The Venting Thread

[Puget]

You haven't done anything yet.  What grade did you think it would show?

100.... you have not taken any points off yet!!

In fairness, it's not unlikely that at some time or another many of these students have had teachers who expressed it that way--everybody starts off with a (potentially) perfect score, and must seek not to lose it by failing to complete assignments properly.  It's not hard to see students taking that sort of thing too literally.

You're probably right, but that's a horrible way for a teacher to do things. It basically ensures that everyone's scores will go down through the course, which sends the opposite message from what you want pedagogically.

I vote for neither of these options -- at least in Moodle, you can just set it to just exclude ungraded/submitted work from the course grade, so they start out with no grade, and their grade is always just based on what has been submitted and graded so far. This seems far less confusing for the students, who just want to know where they currently stand.

[downer]

A new vent - 3 students have emailed me today, the start of the semester, complaining that the gradebook shows they have a failing  grade.

Yeah, duh.  You haven't done anything yet.  What grade did you think it would show?

I drop the lowest grade for some assignments. I set it up online. Students routinely write asking after the first assignment why their grade was dropped. I've taken to writing a pre-emptive explanation.

[marshwiggle]

You haven't done anything yet.  What grade did you think it would show?

100.... you have not taken any points off yet!!

In fairness, it's not unlikely that at some time or another many of these students have had teachers who expressed it that way--everybody starts off with a (potentially) perfect score, and must seek not to lose it by failing to complete assignments properly.  It's not hard to see students taking that sort of thing too literally.

You're probably right, but that's a horrible way for a teacher to do things. It basically ensures that everyone's scores will go down through the course, which sends the opposite message from what you want pedagogically.

I vote for neither of these options -- at least in Moodle, you can just set it to just exclude ungraded/submitted work from the course grade, so they start out with no grade, and their grade is always just based on what has been submitted and graded so far. This seems far less confusing for the students, who just want to know where they currently stand.

The problem with that is that early low-stakes things can give students a false sense of security, where a later high-stakes item can make their grade drop precipitously.

I like using cumulative grades so at any given moment, "This is what you'll get if you don't do anything else in the course. Nothing you do from this point on can lower your grade." It reinforces the idea that doing more is always potentially to their benefit.

[Puget]

You haven't done anything yet.  What grade did you think it would show?

100.... you have not taken any points off yet!!

In fairness, it's not unlikely that at some time or another many of these students have had teachers who expressed it that way--everybody starts off with a (potentially) perfect score, and must seek not to lose it by failing to complete assignments properly.  It's not hard to see students taking that sort of thing too literally.

You're probably right, but that's a horrible way for a teacher to do things. It basically ensures that everyone's scores will go down through the course, which sends the opposite message from what you want pedagogically.

I vote for neither of these options -- at least in Moodle, you can just set it to just exclude ungraded/submitted work from the course grade, so they start out with no grade, and their grade is always just based on what has been submitted and graded so far. This seems far less confusing for the students, who just want to know where they currently stand.

The problem with that is that early low-stakes things can give students a false sense of security, where a later high-stakes item can make their grade drop precipitously.

I like using cumulative grades so at any given moment, "This is what you'll get if you don't do anything else in the course. Nothing you do from this point on can lower your grade." It reinforces the idea that doing more is always potentially to their benefit.

I suppose it depends on the type of students you have. My students would absolutely flip out if they couldn't see their current grade and appeared to be failing at the beginning of the semester, and seem to well understand that their grade will go up and down as the semester progresses.

[the_geneticist]

I use the "show how many points you've earned so far" method. 
I hope that I'm avoiding the false security of high grades from low-points, low-stakes assignments. 
One downside is I have to remind TAs to put in 0s for the missing work so the grades are accurate.

[Parasaurolophus]

I have a group of students who don't know how to use a discussion board. I make weekly threads for questions, checking in, etc., but they're all posting stuff as separate threads, which makes a lot of clutter. Ugh.

[AmLitHist]

Just got a nastygram from my dean, via my chair, about office hours.  I have mine starting at 7:15 a.m TR, before I teach at 9:30--but this got rejected because the campus doesn't "officially" open until 8 a.m.

Seriously?

1.  I have NEVER, in 20+ years, had office hours starting later than 7:30 a.m., and usually they've been earlier.
2.  Our dept office opens at 7:30, and has for several years (used to open at 6:30, then 7:00).  WHY, if we who work in the office aren't allowed to see students before 8?
3.  If I teach an 8:00 a.m. class, am I supposed to roll up in the parking lot at 8 and dash to the classroom?  Because I'm sure as hell not coming in before then and working without getting paid/credit for being there.

