some sort of remedial training for the ones who simply refuse to be prepared.

Does your institution give them much chance to train for their work?  We had almost none when I was a TA in the 1990s.  There were a few pointers on paper grading, and that was about it.  I guess it wasn't that bad, since we didn't yet have course-management software to worry about.  It still makes me suspect that a lot of teaching assistants don't get much preparation for their jobs.