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

[the_geneticist]

Apparently, based on these papers I've been grading, students can now graduate from high school with absolutely no sense of what a research source is, much less ever having used one. Documentation is also a completely new word for them.

Argh!

I doubt that anyone really collects data on this stuff. From talking to a few people my impression is that the main motivation of administrators in HS is to get all the students graduated, no matter what.

And the "everyone graduates" plus the pandemic means our freshmen have mostly had a really odd senior year of high school.  They are going to need a lot of scaffolding and training.

[marshwiggle]

Apparently, based on these papers I've been grading, students can now graduate from high school with absolutely no sense of what a research source is, much less ever having used one. Documentation is also a completely new word for them.

Argh!

I doubt that anyone really collects data on this stuff. From talking to a few people my impression is that the main motivation of administrators in HS is to get all the students graduated, no matter what.

And the "everyone graduates" plus the pandemic means our freshmen have mostly had a really odd senior year of high school.  They are going to need a lot of scaffolding and training.

This is the double edged sword of compulsory public education. When the government has to essentially make sure everyone "graduates", it's vastly easier to lower the bar to "graduation" than deal with all of the complex, (and in some cases still unsolved), issues regarding academic achievement.

[the_geneticist]

Dear TAs,
The graduate level course you are taking is only offered in person.  You are all teaching your labs/discussions/whatever IN PERSON.  No, I will not move the class to a hybrid format because "some of you might be in contact with immunocompromised folks/people over age 65/have children under age 12 that don't attend school".  I'd change the class for documented need for accommodation (e.g. living with an immunocompromised partner/parent/roommate).  But I'm not changing the format due to a hypothetical need.  Yes, we will all wear masks.  Yes, we can sanitize the surfaces.  Yes, we can sit 6 feet apart.  No, you cannot Zoom in.  You can always drop the class & take it later. 

[Anon1787]

Stu claims to have been so traumatized by an encounter with the police that Stu could not take the exam and could not notify me until a week after the exam. Yet Stu managed to endure the torture of me droning on in a Zoom session 2 days after the exam. Stu also has not completed any of the assignments or viewed any of the content modules beyond week 1.

[ergative]

Too many times this week:

Hi, there,

I'm in your class, and I want to know [reasonable question].

Thanks!
Stu


WHICH CLASS, STU? WHICH CLASS? I'm responsible for eight different classes this year (well, five preps (3/2), but three of them are cross-listed UG and grad), and I'm teaching on two other courses. WHICH CLASS ARE YOU ASKING ABOUT?

AAAAARARRRFHGHAGAHRARGHGHAH

[Charlotte]

Too many times this week:

Hi, there,

I'm in your class, and I want to know [reasonable question].

Thanks!
Stu


WHICH CLASS, STU? WHICH CLASS? I'm responsible for eight different classes this year (well, five preps (3/2), but three of them are cross-listed UG and grad), and I'm teaching on two other courses. WHICH CLASS ARE YOU ASKING ABOUT?

AAAAARARRRFHGHAGAHRARGHGHAH

I get that all the time. I've started sending back a polite request for their class and section so I can promptly and accurately answer their question.

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to help. Many students respond with "sorry, my name is Stu Dent." I didn't ASK for your NAME. Some respond with their class, but not their section which narrows it down, but I still have to hunt.

[Charlotte]

Student: "we've had the opportunity to study some unsocialized children like Tarzan."

[downer]

Too many times this week:

Hi, there,

I'm in your class, and I want to know [reasonable question].

Thanks!
Stu


WHICH CLASS, STU? WHICH CLASS? I'm responsible for eight different classes this year (well, five preps (3/2), but three of them are cross-listed UG and grad), and I'm teaching on two other courses. WHICH CLASS ARE YOU ASKING ABOUT?

AAAAARARRRFHGHAGAHRARGHGHAH

I get that all the time. I've started sending back a polite request for their class and section so I can promptly and accurately answer their question.

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to help. Many students respond with "sorry, my name is Stu Dent." I didn't ASK for your NAME. Some respond with their class, but not their section which narrows it down, but I still have to hunt.

I put it in my syllabus that all email has to have the class number in the subject line. And that's always one of the questions in the quiz on the syllabus at the start of the semester.

If a student still fails to do that, I just reply "what class?" and press send. If they do it again, I press delete.

[mamselle]

Student: "we've had the opportunity to study some unsocialized children like Tarzan."

Yes.

They populate our classrooms.

M.

[sinenomine]

I teach a course focused on a theme — for the sake of anonymity, let's say that theme is basketweaving. This is the fourth week of the semester. At the end of today's class, a student came up to me to ask what the word was I kept using that starts with a b. I said, "basketweaving," and she replied, "What is that? I don't know that word."

The term has been defined, redefined, and discussed since the first day. And the students got to choose their course section by which theme drew their interest.

Just, wow.

[FishProf]

We are 1/3 of the way through the semester, and 1/3 of the students in my online class have done ZERO work.

About 1/3 are on track for huge success, and the remainder are pathetic but not yet doomed.

So, business as usual.

[the_geneticist]

We are 1/3 of the way through the semester, and 1/3 of the students in my online class have done ZERO work.

About 1/3 are on track for huge success, and the remainder are pathetic but not yet doomed.

So, business as usual.

It's week 2 here and we're in person for most all classes.  Students in the non-majors lab are doing really well - turning things in on time, going to class, etc.  Students in the majors lab, not so much.  They are losing points for just not turning stuff in (or turning it in late).

[mamselle]

We are 1/3 of the way through the semester, and 1/3 of the students in my online class have done ZERO work.

About 1/3 are on track for huge success, and the remainder are pathetic but not yet doomed.

So, business as usual.

It's week 2 here and we're in person for most all classes.  Students in the non-majors lab are doing really well - turning things in on time, going to class, etc.  Students in the majors lab, not so much.  They are losing points for just not turning stuff in (or turning it in late).

Sometimes it's not perfectionism, but complacency, that is the enemy of the good.....not only does no system know what it doesn't know, but (perhaps as a corollary) no system (person) who thinks they know but are forgetting things, won't remember what they're forgetting...)

M.

[Aster]

This week's exam results are in. And the Apathy Meter is off the charts!

The average student missed two-thirds of all exam questions. Only three students answered about half of the exam questions correctly. Granted, it's a small class of less than 30 students. But the top scorers still missing approximately half of the exam? That's epic failure.

This might be the single worst performing class that I've ever had. I'm not thinking that I have any A or B-level students at all in this class this semester. That's just really weird.

Nearly a third of the class didn't even bother showing up for the exam. That's also really weird.

[Anon1787]

Similar apathy and in an upper division course in the major no less. Students did poorly on the first exam. I let them redo several questions to earn more points, but nearly 50% of the class didn't bother to do it.