The Venting Thread

[EdnaMode]

This entire training on a "friendly syllabus" was just silly.

Our training was on the "hospitable" syllabus. Extended use of this metaphor made me think that someone's confused teaching college students with managing a Westin.

Accessibility or clarity, or fairness, though--that's all good.

Seriously, was there ever a student who actually carefully read through a syllabus, and referred to it regularly during a course?

The only ones who do read it through carefully, are those who are looking for a loophole to exploit.

[AmLitHist]

Everything I'm trying to do today--make comments in papers, upload graded work in Blackboard--is going bass-ackwards.  None of it's serious, but I'm ready to pull my hair out.

[Langue_doc]

This entire training on a "friendly syllabus" was just silly.

Our training was on the "hospitable" syllabus. Extended use of this metaphor made me think that someone's confused teaching college students with managing a Westin.

Accessibility or clarity, or fairness, though--that's all good.

Seriously, was there ever a student who actually carefully read through a syllabus, and referred to it regularly during a course?

This is a rhetorical question, right?

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

Unrelated.

Why do we have to do Early Alerts? If a student is failing everything in the course, does he/she really need to be told- 'Hey bud, you're not doing well in the course.'

[the_geneticist]

Unrelated.

Why do we have to do Early Alerts? If a student is failing everything in the course, does he/she really need to be told- 'Hey bud, you're not doing well in the course.'

Well, there is the "magical thinking" that if the student asks really hard for some extra credit that they will be given a good grade.

I send emails to students who are struggling, even though it's not asked.  Why?  It can save students from utter and complete disaster when their life is in chaos (easier to drop one class than to beg for a retroactive withdrawal).  And I am a big softie at heart who came from a tiny liberal arts school.  It makes me sad that students can so easily get lost or be overlooked in their huge classes.

[marshwiggle]

Unrelated.

Why do we have to do Early Alerts? If a student is failing everything in the course, does he/she really need to be told- 'Hey bud, you're not doing well in the course.'

Just last semsester I had a student who, at about halfway through the course was sitting at 17%. I emailed to say "You can't pass, so you should drop and take it again later if you want." Guess who didn't drop? Guess who I got contacted about a few weeks ago by the petitions committe, presumably asking for permission to retroactively drop the course?

[jimbogumbo]

The old Forum had a poster whose moniker was "Ellameno" or a spelling something like that.

M.

The ABC song made an appearance on SNL Weekend Update (also a segment on a couple who cancel children on Twitter):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sf-sMJ2PwyY

[Langue_doc]

Back to the thread--

Unrelated.

Why do we have to do Early Alerts? If a student is failing everything in the course, does he/she really need to be told- 'Hey bud, you're not doing well in the course.'

Well, there is the "magical thinking" that if the student asks really hard for some extra credit that they will be given a good grade.

I send emails to students who are struggling, even though it's not asked.  Why?  It can save students from utter and complete disaster when their life is in chaos (easier to drop one class than to beg for a retroactive withdrawal).  And I am a big softie at heart who came from a tiny liberal arts school.  It makes me sad that students can so easily get lost or be overlooked in their huge classes.

I also send emails to the struggling students along with a copy of their grades (thanks to Canvas). This helps them decide whether to withdraw or change their study habits.

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

Back to the thread--

Unrelated.

Why do we have to do Early Alerts? If a student is failing everything in the course, does he/she really need to be told- 'Hey bud, you're not doing well in the course.'

Well, there is the "magical thinking" that if the student asks really hard for some extra credit that they will be given a good grade.

I send emails to students who are struggling, even though it's not asked.  Why?  It can save students from utter and complete disaster when their life is in chaos (easier to drop one class than to beg for a retroactive withdrawal).  And I am a big softie at heart who came from a tiny liberal arts school.  It makes me sad that students can so easily get lost or be overlooked in their huge classes.

I also send emails to the struggling students along with a copy of their grades (thanks to Canvas). This helps them decide whether to withdraw or change their study habits.

I know. I'm not heartless, I guess I'm just amazed by the magical thinking that some students have. I can't help students who don't check their emails or read the announcements though...

[Langue_doc]

Back to the thread--

Unrelated.

Why do we have to do Early Alerts? If a student is failing everything in the course, does he/she really need to be told- 'Hey bud, you're not doing well in the course.'

Well, there is the "magical thinking" that if the student asks really hard for some extra credit that they will be given a good grade.

