Favorite student emails

[Zeus Bird]

It happens every single semester. 

Email from stu who has been absent and out-of-contact for months: "Prof, I'm not one to make excuses." 

A excuse 1/2 the length of an assigned essay follows, along with various attempts at emotional blackmail.

Don't state and federal agencies have laws about awarding university credit to students who have not garnered even a minimum level of seat-time?

[mamselle]

Dunno about credit, per se, but I believe student loans can be rescinded for non-attendance.

M.

[onehappyunicorn]

Are you still finding a lot of students who can only write stereotyped five-paragraph essays?  I remember a lot of complaints about that at the Fora some years back.

Yes, that is fairly consistent I am afraid.

It has gotten bad enough that we are seriously contemplating requiring all students to pass a test on plagiarism and how to properly cite before they can access course content. Some of our instructors already have something like that in place but we may standardize it. Students learn about plagiarism and citing in the first english class they are required to take here but our art, music, and drama gen ed courses don't have prerequisites. In consequence a sizeable portion of students end up in our classes with only what they learned in high school.

I did that this semester and it didn't make a damn bit of difference.  Everyone watched the video, wrote up their answers and the paragraph summarizing what they learned, and then at least 50% of the students in each of three different sections plagiarized the second assignment (mostly by copying definitions from the text without quotation marks/citations/references, even though the instructions reminded them to quote/cite/reference direct quotes). 

I imagine we'll probably see the same, unfortunately. What we hope to cut down on is the time spent in student appeals.

There are some well-meaning folks on the "student success" side who use the excuse that students don't know what plagiarism is to push for those students to be given another chance at an assignment. 

[Caracal]

Are you still finding a lot of students who can only write stereotyped five-paragraph essays?  I remember a lot of complaints about that at the Fora some years back.

Yes, that is fairly consistent I am afraid.

It has gotten bad enough that we are seriously contemplating requiring all students to pass a test on plagiarism and how to properly cite before they can access course content. Some of our instructors already have something like that in place but we may standardize it. Students learn about plagiarism and citing in the first english class they are required to take here but our art, music, and drama gen ed courses don't have prerequisites. In consequence a sizeable portion of students end up in our classes with only what they learned in high school.

I did that this semester and it didn't make a damn bit of difference.  Everyone watched the video, wrote up their answers and the paragraph summarizing what they learned, and then at least 50% of the students in each of three different sections plagiarized the second assignment (mostly by copying definitions from the text without quotation marks/citations/references, even though the instructions reminded them to quote/cite/reference direct quotes). 

I imagine we'll probably see the same, unfortunately. What we hope to cut down on is the time spent in student appeals.

There are some well-meaning folks on the "student success" side who use the excuse that students don't know what plagiarism is to push for those students to be given another chance at an assignment.

The problem is that plagiarism is usually some combination of ignorance, laziness, cluelessness and desperation. Educating students about it is good, but its really only going to help with the ignorance part-a student who really does have good intentions and doesn't understand the rules. For people who aren't paying much attention, they might watch the video and write something on it, but they aren't going to remember it when they write their paper.

For what its worth, I don't really think of what Fosca described as plagiarism-or not the kind that I would report and go through the formal channels for. If the student is using a text they are required to use for the paper, but they use direct quotations without the citation, its hard to imagine they were trying to take credit for work they didn't produce. Of course, if they just copied most of the paper from the book, that's different, but if its just that quotes don't have the quotation marks around them, I would treat that as a technical issue, rather than a case of academic dishonesty.

To my mind, its very different from if a student just grabs some random text off the internet and uses it.

[the_geneticist]

I tried using the automatically scored fill-in-the-blank feature in Canvas.  I'm seriously regretting that choice since students are VERY creative in their capitalization, spacing, and hyphenation choices.  I've had to do a LOT of regrades.
And then I get this gem:

Hello Professor [name spelled wrong] I got a 0.5 on the worksheet on quesitions II and was wondreing if you could look over it. My name is [student] part of the [wrong class name]

My money is on a spelling error.

I'm OK if their spelling isn't perfect, but it needs to be 1) close to the actual answer and 2) not a word that means something else.  Like the difference between lactose and lactase.  The first is a sugar, the second is an enzyme.  Students often learn the hard way that one letter can make that much of a difference.

[apl68]

And then I get this gem:

Hello Professor [name spelled wrong] I got a 0.5 on the worksheet on quesitions II and was wondreing if you could look over it. My name is [student] part of the [wrong class name]

It's really sad that a college student (even an undergrad) can't spell "geneticist." 

[the_geneticist]

And then I get this gem:

Hello Professor [name spelled wrong] I got a 0.5 on the worksheet on quesitions II and was wondreing if you could look over it. My name is [student] part of the [wrong class name]

It's really sad that a college student (even an undergrad) can't spell "geneticist."

Well, it's not really Dr. Geneticist.  But my last name is often misspelled by swapping two letters.  Like the difference between Dr. Cats and Dr. Cast

[Parasaurolophus]

I tried using the automatically scored fill-in-the-blank feature in Canvas.  I'm seriously regretting that choice since students are VERY creative in their capitalization, spacing, and hyphenation choices.  I've had to do a LOT of regrades.
And then I get this gem:

Yup. I converted all of mine to the one where they select answers from a dropdown menu rather than type them in. In addition to weird spelling and punctuation, I used to get long justifications for the answers. Sigh.

[fosca]

For what its worth, I don't really think of what Fosca described as plagiarism-or not the kind that I would report and go through the formal channels for. If the student is using a text they are required to use for the paper, but they use direct quotations without the citation, its hard to imagine they were trying to take credit for work they didn't produce. Of course, if they just copied most of the paper from the book, that's different, but if its just that quotes don't have the quotation marks around them, I would treat that as a technical issue, rather than a case of academic dishonesty.

