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

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

No student. You cannot 'pause' the quiz and go back to it on another day. It doesn't work that way. SMDH.

[dr_evil]

Ugh! If one more person asks for the data that I explained how to find in the introduction to the lab, answered three times already while we were doing the lab, and IS WRITTEN a) in the procedure and b) at the top of the data table, my head will explo....BOOM!

[dismalist]

About a billion years ago we had these labs in which test tubes were made to clash and then we reported the results.

A combination music and science lab?  Sounds like an interesting pedagogical experiment!

I've always bounced both ways! :-)

[arcturus]

I have an assignment due tomorrow that uses expensive, complicated, software that is supposed to be available to all students at this university for free. The IT folks removed it from the university computers last night. In the middle of the term. With no notification. When queried, the IT folks said that the students should just download the software and install it on their own computers. As if all of our students have their own personal computers that have space and sufficient compute power to run this software. No. Just no.

[mamselle]

You have permission to not only bang your head on the desk, but tear your hair out, start dancing complicated steps on the IT room's collective desks to loud drumbeat tapes, and run screaming up and down the hall until they re-load the software.

I'd start now if I were you.

Sheesh.

M.

[arcturus]

Thank you, mamselle. I have started screaming up the chain-of-command. It will not rescue this assignment, but may cause them to re-install the software in time for the next one. I don't know what I will do if they don't...this software is integral to my class.

[mamselle]

They have ways of looking at user stats to determine density of use; it's a bit early in the semester to be getting rid of stuff without, say, checking last semester's stats, or those of two years ago (or whenever the class last ran) to see when it was being accessed over the term and how many were using it.

Or, just, like, ask?

I mean, it suggests communication and contacting a professor and all, but they should know how to do that with all their high-falutin' equipment, I should think....

M.

[Parasaurolophus]

New complaint - does anyone read the freaking syllabus anymore? Even after I told them multiples times? Anybody? Anywhere? Class time is CLEARLY marked.  Hmmppff.

In fairness, even I don't read the syllabus--at least, not the mandatory 12 pages of blather which aren't the schedule of readings and the assignments.

[Aster]

No student. You cannot 'pause' the quiz and go back to it on another day. It doesn't work that way. SMDH.

I had two students this week that opened up their online assignments (which are not timed), and then continued to leave them open until their LMS accounts timed out and the assignments auto-submitted.

Sometimes I forget that there must still be some students entering college that have never used an LMS in their K-12 system. Ah well, they tend to pick it up pretty quick.

[Aster]

Stu Dent: "Professor, I don't have my textbook, so I didn't do any of the assigned work from this week and last week. Once I get the book, can you let me take all of the work again?"

Wow. This kid is really leaving that pretty open-ended isn't he? Whenever he gets the book? Jeez.

Now if only he came to class or followed directions, he'd know that copies of the first chapters of the textbook are posted online. Or maybe he does know, and is just a slacker. Eh, I don't care. That's three zeroes in the gradebook.

[fishbrains]

Stu Dent: "Professor, I don't have my textbook, so I didn't do any of the assigned work from this week and last week. Once I get the book, can you let me take all of the work again?"

Wow. This kid is really leaving that pretty open-ended isn't he? Whenever he gets the book? Jeez.

Now if only he came to class or followed directions, he'd know that copies of the first chapters of the textbook are posted online. Or maybe he does know, and is just a slacker. Eh, I don't care. That's three zeroes in the gradebook.

I have one of those students. It's hard not to respond with, "Hopefully, you'll have the book in time to successfully retake the course next semester." But I'm pretty sure that's not how we are supposed to "work with students."

[kaysixteen]

Errr, how many hs students have used a college-style learning management software set-up?

[Antiphon1]

Uhm.... the students who completed dual credit or perhaps the students who have been working online for the last 18 or so months?  I am in no way defending the sleep walkers and/or chronically distracted people who take online education less than seriously.  But really, many of my students have used an LMS because of remote learning.  Which doesn't mean the student was the person completing the work just that they were enrolled in class offered on a platform. 

[Aster]

Errr, how many hs students have used a college-style learning management software set-up?

Loads of them do, especially over the last two years. And the LMS that many students are best acquainted with is Canvas. It was originally designed for high schools, and prototyped in high schools. Higher Ed adopted it later. One of the legacy "tells" that betrays it's high school origins is how professors are labeled as "teachers." This bothers some of my colleagues to no end.

Canvas is adopted in school districts in all 50 U.S. states, and is now used in middle schools as well as high schools. Over a dozen states have adopted it as their LMS standard for their public high schools systems.

[kaysixteen]

Awright, I have not been associated with a public hs in almost 30 years, and I get that many such schools, along with likely not a few elite private ones, use such software.   This is however another example of the enormous differences between those American hss who are the haves, and those that are not.