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

[the_geneticist]

BANG!
Dear graduate TAs,
I know you are busy.  I know it's hard to balance your teaching & your research.  But you are getting paid to teach.  You are two weeks behind on grading and your students have an exam in a week.  You must finish grading NOW.  And return their graded assignments before Friday so they can use them to study.  I don't care if that means you are holding extra office hours, or scan & email, but you MUST finish the grading.
No, you cannot just post an answer key.  No, you cannot just grade "a representative sampling" and post comments.  Stop coming up with creative ideas that do not involve you just finishing the grading.
Just. Finish. Grading.

[mamselle]

Huuunh?

Kindergarten for grad student TAs?

Yuk!

M.

[kaysixteen]

What will you be able to do to/with any TAs who do not comply?

How would you then deal with undergrad complaints that they could not appropriately study for their finals because the TAs did not grade their prior assignments on time?

[ergative]

What will you be able to do to/with any TAs who do not comply?

How would you then deal with undergrad complaints that they could not appropriately study for their finals because the TAs did not grade their prior assignments on time?

In my institution, nothing. Last year I had a grad TA who just felt overwhelmed and underprepared to grade, and rather than telling me she felt that way, she just didn't grade. The deadline arrived, her batch of essays weren't graded, and so I had to grade them.

I told my Chair that under no circumstances did I want that TA again this year. My chair said she'd had a long talk with the TA who knew now that if she had difficulty she needed to ask for help rather than ghosting us, and that it would be fine.

To be fair, the TA was fine this year. It was a different TA, whose grades were so arbitrary she might have been using the staircase method, whose work I had to redo.

Fortunately, I'm not in charge of that class again next year.

My current BANG BANG BANG--yes, a different one from last night!---relates to a student who doesn't like her essay grade. TA graded it (very good TA who did the grading perfectly), gave it a D+. I read the essay: Yup, solid D+. I email the student and explain that it's a D+ because they did things like fail to do any external research beyond the course booklet, and consistently misused the terminology that we had gone over the first day of class. Seriously, half the first lecture was why we can't call a rabbit a smeerf in this field, and then throughout the entire essay smeerfs abound.

Student's defense: 'But you never said we needed to do external research! And I'm not a [subject] expert, so it's not fair to expect me to know not to call a rabbit a smeerf.'

This is a first-year intro class. Stu, you got a D+ not becuase you were graded against the expectations of subject experts, but because you were graded against the expectations of having attended the first day of class.

[Caracal]

I had to turn OFF the "display grade in percent" feature since students would freak out that their A+ was now a B- after they turned in their second assignment.  Uh, you had an A+ on the 5 point, open-note, highest of 2 attempts, syllabus quiz.  You now have 18 of 20 possible points.  There are over 400 in the course.  Calm down.

Yeah, I get that every semester. Yes, you were getting an A because you came to class and did a few reading responses. Then the first exam happened.

[Caracal]

"I'm worried about my grade, I really want an A in the course and I'm at 89.something, is there anything I can do."

Well, the exam tomorrow counts for twenty percent of the grade so probably study for it and stop bothering me?

[downer]

"I'm worried about my grade, I really want an A in the course and I'm at 89.something, is there anything I can do."

Well, the exam tomorrow counts for twenty percent of the grade so probably study for it and stop bothering me?

Depending on what the minimum percentage is to get an A and whether you give bonus points in the final exam, it is likely it is mathemtically impossible to get an A. Student may need a time machine.

[Caracal]

"I'm worried about my grade, I really want an A in the course and I'm at 89.something, is there anything I can do."

Well, the exam tomorrow counts for twenty percent of the grade so probably study for it and stop bothering me?

Depending on what the minimum percentage is to get an A and whether you give bonus points in the final exam, it is likely it is mathemtically impossible to get an A. Student may need a time machine.

Oh they are at 89.8 or something and I will round up. So, really they just need to not screw up the final.

[the_geneticist]

What will you be able to do to/with any TAs who do not comply?

How would you then deal with undergrad complaints that they could not appropriately study for their finals because the TAs did not grade their prior assignments on time?

As ergative said, not much other than to tell the department that they didn't fulfill their job requirements.

I can post all of the worksheet questions for the students along with the study guide and practice problems to help the students.

[Istiblennius]

I'm not sure about the right place for this, but it is a bit of actual despair. I have a couple of overall quite good students who have taken a mental health downturn and are really struggling to make it to class and complete assignments. Even with a lot of flexibility built in, we're at an inflection point where they are likely to tank. I'm recommending withdrawal and checking in with our student success affairs office, but I've just run out of road. Of course I have the one or two students who have figured out how to use vague "my mental health is not good right now" excuses to seek adjustments, but I have a flexible enough syllabus that is pretty easy to manage. It's the students who had been doing well and hit some crisis point and can't even muster to try that have become more common and I can't come up with any way to help beyond telling them its okay to not be okay and getting them to the offices that can help. It just super sucks. 

[downer]

I'm not sure about the right place for this, but it is a bit of actual despair. I have a couple of overall quite good students who have taken a mental health downturn and are really struggling to make it to class and complete assignments. Even with a lot of flexibility built in, we're at an inflection point where they are likely to tank. I'm recommending withdrawal and checking in with our student success affairs office, but I've just run out of road. Of course I have the one or two students who have figured out how to use vague "my mental health is not good right now" excuses to seek adjustments, but I have a flexible enough syllabus that is pretty easy to manage. It's the students who had been doing well and hit some crisis point and can't even muster to try that have become more common and I can't come up with any way to help beyond telling them its okay to not be okay and getting them to the offices that can help. It just super sucks.

It is hard to see good students hit on hard times and drop out. Sounds like you have done all you can. Sometimes disabiliities offices are helpful too with helping students who have mental illness. At some point there's nothing more you can personally do.

[mamselle]

Are they coming to see you physically, in your office?

If so, you could ask them if they'd walk over to the student care center with you to see if they could talk to someone or make an appointment there.

If online, could you possibly call the care center in advance, ask if someone might be available at some point, and then call/email/Zoom the student and see if you can make the connection that way?

If they're really seriously incapacitated, they may need help just getting to talk to someone, which can seem like an insurmountable cliff to climb when one is really seriously depressed.

It's not required, of course, but it might help.

M.

[Istiblennius]

I have been able to walk students over to our counseling office on occasion, although more often the communication I am getting is electronic or no communication following an earlier reference to some mental health challenges. In that case, I keep trying to follow up with them electronically and make the referral (we have a pretty strong student of concern referral system in place) to someone in student affairs who will follow up as well. Even when taking these steps, which I know rationally is all I can do, I just hate feeling powerless. I still want to believe that if I just love teaching enough and put that into my time with them, it'll work. I rationally know that isn't the case.

[mamselle]

That's the hardest part, when you do everything and you have to let them be who they are and do what they do, then.

Sounds like you're open to doing all the things you can; horses to water comes to mind, and the need to forgive yourself.

Letting them know you care and want to be supportive is the most important thing, and you're doing that.

To address your own despair, what refills your soul? A morning walk, a quiet coffee somewhere, a book of poems to read at your desk?

Do that, so that if they do reach out again, you won't be depleted as well.

M.

[kiana]

I've also asked students who were really in bad shape before if they would let me email the counseling service on their behalf and cc them so that the first contact was made.