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

[Parasaurolophus]

Hello there, I was wondering if you could help direct me to the reading that has "Is Katniss Everdeen free to choose whom she loves (Peeta vs. Gale)" I looked through all the folders and I haven't found the reading for peeta vs Gale, perhaps it's under a different name? If you could kindly help that'll be great. thank you so much.

Me: None of the readings mention it. You have to apply your knowledge to the example.

Thanks for getting back to me. Could you please tell me which hunger game sequel is this from?

Me: It's a generalization about the series.

Would you recommend that I watch the whole series?

If you don't know how to answer one of the essay prompts, pick another prompt instead! Geeze. I gave you five, and they all offer pretty wide latitude to apply the course content. (For Fora readers, the obvious connection here is to discussions of free will, but we also discuss fictionality and nonexistents, among other relevant issues.)

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

In lecture I told them, in lab I did a demo, and on the handout (bold and underlined) it says specifically, to express [answer] as a fraction, not a decimal, because that is the standard format. Stu, who never bothers to read the instructions, expressed everything as decimals. Any bets as to whether he cries unfair when he receives his grade?

Give him his grade as a sum of fractions.

C'mon guys:

Determining a result of 1/4 is the same as determining a result of 0.25! A problem can only arise if it takes one helluva lot of significant digits to get an exact fraction.

What kinda' science are you guys in? A ten digit science? A twenty digit science? How many digits you need? Me, I'm in an only three digit science. :-)

Reminds me of my time in second grade. There was an assignment to color in half a circle, given to us kids on paper as a circle with quarter segments. I colored in two opposite quarters and teacher said it was wrong, holding up my work as an example of an incorrect answer. I knew she was wrong, and I think most other kids saw she was wrong, but she had the power. I've never forgotten from about 64 years ago.

I'm in mechanical engineering and according to certain ANSI and ASME standards, some things are always expressed as a fraction, which is why we require it because it's what's generally expected in industry. Also, depending on what they are working on, especially when it comes to GD&T standards, we can be 2-place, 3-place, or more when it comes to decimals when we're considering how round is round, how flat is flat, etc.

Ah, conventions. That's fine, conventions must be, for they are useful. But it doesn't make the kid's answer wrong. He is violating a convention.

I'm glad to hear that sometimes two and three significant digits behind the decimal place is enough for you guys! :-)

I am in a two or three significant digit science. When students write down the ten digits provided by their calculators, they are wrong too.

Don't get me started on the issues my students have with sig figs.

[quasihumanist]

In lecture I told them, in lab I did a demo, and on the handout (bold and underlined) it says specifically, to express [answer] as a fraction, not a decimal, because that is the standard format. Stu, who never bothers to read the instructions, expressed everything as decimals. Any bets as to whether he cries unfair when he receives his grade?

Give him his grade as a sum of fractions.

C'mon guys:

Determining a result of 1/4 is the same as determining a result of 0.25! A problem can only arise if it takes one helluva lot of significant digits to get an exact fraction.

What kinda' science are you guys in? A ten digit science? A twenty digit science? How many digits you need? Me, I'm in an only three digit science. :-)

Reminds me of my time in second grade. There was an assignment to color in half a circle, given to us kids on paper as a circle with quarter segments. I colored in two opposite quarters and teacher said it was wrong, holding up my work as an example of an incorrect answer. I knew she was wrong, and I think most other kids saw she was wrong, but she had the power. I've never forgotten from about 64 years ago.

I'm in mechanical engineering and according to certain ANSI and ASME standards, some things are always expressed as a fraction, which is why we require it because it's what's generally expected in industry. Also, depending on what they are working on, especially when it comes to GD&T standards, we can be 2-place, 3-place, or more when it comes to decimals when we're considering how round is round, how flat is flat, etc.

Ah, conventions. That's fine, conventions must be, for they are useful. But it doesn't make the kid's answer wrong. He is violating a convention.

I'm glad to hear that sometimes two and three significant digits behind the decimal place is enough for you guys! :-)

I am in a two or three significant digit science. When students write down the ten digits provided by their calculators, they are wrong too.

Don't get me started on the issues my students have with sig figs.

I'm a theoretical mathematician.

What I want to know is if you know whether the answer is rational or irrational, and if irrational, whether it's algebraic or transcendental.

No number of sig figs will help with that.

:)

[Caracal]

Hello there, I was wondering if you could help direct me to the reading that has "Is Katniss Everdeen free to choose whom she loves (Peeta vs. Gale)" I looked through all the folders and I haven't found the reading for peeta vs Gale, perhaps it's under a different name? If you could kindly help that'll be great. thank you so much.

Me: None of the readings mention it. You have to apply your knowledge to the example.

Thanks for getting back to me. Could you please tell me which hunger game sequel is this from?

Me: It's a generalization about the series.

Would you recommend that I watch the whole series?

If you don't know how to answer one of the essay prompts, pick another prompt instead! Geeze. I gave you five, and they all offer pretty wide latitude to apply the course content. (For Fora readers, the obvious connection here is to discussions of free will, but we also discuss fictionality and nonexistents, among other relevant issues.)

As someone who decided that in order to write a lecture the night before, I needed to read a biography of Brian Wilson (I think the entire biography contributed about a 20 seconds to the lecture) I endorse this kind of research procrastination.

[marshwiggle]

In lecture I told them, in lab I did a demo, and on the handout (bold and underlined) it says specifically, to express [answer] as a fraction, not a decimal, because that is the standard format. Stu, who never bothers to read the instructions, expressed everything as decimals. Any bets as to whether he cries unfair when he receives his grade?

Give him his grade as a sum of fractions.

