How is classroom teaching different from before the pandemic?

[artalot]

I think they are less engaged and attendance is way down at my uni - masks, social distancing and zooming have kept them apart from each other and from us. We need to re-teach engagement and get them excited again. I think one's ability to do that is closely tied to how burnt out one is.

[dr_evil]

I think they are less engaged and attendance is way down at my uni - masks, social distancing and zooming have kept them apart from each other and from us. We need to re-teach engagement and get them excited again. I think one's ability to do that is closely tied to how burnt out one is.

And I was burnt out before the pandemic.

On the plus side, being F2F helps them see me more as a real person and less as some anonymous Creator of Obstacles to Getting an A.

[the_geneticist]

The newest one that I don't recall much of before was the expectation from some students of a chance to do an assignment or exam over if they did poorly.

I'm seeing this one too.  And for all types of assignments: open notes quizzes, in-class worksheets, uploaded assignments, exams. 
Nope, you can't have another try after we've already graded it and given you feedback.

Also seeing this a lot. One even left the test after 20 minutes and emailed me later to say he would just take the makeup. Uh, there isn't one.

WOW.  That is some combination of cluelessness, entitlement, extreme hope.

The students are getting their first round of midterm exams here.  Sentiments like "but they HAVE to curve the scores"/"they can't fail ALL of us"/"but I didn't think the HARD things would be on the exam" are running high.

The exam in my class is next week.  I'm really hoping they use their time better than their peers last quarter.

[Anon1787]

The newest one that I don't recall much of before was the expectation from some students of a chance to do an assignment or exam over if they did poorly.

Response: "I'm not the Culligan Mulligan Man!"

[OneMoreYear]

<snip>

The students are getting their first round of midterm exams here.  Sentiments like "but they HAVE to curve the scores"/"they can't fail ALL of us"/"but I didn't think the HARD things would be on the exam" are running high.

The exam in my class is next week.  I'm really hoping they use their time better than their peers last quarter.

At previous job, a colleague had one particularly difficult class section, where this seemed to be their prevailing sentiment--that he could not fail them all. One day, he apparently asked them if they thought he could assign them all As if that's what they all earned. They assured him he could assign them all As. He then asked them why they assumed he could not assign them all Fs. 

[Wahoo Redux]

<snip>

The students are getting their first round of midterm exams here.  Sentiments like "but they HAVE to curve the scores"/"they can't fail ALL of us"/"but I didn't think the HARD things would be on the exam" are running high.

The exam in my class is next week.  I'm really hoping they use their time better than their peers last quarter.

At previous job, a colleague had one particularly difficult class section, where this seemed to be their prevailing sentiment--that he could not fail them all. One day, he apparently asked them if they thought he could assign them all As if that's what they all earned. They assured him he could assign them all As. He then asked them why they assumed he could not assign them all Fs.

What was the response?

[Anon1787]

<snip>

The students are getting their first round of midterm exams here.  Sentiments like "but they HAVE to curve the scores"/"they can't fail ALL of us"/"but I didn't think the HARD things would be on the exam" are running high.

The exam in my class is next week.  I'm really hoping they use their time better than their peers last quarter.

At previous job, a colleague had one particularly difficult class section, where this seemed to be their prevailing sentiment--that he could not fail them all. One day, he apparently asked them if they thought he could assign them all As if that's what they all earned. They assured him he could assign them all As. He then asked them why they assumed he could not assign them all Fs. 

Because adminicritters hate to see high fail rates and make life difficult for such professors?

[OneMoreYear]

<snip>

The students are getting their first round of midterm exams here.  Sentiments like "but they HAVE to curve the scores"/"they can't fail ALL of us"/"but I didn't think the HARD things would be on the exam" are running high.

The exam in my class is next week.  I'm really hoping they use their time better than their peers last quarter.

At previous job, a colleague had one particularly difficult class section, where this seemed to be their prevailing sentiment--that he could not fail them all. One day, he apparently asked them if they thought he could assign them all As if that's what they all earned. They assured him he could assign them all As. He then asked them why they assumed he could not assign them all Fs.

What was the response?

