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

[artalot]

Just spent 20 minutes explaining a course calendar to a student. Yes, if it's listed on that date, that means we will do it that day. The CMS has the exact same organization as the syllabus. If it says "Reading" that means you need to read it. If is says "Assignment" that means you have an assignment to complete.
Like others, I blame the pandemic, but still....

[the_geneticist]

It's the last day of Summer classes and the student who "had no idea they had missed X of Y assignments" is BEGGING for any way to make up the points/do more assignments/earn extra credit, sent a picture they say was their wrecked car from weeks ago (ironically, not a day they missed class), and claims all emails from me went to their Spam file.

Sigh.  I'll be seeing them again in Fall.

[mythbuster]

Student claims she can't take an evening exam because her ADHD meds wear off at 5pm.

My fantasy response: Then how do you study or get homework done?!?

The reality- I likely need to make the alternate exam for this student to prevent sharing. Sigh.

[Puget]

Student claims she can't take an evening exam because her ADHD meds wear off at 5pm.

My fantasy response: Then how do you study or get homework done?!?

The reality- I likely need to make the alternate exam for this student to prevent sharing. Sigh.

Does the student have accommodations for no evening exams? Where I am they would absolutely not get a different exam unless they had an accommodation letter saying so.

[mamselle]

Yes, I have an ADHD student with similar timing issues--not in school, but for private music lessons--and he still has a couple of hours after his med levels start to drop before he really can't function.

He's also transparently honest about exactly how he's feeling, so I know he doesn't take advantage of the situation.

I'd ask for more specifics. And the accommodations letter, of course.

M.

[mythbuster]

I have the accommodation letter. No evening exams isn't even an option for accommodations. I know from experience that they would just call this one as being at my discretion. In other words- I'm a meanie if I say no.

The thing is, the proctoring service closes at 8pm, so the student would have to schedule the earlier than the regular class start of 7:30 anyway.

It's not worth the fight. I will scramble some of the questions on her version just to be safe.

She has now scheduled the exam to overlap with her Anatomy Lab. So I predict great things for this one!

[artalot]

I feel like COVID teaching has ruined them. I've had multiple students who can't read a syllabus, as in, they don't understand what "Read: Chapter 2, pages 25-33" means. I've had a few who have said they don't know when things are due - not only is every assignment listed next to its due date in bold, all the due dates are in the LMS and it emails you the day before they are due. Another student said that she didn't know what an essay question was. Finally, one student asked me if all of the assigned readings were power points. It's clear to me that this isn't because they are unintelligent; they just literally have no academic skills. How am I supposed to teach you to write a research paper when you can't read a syllabus, use a calendar or write a 2-paragraph essay, and haven't read anything longer than can be included on a power point slide?
So far I have kept my poker face and walked them through what "Read" means, but I'm about to lose it.

[AmLitHist]

I got an email from the mom of an Access/disabilities services student, asking for an alternate reading assignment for her son, since the assigned text is "far beyond his comprehension." The current assignment scans to an 8.5 grade reading level.

This is Week 3, and the son had already requested an alternate "easier" assignment for the initial diagnostic writing sample (a low-stakes, softball short paper).  I told him "no" then, in no uncertain terms.

I do NOT deal with parents, as a matter of policy, period--FERPA waiver or not, Access student or not.  NO.  The waiver says I can talk to a parent, not that I have to.

I politely explained to the mother that advocating for self and working directly with instructors is an important part of a student's growth, and told her to have him contact me.

Nope, nope, NOPE.  We are not starting this crap.  (BTW, I have the student's Access contact person in the loop, and she completely backs my position, and wonders along with me how/why this guy is even in College Comp I. There's a long history of students with severe mental disabilities being enrolled at our open enrollment CC, having their parents max out their grant and loan eligibility, and then disappearing.)

[Larimar]

I feel like COVID teaching has ruined them. I've had multiple students who can't read a syllabus, as in, they don't understand what "Read: Chapter 2, pages 25-33" means. I've had a few who have said they don't know when things are due - not only is every assignment listed next to its due date in bold, all the due dates are in the LMS and it emails you the day before they are due. Another student said that she didn't know what an essay question was. Finally, one student asked me if all of the assigned readings were power points. It's clear to me that this isn't because they are unintelligent; they just literally have no academic skills. How am I supposed to teach you to write a research paper when you can't read a syllabus, use a calendar or write a 2-paragraph essay, and haven't read anything longer than can be included on a power point slide?
So far I have kept my poker face and walked them through what "Read" means, but I'm about to lose it.

Yipes! This kind of thing really tries my patience too. Wishing you inner peace.

My vent: does any of the technology on this blasted campus actually work?!

I hope the IT guy isn't too sick and tired of getting calls for help from me already. It's only the 2nd week of class!

[darkstarrynight]

I got an email last weekend from a student who addressed me properly and said hu is in my "Basketweaving class." Hu was very sorry to have turned in the first assignments late and wanted to see if they could make up points for late work. However, I am on sabbatical this semester and am not teaching anything! Since I have an auto-reply message that mentions current students should contact my department chair, the student forwarded the email hu sent me with no other words to the department chair, who responded with serious concerns as to how this student does not know whose class they are taking in third week. I could not stop laughing about this because it seems so absurd to me. This is a masters student who already has a masters degree!

[Langue_doc]

I got an email last weekend from a student who addressed me properly and said hu is in my "Basketweaving class." Hu was very sorry to have turned in the first assignments late and wanted to see if they could make up points for late work. However, I am on sabbatical this semester and am not teaching anything! Since I have an auto-reply message that mentions current students should contact my department chair, the student forwarded the email hu sent me with no other words to the department chair, who responded with serious concerns as to how this student does not know whose class they are taking in third week. I could not stop laughing about this because it seems so absurd to me. This is a masters student who already has a masters degree!

Standards are coming down more precipitously than I had expected!

[FishProf]

Three meetings with student services, HOURS wrangling with YouTube for closed captioning, HOURS adapting lectures to be compatable with the system for captioning my live lectures and....

...the student didn't show to the first class.

Then they emailed asking for the Zoom link on Thursday (class is Wednesday, in person).

And they complained that their accomodations weren't being respected.

[traductio]

Ugh.

My master's students are freaking out about having to read an entire book for class next week. It is short (125 pages) and makes a straightforward argument. It's a communication theory course -- reading a book is not an unreasonable amount, especially for MA students, right?

Right?

Right?

[apl68]

Ugh.

My master's students are freaking out about having to read an entire book for class next week. It is short (125 pages) and makes a straightforward argument. It's a communication theory course -- reading a book is not an unreasonable amount, especially for MA students, right?

Right?

Right?

They just have no idea.  The moment I started my MA program in history, we had to read three to five books a week in one of my classes.  And few of them were less than two to three hundred pages.  That was one of my first-semester classes in grad school.

[traductio]

Ugh.

My master's students are freaking out about having to read an entire book for class next week. It is short (125 pages) and makes a straightforward argument. It's a communication theory course -- reading a book is not an unreasonable amount, especially for MA students, right?

Right?

Right?

They just have no idea.  The moment I started my MA program in history, we had to read three to five books a week in one of my classes.  And few of them were less than two to three hundred pages.  That was one of my first-semester classes in grad school.

I had a little less to read than that -- usually a book a week for each of my classes. They were densely theoretical, and they took concerted effort. What I've tried explaining to my students is that my goal is for them to leave my class with the conceptual tools they need to do MA-level research, and that involves more than memorizing lecture notes. They need to see how writers build arguments, and how arguments move through material.

The level of freaking out over one 125-page book has me concerned about what the rest of this semester looks like.