C'mon guys:

Determining a result of 1/4 is the same as determining a result of 0.25! A problem can only arise if it takes one helluva lot of significant digits to get an exact fraction.

What kinda' science are you guys in? A ten digit science? A twenty digit science? How many digits you need? Me, I'm in an only three digit science. :-)

Reminds me of my time in second grade. There was an assignment to color in half a circle, given to us kids on paper as a circle with quarter segments. I colored in two opposite quarters and teacher said it was wrong, holding up my work as an example of an incorrect answer. I knew she was wrong, and I think most other kids saw she was wrong, but she had the power. I've never forgotten from about 64 years ago.

I'm in mechanical engineering and according to certain ANSI and ASME standards, some things are always expressed as a fraction, which is why we require it because it's what's generally expected in industry. Also, depending on what they are working on, especially when it comes to GD&T standards, we can be 2-place, 3-place, or more when it comes to decimals when we're considering how round is round, how flat is flat, etc.

Ah, conventions. That's fine, conventions must be, for they are useful. But it doesn't make the kid's answer wrong. He is violating a convention.

I'm glad to hear that sometimes two and three significant digits behind the decimal place is enough for you guys! :-)

I am in a two or three significant digit science. When students write down the ten digits provided by their calculators, they are wrong too.

Don't get me started on the issues my students have with sig figs.

I'm a theoretical mathematician.

What I want to know is if you know whether the answer is rational or irrational, and if irrational, whether it's algebraic or transcendental.

No number of sig figs will help with that.

:)

Students' answers are often irrational, and rarely transcendental.

[Langue_doc]

Not sure where to post this, but last night I dreamt that a student had just been added to a class. The add was quite legit (at least in my dream), but I didn't know how I could help the student catch up on instruction and assignments hu had missed.

[marshwiggle]

Not sure where to post this, but last night I dreamt that a student had just been added to a class. The add was quite legit (at least in my dream), but I didn't know how I could help the student catch up on instruction and assignments hu had missed.

In the words of the prophet, Calvin.

[Langue_doc]

Thanks, MW. It was the sixth week of class, a student had just dropped, so the late add brought the enrollment back to the required 13.

[the_geneticist]

A student who was absent from discussion for the last 3 weeks is *shocked* that this will in fact hurt their grades.

[FishProf]

Announcement: I am sick.  You don't want this.  So we will NOT meet for class today, BUT I will be posting stuff for you to watch/do instead.

I will also post an updated schedule to reflect this change.

Fishprof"

I now have 5 emails from students asking "will we have lab today?"

[arcturus]

Dear student - if you know that you are scheduled to have a discussion later today about academic misconduct due to copy/paste plagiarism in work you previously submitted, why would you submit more plagiarized work this afternoon? Are you just testing the waters as to how many instances of misconduct I will tolerate before I assign an F? I know that you are an entitled student-athlete at this Division 1 school (because you told me so when you ghosted me about making an appointment to meet in the first place), but you will find that F's for academic misconduct do not magically disappear from your transcript here.

[the_geneticist]

TAs, when I say "please keep an eye on the students while they take the exam", that means you should actually walk around and LOOK AT THEM.

So far I've caught students:

with their phones out
drinking from their water bottles (in the LAB room).  This is not allowed, even when it's NOT during an exam.  Ewww.
using calculators on an exam that says "no calculators"
talking!!

Just walking around and looking at them will stop 99% of this.

[arcturus]

We are about 1/3 of the way through the semester here.

Bang #1: I have one student who has never accessed the LMS, despite numerous emails reminding them that this is not a work-at-your-own-pace course.

Bang #2 is on me: when I see the non-attendance of Bang #1, it sends me into a mild panic-attack of wondering if I have forgotten to do something really important (like attend a class!).

Bang #3: I learned today that when a student wrote in their introductory discussion post that they were excited to learn about <not the topic of this class>, they really thought they had enrolled in a course about <not the topic of this class>. They are now very frustrated, because they are not interested in <topic of this class> and do not see why they were told by their advisor to take it.

Bang #4: Several students have explained that they used the information from a Google search to answer questions because they wanted to be certain that they had the correct answer with the correct terminology. However, our questions are usually something along the lines of "what is the difference between the results from X and Y" after they have just completed tasks X and Y. We want them to reflect on their work, not repeat (and therefore plagiarize) what the definitions of X and Y are.

Bang #5: After a long evening of dealing with issues associated with students who are likely to fail my course, I am now too tired to even complete my list of their head-banging worthy accomplishments.

[FishProf]

Rough Semester start.
1) COVID the week before (still lingering after effects);
2) Lost a week for Faculty search candidate talks;
3) Now am sick (again) and lost another lab;

So, now I have the crappy choice of
A) cancel class, again, and fall further behind; or
B) teach class, hope I don't cough up a lung mid-lecture, and violate my oft-repeated Mantra of the Covid era - "If you are sick, stay home"

Decisions, decisions.

[marshwiggle]

Bang #4: Several students have explained that they used the information from a Google search to answer questions because they wanted to be certain that they had the correct answer with the correct terminology. However, our questions are usually something along the lines of "what is the difference between the results from X and Y" after they have just completed tasks X and Y. We want them to reflect on their work, not repeat (and therefore plagiarize) what the definitions of X and Y are.

Many students can't grasp the idea that learning is about being able to apply knowledge, specifically to new situations. "Every question can be answered by Google" is a fundamental truth of the universe to a lot of them, so formal education is really a hoop-jumping exercise in principle, since *Google could do all of their assignments, write all of their papers, and take all of their exams.


(*Maybe with a little help from ChatGPT.)