The dean and other PTB never show up until 9:00 or, usually, later. I suppose they want their minions to not have to come in too early so they can watch the parking lot to see when faculty arrive, so we can catch hell if we're late.

Funny they never tell us we shouldn't/can't work with students, do prep, grade, or answer idiotic Admin messages after 10 p.m., or on weekends, when the campus is closed--that's not only allowed, but expected. Yeah, buddy, this is absolutely one of the Best Places to Work in the region! <dripping with sarcasm> At least the slave drivers at Amazon et al. bring in free lunches, have drawings for cool incentive prizes, etc.  Here, we don't even get warm tap water and stale saltines for our trouble.

If I felt better, I'd raise a royal conniption to the union, but I don't, so I won't. Miserable bastards. This might not be a major issue, in the big picture, but it's just so damned typical. I've got to get the hell out of this place. Another buyout/RIF wouldn't be the worst thing in the world for me and so many others among my colleagues right now.

[fishbrains]

Uggers. We had to have some pretty terse conversations with those admin who wanted to "go back to normal" regarding office hours and such after Covid.

We finally had to say that if office hours were simply boxes for admins to check off, that was fine; however, it would be administratively incompetent for them to pretend it benefitted students in any way at our commuter, and increasingly online, CC. Students had learned a scheduled Zoom on their phone was far better than their driving all the way to campus just to find out faculty weren't allowed to talk about financial aid.

It didn't get too ugly, but pretty intense. They were surprised by the pushback. And, to give them credit, they listened to us, something we let them know we appreciate.

Anyway, good luck with this.

[Parasaurolophus]

Just got a nastygram from my dean, via my chair, about office hours.  I have mine starting at 7:15 a.m TR, before I teach at 9:30--but this got rejected because the campus doesn't "officially" open until 8 a.m.

Seriously?

1.  I have NEVER, in 20+ years, had office hours starting later than 7:30 a.m., and usually they've been earlier.
2.  Our dept office opens at 7:30, and has for several years (used to open at 6:30, then 7:00).  WHY, if we who work in the office aren't allowed to see students before 8?
3.  If I teach an 8:00 a.m. class, am I supposed to roll up in the parking lot at 8 and dash to the classroom?  Because I'm sure as hell not coming in before then and working without getting paid/credit for being there.

The dean and other PTB never show up until 9:00 or, usually, later. I suppose they want their minions to not have to come in too early so they can watch the parking lot to see when faculty arrive, so we can catch hell if we're late.

Funny they never tell us we shouldn't/can't work with students, do prep, grade, or answer idiotic Admin messages after 10 p.m., or on weekends, when the campus is closed--that's not only allowed, but expected. Yeah, buddy, this is absolutely one of the Best Places to Work in the region! <dripping with sarcasm> At least the slave drivers at Amazon et al. bring in free lunches, have drawings for cool incentive prizes, etc.  Here, we don't even get warm tap water and stale saltines for our trouble.

If I felt better, I'd raise a royal conniption to the union, but I don't, so I won't. Miserable bastards. This might not be a major issue, in the big picture, but it's just so damned typical. I've got to get the hell out of this place. Another buyout/RIF wouldn't be the worst thing in the world for me and so many others among my colleagues right now.

Oof, I feel you.

For my part, I'm required to host six hours of office hours a week. Most weeks, nobody comes; sometimes I see as many as one student.

My solution has been to alter the office hours I post to the LMS (and on the syllabus) after the syllabus has been approved, so that I actually host two hours a week, and then make appointments for those who can't come at those times. When I'm caught I'll get a talking-to, but until then my life is much improved.

[AmLitHist]

I'm in English at a CC. Normal load and office hours for all other disciplines are 5/5, with 10 office hours per week; all must be F2F office hours, with the exception that you can offer ONE online office hour per 3-credit hour online class.

For English faculty (per the union contract, for 40+ years), we get the "break" of having to teach a 4/4--and at least 3 of those classes each semester must be writing (not lit) classes; to punish us for that break, we have to keep 13 office hours each week (with the same F2F/online rules). Plus, we also have to schedule one office hour per 3-credit hour overload class (if we get any OL anymore).  Never mind that I've kept records for the past 5 years, and my average is TWO students per semester visiting during F2F office hours for that entire span (pretty consistent with my pre-COVID numbers). Far more common are those who want to meet virtually, which is OK with me.

