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

[sinenomine]

I just received an email from a student who missed the first two weeks of class because stu was on vacation. Stu informed me that stu will be attending class tomorrow. Um, no you won't because your dumbass was dropped for nonattendance. Wtf?

Must have been a vacation from reality.

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

I just received an email from a student who missed the first two weeks of class because stu was on vacation. Stu informed me that stu will be attending class tomorrow. Um, no you won't because your dumbass was dropped for nonattendance. Wtf?

Must have been a vacation from reality.

Yep. The sad thing is that they will complain to admins and I 'might' have to accept this student in my class.

[Hegemony]

I am teaching two online courses of 40 students each.

We had a storm last week and part of the town lost electricity.

Both courses had discussion posts and online quizzes due at the end of the week.

In my advanced-level course, mostly full of majors, not one of the 40 failed to post in the discussion or to take the quiz.

In my lower-level course, mostly full of students who take it because they think it will be an easy gen-ed requirement, a full 16 of the 40 did not make discussion posts or take their quizzes.

When questioned, they say they had trouble in the storm. I wonder. I'm giving them all the benefit of the doubt, but I wonder if all of them really were totally prevented by the storm. It's funny that the storm missed all the advanced-level students and only hit the lower-level students.

[apl68]

It's just bizarre to hear about students pulling stuff like taking a vacation during what they know (or at least should know) will be the first two weeks of class.  I just don't recall ever hearing about such things when I was an undergrad or grad. 

I did once take two weeks out in the middle of a semester to go on a mission trip.  It wasn't school-related, but it was at a church-affiliated SLAC that accepted the validity of what I was doing.  The profs all worked with me, and I was able to catch up.  I didn't have any classes with labs that semester to complicate things.  And of course many students have missed time due to illness, family emergencies, etc.  But taking a vacation in your first two weeks of class?  Come on!

[fishbrains]

Yes, my CC was closed for snow last week for the first week of classes, so I simply started mine online, mostly with stuff they can do on their phones.

About 85% of the students are with the program, and the other 15% haven't even logged into the course--an overall participation rate that I'm very happy with. I'm expecting some wailing and gnashing of teeth from the minority. Should be fun.

[the_geneticist]

Argh!  Stop emailing to ask if you can be excused from pre-class assignments.  I really do not need to know WHY* you didn't do the assignment.  The entire purpose of these assignments is so you are better prepared for class. 
Be an adult, take the 0, and stop asking.

*Life happens.  Waiting until the last minute means you will sometimes not be able to finish things.

[FishProf]

Yes, my CC was closed for snow last week for the first week of classes, so I simply started mine online, mostly with stuff they can do on their phones.

I had to answer to a student complaint that I didn't hold class last Tuesday (class meets once a week in the evenings).  The Dean's office wanted to know why I didn't give them an online assignments.

1) School was closed.
2) I can't hold class meetings when school is closed.
3) It was the first class of the semester - what would I give them?

Luckily my Chair and my Union are handling this.

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

A student wants to add my class FOUR weeks in to the semester. Apparently stu's advisor suggested they ask me to do it. Really? Do you think you will be successful 4 weeks into a STEM course?

[marshwiggle]

A student wants to add my class FOUR weeks in to the semester. Apparently stu's advisor suggested they ask me to do it. Really? Do you think you will be successful 4 weeks into a STEM course?

Please tell me stu's advisor is not from a STEM background, and has no idea how information in general, and things like labs in particular, are very sequential and hierarchical.

[Langue_doc]

A student wants to add my class FOUR weeks in to the semester. Apparently stu's advisor suggested they ask me to do it. Really? Do you think you will be successful 4 weeks into a STEM course?

Are you sure that it was the advisor who suggested the late add and not the student? How does the student expect to catch up on the four weeks of missed instruction/assignments? Wouldn't the missed four weeks automatically result in a withdrawal?

[EdnaMode]

A student wants to add my class FOUR weeks in to the semester. Apparently stu's advisor suggested they ask me to do it. Really? Do you think you will be successful 4 weeks into a STEM course?

I would contact Stu's advisor and ask them if they had indeed suggested the late add, and if so, what were they thinking? If they didn't suggest it, I'd tell them that Stu was saying they did and perhaps they should have a chat with Stu about being a lying liar who lies.

[apl68]

A student wants to add my class FOUR weeks in to the semester. Apparently stu's advisor suggested they ask me to do it. Really? Do you think you will be successful 4 weeks into a STEM course?

Please tell me stu's advisor is not from a STEM background, and has no idea how information in general, and things like labs in particular, are very sequential and hierarchical.

Adding four weeks into the semester likely wouldn't work with a non-lab humanities course either.  Lots of missed in-class lecture/discussion, and the student would be starting way behind on the reading.  If the lectures could be caught up on video and the student made an heroic effort to catch up with the reading, maybe.

[Puget]

Student emailed on the last day to add classes saying they were desperate to add my seminar to fulfill the requirement for the major so they could graduate this spring. They have not taken the prereq but are "sure" they'll do fine, even having missed the first two weeks, because they love the topic and "intend to go into it in their future career". I look them up and they have NOT declared the major they say they are desperate to complete the requirements for. In fact, they have no declared major, which is incompatible with graduating this semester to say the least. I don't know what the story is there, but just no to waiving the prerequisite for that one.

[apl68]

Sounds like Puget has another case of a student advised by wolves.

[Puget]

Sounds like Puget has another case of a student advised by wolves.

Stu is in a student support program, so I'm actually quite certain that stu has been extensively advised on all this but is in willful denial about the advice they have been given.

At any rate they took no for an answer, and the add period has now mercifully ended, so requests to waive prerequisites portion of my teaching despair is over for the semester.