As far as I remember, the exchange went something like this:

Colleague: Do you all think  I can assign you all As if that's what you all earn?
Students: [emphatically] Yes!
Colleague: So, do you all think  I can assign you all Fs if that's what you all earn?
Students: [stunned silence]
small group of Students:  [less emphatically] No?
Colleague: Well why not?
Student A: because it's not fair
Colleague: It is fair to assign grades you earn
Student B: because you'd get fired
Colleague: I would not
Student C: you . .  you just can't do that. It's your job to teach us so we'll pass
Colleague: It is my job to teach. And it's your job to learn the material and demonstrate your knowledge on the tests.  Now, it seems like some of you are struggling on [recent material]. Let's dig into that. Who has a question about [Part 1]?

Because adminicritters hate to see high fail rates and make life difficult for such professors?

Colleague was a tenured full professor at a time/place where that meant something.   As far as I know, he never actually assigned F's for an entire class.

Sorry for the thread hijack. This was way before the pandemic.

[jerseyjay]

I once failed an entire class.

Before the pandemic, I was regularly teaching  (as an adjunct) an online introductory course for a community college. It was common for there to be failure rates of up to 50 per cent--mainly because students went to ground after a few weeks. If somebody does not submit the midterm or the final, it is hard to pass that person.

At some point , the administration got the idea that it should offer "late registration" courses, i.e, courses that start about three weeks late and run for the entire semester. The president of the college called my cell phone (!) to ask me to teach a section. The president explained that there were a lot of students who did not register on time, and the school was losing them to other community colleges that seemed to let people register for classes more than two weeks after classes start. This was a great way to maintain enrollment numbers, the president told me. I had my doubts, bu since they were now going to pay me for two sections, I agreed.

Well, you can imagine what happens when you take a course that usually has a high attrition rate, and make a section  only for students who were too unorganized to get their stuff together to register on time that is supposed to cover the same material with three less weeks.

Yes, every single student (about a dozen) stopped working somewhere around the midterm, and nobody turned in the final. I reached out to the students. I reached out to my chair. I reached out to the president (though I did not have his cellphone number). In the end, I had no choice but to fail all the students.

I was not fired, though I was never asked to teach a late registration course again, and the president has never called me again.

[marshwiggle]

I was not fired, though I was never asked to teach a late registration course again, and the president has never called me again.

So that's a win, then?

[the_geneticist]

I was not fired, though I was never asked to teach a late registration course again, and the president has never called me again.

So that's a win, then?

It's day that's a victory for you and a lesson learned the hard way for the school president.

[kiana]

Yeah, I ended up teaching an online, asynchronous, late start, beginning algebra class.

AGH.

3/20 passed (one got an A, they had been placed in intermediate and it took one week to nope out of that).

[jerseyjay]

I was not fired, though I was never asked to teach a late registration course again, and the president has never called me again.

So that's a win, then?

It's day that's a victory for you and a lesson learned the hard way for the school president.

Yes, it was a win. On a financial level, the class was really good. I got double the pay (two sections) for very little work. That said, it is very demoralizing when an entire class fails. I don't feel bad--I did all I could--but I still don't like that to happen.

For the school, I am not sure they learnt any lesson. First, I think it was a win for them, too. They got the tuition and fees of a dozen students for a semester. From talking to the president, I am not at all sure there was any broader (e.g., pedagogical) consideration. And the school still does offer these types of courses--late registration. Although these sections seem to be announced in advanced, not thrown together at the last minute, so they are actually more late start rather than late registration.

[To further hijack the thread, I am curious if other schools offer late registration/late start courses, and if they go any better than my experience.]

[kiana]

[To further hijack the thread, I am curious if other schools offer late registration/late start courses, and if they go any better than my experience.]

There are some groups of students who do very well in them. We are running a corequisite intermediate/college algebra and we have a late-start intermediate algebra course in the same time slot so that students can withdraw and join the slower class. We also tend to have solid results from classes that enroll high school dual enrollment students -- the late start begins after labor day and fits their schedule better.

[Caracal]

I think they are less engaged and attendance is way down at my uni - masks, social distancing and zooming have kept them apart from each other and from us. We need to re-teach engagement and get them excited again. I think one's ability to do that is closely tied to how burnt out one is.

That is something I've been working on in my gen ed courses. I've started thinking of engagement as the point of those courses. If I can get you to think this stuff is interesting and fun, then that's a win.