I send emails to students who are struggling, even though it's not asked.  Why?  It can save students from utter and complete disaster when their life is in chaos (easier to drop one class than to beg for a retroactive withdrawal).  And I am a big softie at heart who came from a tiny liberal arts school.  It makes me sad that students can so easily get lost or be overlooked in their huge classes.

I also send emails to the struggling students along with a copy of their grades (thanks to Canvas). This helps them decide whether to withdraw or change their study habits.

I know. I'm not heartless, I guess I'm just amazed by the magical thinking that some students have. I can't help students who don't check their emails or read the announcements though...

It's always a good idea to CYA.

[AvidReader]

I teach several dual enrollment courses run through high schools that have local high school teachers assigned (and paid) to "facilitate" my courses. Students at one of my schools are doing poorly, and the facilitator and I do not always communicate well. Last week, the facilitator emailed with a query about how to make one of their college essays for me work with a high school essay (for the facilitator's class).

I responded with some suggestions, and added a note with some concerns I had about their most recent essay, which had numerous and serious citation errors that were consistent across the whole class. I was trying to find out, tactfully, if these were erroneous techniques that the facilitator had suggested/condoned, since they didn't match the guidelines in my handouts, the textbook, or my videos.

The facilitator never replied to me, but this morning one of our mutual students sent me an email and explained that the facilitator had forwarded my email to the entire class. Thus all the motivated students are emailing in a panic to find out if their essays contained the concerning citation errors, and I still can't find out where these bizarre approaches originated.

I don't want to throw the teacher under the bus. Instructor has a MA, probably from my university, and a giant chip on the shoulder. And it is important to teach students to respect instructors. On the other hand, these students are contravening guidance given in the textbook, my handouts, and my videos.

Can the instructor just respond to my email like an adult before forwarding it to students that I am trying to protect from what are probably the instructor's own errors?

UGH!

AR.

[Vkw10]

Never, ever agree to "do more with less". When your budget, faculty, and staff get cut, you should invest time looking for activities that you can stop doing. Do less with less!

I've heard that "We"ll all have to figure out how to Do More With Less speech before. It ends with lots of unhappy, burnt out people who do shoddy work from sheer exhaustion. My department is actively looking for activities to stop doing. We have fewer resources, so we will Do Less With Less.

[mamselle]

The facilitator never replied to me, but this morning one of our mutual students sent me an email and explained that the facilitator had forwarded my email to the entire class. Thus all the motivated students are emailing in a panic to find out if their essays contained the concerning citation errors, and I still can't find out where these bizarre approaches originated.

Since it could be construed as a simple reply to the one student who originally emailed you, perhaps you could just ask them, peaceably and low-energy-like, in a direct email reply to just that student, how they happened to use that reference style? Like you were just curious, and you wondered...

Might be the simplest, and it wouldn't throw the instructor under the bus because you'd just be asking as if you planned to leave them at the bus stop.

M.

[Cheerful]

Never, ever agree to "do more with less". When your budget, faculty, and staff get cut, you should invest time looking for activities that you can stop doing. Do less with less!

I've heard that "We"ll all have to figure out how to Do More With Less speech before. It ends with lots of unhappy, burnt out people who do shoddy work from sheer exhaustion. My department is actively looking for activities to stop doing. We have fewer resources, so we will Do Less With Less.

Agree.  Attempts to do More With Less rarely end well.  Unhappy, exhausted people (throw in no raises in recent memory) may implement coping strategies that don't serve the organization well.  A challenge in gaining buy-in for Do Less With Less is when dept. chair/dean are not on board.  Their failure to acknowledge reality inevitably backfires on them, sooner or later.

[apl68]

Never, ever agree to "do more with less". When your budget, faculty, and staff get cut, you should invest time looking for activities that you can stop doing. Do less with less!

I've heard that "We"ll all have to figure out how to Do More With Less speech before. It ends with lots of unhappy, burnt out people who do shoddy work from sheer exhaustion. My department is actively looking for activities to stop doing. We have fewer resources, so we will Do Less With Less.

I've seen that advice given to librarians who face budget cuts.  If you are told that your periodical budget has been cut, then let it be known that titles will be cut, and make sure patrons know why some of their accustomed periodicals are no longer there.  Make sure that patrons feel the loss of service, and that they know who to thank for the cuts. 

So far I've never been placed in that position.  Nearly all of our budget comes from a dedicated property rate--we can't have it cut by anything short of a deliberate voter campaign.  What we're looking at is the probability of gradual long-term erosion of revenues as the community shrinks.