To my mind, its very different from if a student just grabs some random text off the internet and uses it.

True; I didn't report them and they didn't earn a zero.  But when I made it very clear in my presentation and in the instructions that they were to use quotation marks and citations/references and they didn't use any of them, they lost a LOT of points. If they had a citation but no quotation marks or vice/versa, they lost a few points.  And in both cases got a lot of feedback as to why they lost the points.

I do consider it plagiarism; they are presenting someone else's words as their own work in their writing.  It's just a misdemeanor rather than a felony; felonies earn a much harsher penalty.

[Liquidambar]

I uploaded a student's grade to the CMS several days ago--no problems, no complaints.  Then she missed the last class of the semester when I would have handed her my written feedback.  I scanned all the written comments I still had and emailed them to the students.

Within minutes, this student wrote back to challenge her assignment grade, which frankly was pretty generous given how poor her performance was.  I try to do something nice for someone!  Next semester I'll upload these to the CMS where nobody looks.

[Langue_doc]

First line of an email from Stu sent a few minutes ago:

Hi Professor, I sent you an email yesterday...

Today is Sunday, yesterday was Saturday. Stu knows quite well that I don't respond to emails over the weekend or during the break.

What prompted this email and a couple more from Stu's classmates? I'm grading assignments; Stus were given a second chance to revise and resubmit three of their assignments.

If only students would check the directions for their assignments as assiduously as they monitor my comments!

[Parasaurolophus]

[Hi dear instructor, hope you are doing well, [redacted] here. I read the feedback that you gave me for my final essay. I did all good according to me. I would like to submit it again with improvement. I request you to give me one chance to submit it again. These grades are very low and will affect my gpa. I do not want to lose grades. I will submit it tomorrow as soon as I can. It will be very helpful for me if you can give me another chance.
Thank you.][/quote]

According to me, you didn't follow my instructions and so your paper does not meet the minimum standards for a passing grade.

Tomorrow is the marking deadline.

[the_geneticist]

[Hi dear instructor, hope you are doing well, [redacted] here. I read the feedback that you gave me for my final essay. I did all good according to me. I would like to submit it again with improvement. I request you to give me one chance to submit it again. These grades are very low and will affect my gpa. I do not want to lose grades. I will submit it tomorrow as soon as I can. It will be very helpful for me if you can give me another chance.
Thank you.]

According to me, you didn't follow my instructions and so your paper does not meet the minimum standards for a passing grade.

Tomorrow is the marking deadline.
[/quote]

Ugh.  One of the worst pandemic-influenced learning habits is that students are acting like everything is negotiable/flexible.  Better document on this one.  A complaint of "Dr. P wouldn't grade my revised essay!" is easily countered by "There was no option to revise.  You final version was due on X date."   

[EdnaMode]

This is not a student email, but a mommy email, cc'd to Stu (whose name in mommy's email address book is listed as something nauseatingly similar to "sweetie" or "baby"). Thankfully I have my email on autoreply and say for any advising issues to contact the advising office, for everything else contact the engineering office, and I'll be back the week before classes start. I only opened Outlook to download an attachment sent by a colleague that I needed for some consulting we're doing.

Note that she uses MY first name, not Dr. Mode, or Prof Mode, or even Ms./Mrs. Mode but signs her name as Mrs. Stu's Lastname. I have no idea who Stu is, perhaps an incoming freshpeep and I've somehow been assigned as his advisor (but normally freshpeeps are advised by our advising office, faculty only get declared majors to advise). And if she can find enough info to get my email address, she can also find my office phone number because goodness knows she's not getting my personal number. **sigh** If she doesn't get what she needs from the advising office I'll have to dust off my FERPA speech and tell her [as politely as I can muster] that Stu needs to fend for himself, especially if he's not a freshpeep.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Hi Edna,

I'm Stu's mom and wanted to know if we could schedule a time that we could talk to you about his schedule and a couple other things. Can you let us know what days/times you might be available? Also a good number to call you.

Thanks!

Mrs. Stu's Lastname

Sent from my iPhone
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

[RatGuy]

This is not a student email, but a mommy email, cc'd to Stu (whose name in mommy's email address book is listed as something nauseatingly similar to "sweetie" or "baby"). Thankfully I have my email on autoreply and say for any advising issues to contact the advising office, for everything else contact the engineering office, and I'll be back the week before classes start. I only opened Outlook to download an attachment sent by a colleague that I needed for some consulting we're doing.

Note that she uses MY first name, not Dr. Mode, or Prof Mode, or even Ms./Mrs. Mode but signs her name as Mrs. Stu's Lastname. I have no idea who Stu is, perhaps an incoming freshpeep and I've somehow been assigned as his advisor (but normally freshpeeps are advised by our advising office, faculty only get declared majors to advise). And if she can find enough info to get my email address, she can also find my office phone number because goodness knows she's not getting my personal number. **sigh** If she doesn't get what she needs from the advising office I'll have to dust off my FERPA speech and tell her [as politely as I can muster] that Stu needs to fend for himself, especially if he's not a freshpeep.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Hi Edna,

I'm Stu's mom and wanted to know if we could schedule a time that we could talk to you about his schedule and a couple other things. Can you let us know what days/times you might be available? Also a good number to call you.

Thanks!

Mrs. Stu's Lastname

Sent from my iPhone
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I tend to ignore such emails. I get them less frequently then calls on my office phone. Often parents complain that they've been transferred to my extension. Often their questions boil down to "can you get my kid into Basketweaving when that's not even my department. Sometimes they're miffed that I don't know anything, but more often they're as confused as I am.