Luckily (?), because of my long-term ADA, I only get scheduled to teach in the same building where my office is.  However, many colleagues (both English and others) teach in the recently-renovated building next door, where the tiled hallways have been standing in water every day since we came back in mid-January. Something is clearly screwed up with the HVAC engineering, and the sub-zero temps and then last week's constant fog have caused the floors and concrete-block walls to "sweat" uncontrollably. Talk about a lawsuit waiting to happen (and a colleague actually did catch herself last week, with the help of several students who saw her right before she crashed onto the floor). 

Yet we're putting up new buildings like there's no tomorrow, while enrollments are so poor that several FT tenured people in my department couldn't make load this spring without taking on classes from other departments and/or piddling BS admin work. If you build it, they will come, my a$$.

Yep. One of the Best Places to Work. That's us. I know, I know: "Just be glad you have a job." But I'm not sure why. (Ideally, I need to work 4 more years before I retire, but we'll see.)

[Parasaurolophus]

I'm in English at a CC. Normal load and office hours for all other disciplines are 5/5, with 10 office hours per week; all must be F2F office hours, with the exception that you can offer ONE online office hour per 3-credit hour online class.

For English faculty (per the union contract, for 40+ years), we get the "break" of having to teach a 4/4--and at least 3 of those classes each semester must be writing (not lit) classes; to punish us for that break, we have to keep 13 office hours each week (with the same F2F/online rules). Plus, we also have to schedule one office hour per 3-credit hour overload class (if we get any OL anymore).  Never mind that I've kept records for the past 5 years, and my average is TWO students per semester visiting during F2F office hours for that entire span (pretty consistent with my pre-COVID numbers). Far more common are those who want to meet virtually, which is OK with me.

Uuuuuuuuugh, okay, you win (/lose)!


New vent: accessing my institutional email now requires (1) my email password, (2) an app, (3) a password for the app, (4) a code sent to the app, and (5) the app password again. They should call it five-factor authentication, not "two".

I sure am glad my Super Important Email Account is secure!

[apl68]

That sounds almost as awful to deal with as SAM.gov.  And sounds like massive overkill for a simple college e-mail account.

[fishbrains]

I'm in English at a CC. Normal load and office hours for all other disciplines are 5/5, with 10 office hours per week; all must be F2F office hours, with the exception that you can offer ONE online office hour per 3-credit hour online class.

For English faculty (per the union contract, for 40+ years), we get the "break" of having to teach a 4/4--and at least 3 of those classes each semester must be writing (not lit) classes; to punish us for that break, we have to keep 13 office hours each week (with the same F2F/online rules). Plus, we also have to schedule one office hour per 3-credit hour overload class (if we get any OL anymore).  Never mind that I've kept records for the past 5 years, and my average is TWO students per semester visiting during F2F office hours for that entire span (pretty consistent with my pre-COVID numbers). Far more common are those who want to meet virtually, which is OK with me.

This was us in terms of office hours prior to Covid. Covid has been one of the best things to happen to faculty, at least at my institution.

Sounds like the lowest bidder kind of building.

[EdnaMode]

At my institution, for a grade appeal to be upheld, it has to be proven by the student that the faculty member did not follow institutional specific procedures, did something in violation of the course syllabus, or did not give the student the same opportunities to earn a passing grade as they gave the rest of the students in the course. It's pretty clear cut.

We have had a rash of grade appeals over the past few semesters, not a single one of them has been upheld. One of my colleagues had five in one class, none of them were upheld. I have one that just finished, and again, the appeal was not upheld. It takes a lot of time for faculty to provide supporting documentation as it rises through the levels and one of my colleagues said, and I agree with him, that there should be some sort of penalty for students whose appeals are not upheld. Another colleague said that there should be a limit to the number of appeals allowed, maybe one a year, and like in professional football, if you challenge a play and are wrong, you lose a timeout or incur a 15-yard penalty. Therefore if a student appeals their grade for no valid reason aside from being unhappy, they should have one of their future appeals taken away. I swear if they'd put as much effort into doing the work for a course as they do in appealing the unfairness of it all, maybe they'd pass.

[Parasaurolophus]

I was approved to use faculty-reserved parking spots this semester.


Yesterday, I was ticketed ($100!) for using a faculty-reserved parking spot. =/