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

[mamselle]

A student just tried in a response paper to convince me that there's a direct and obvious line connecting Anne Bradstreet's "To My Dear and Loving Husband" and Cardi B's "W.A.P." 

I'm sure Mrs. Bradstreet is spinning in her grave, and I'm ready to join her, since I've now apparently seen everything.

I don't know Cardi B's piece, but I recite Anne Bradstreet's poem--a favorite--weekly in summers when there is no virus about to prevent me, at her father's homesite (it's too noisy to be heard well, where she and Simon lived).

M.

You probably would walk around reciting Cardi B's; at least not around other people.

Do you mean "would"? Or "wouldn't"?

M.

[marshwiggle]

A student just tried in a response paper to convince me that there's a direct and obvious line connecting Anne Bradstreet's "To My Dear and Loving Husband" and Cardi B's "W.A.P." 

I'm sure Mrs. Bradstreet is spinning in her grave, and I'm ready to join her, since I've now apparently seen everything.

I don't know Cardi B's piece, but I recite Anne Bradstreet's poem--a favorite--weekly in summers when there is no virus about to prevent me, at her father's homesite (it's too noisy to be heard well, where she and Simon lived).

M.

You probably would walk around reciting Cardi B's; at least not around other people.

Do you mean "would"? Or "wouldn't"?

M.

Sorry; wouldn't. (Unless you were trying to provoke reactions...)

[mamselle]

Well, for starters, my 18th c. character wouldn't know about Cardi B, anyway, so there's that....

M.

[AvidReader]

Maybe this should be in the emails thread. These are all emails. But they induce head-banging, so there's that, too.

This week our university has been open, remote, and closed, all on different days, but never with more than 8 hours' warning (administration emails dept. chairs about the next day's teaching status each afternoon, and then the chairs have to forward the emails on to us). This has been all kinds of exhausting and frustrating.

Also, I am substituting for a colleague on extended sick leave. She has a strong "no late work" policy posted on the syllabus, on every assignment sheet, and on every CMS page. (I don't like the policy as stated, but that's a different issue).
9 a.m. yesterday, Student email [paraphrased]: I uploaded my paper [due at midnight] to the CMS last night at 10 p.m., but when I double-checked this morning, it was gone! Can I email you my paper now?
I checked the course logs. Student was not logged into my colleague's CMS between 6 p.m. the night of the deadline and five minutes before student emailed me. IT verifies that the student was not logged in to the CMS for any course at the entire university between those times. IT is very very confident that the logs were not malfunctioning yesterday. This is now going to be lots of fun paperwork for me, and probably a huge fuss from my very entitled student, who already hates me and the course policies, because wearing a mask on one's face, especially covering one's nose, is so UNFAIR and UNPLEASANT even though it is both a state and university requirement.

---

12 noon email (same day): Email from a parent wanting to know why I haven't responded to her child's email from two days ago (it's a "getting to know you" assignment that most students did on the same day, so I have over 100 of these to answer) and telling me that her child has been unable to access parts of the CMS because of the permissions settings on child's laptop. What am *I* going to do about it, she wonders?
Answer: FERPA, thank heavens. And I did email the student directly, recommending IT services for the laptop issue.

I think I have finally put out this morning's new fires, so I am going to write for a few hours to clear my head. I can't do parents on top of all the rest of this semester's crazy; that's the biggest reason I left secondary education.

AR.

[RatGuy]

This is sort of a blanket head-bang based on the trajectory of most of my classes.

I've seen an uptick in plagiarism -- more cases sent to the Dean's Office in 4 weeks than I've had in the last 4 semesters combined. Even though the assignment sheet says "use book and notes, but no internet sources," students are just copying (bad) answers from online sources.

I've seen an uptick in "I don't have the textbook yet" type emails. Still. One student even wanted me to delay the first exam because she hasn't bought the book yet.

In my synchronous online courses, I've seen attendance problems. Generally 12 out of 35 attend each meeting.

The kids who don't come, don't have books, and/or plagiarize are the ones complaining about their exam grades. One student just now told me "you must have graded it wrong."

My F2F and hybrid classes don't have these problems at all.

[mythbuster]

I had a student today who emailed after class to apologize for the background noise from his phone (I had to mute him mid presentation). The reason why- he was on his phone, in a car, with a bunch of other people at the time.

I'm sure his retention of the material was fabulous.

I was also informed today that one of my students took offence to the question prompt: "Match the dead old white guy with their scientific discovery."
Huh? I figured this was the opposite of offensive- it acknowledges the lack of diversity in the early days of the field.

[the_geneticist]

I had a student today who emailed after class to apologize for the background noise from his phone (I had to mute him mid presentation). The reason why- he was on his phone, in a car, with a bunch of other people at the time.

At least he was trying to be in class.  I think we are going to have a HUGE problem with online learning simply because it doesn't feel "real" compared to an in person class. 

[mamselle]

I was also informed today that one of my students took offence to the question prompt: "Match the dead old white guy with their scientific discovery."
Huh? I figured this was the opposite of offensive- it acknowledges the lack of diversity in the early days of the field.

It might have been more inclusive to have females like Marie Cure or Hedy Lamarr in the list with their notable discoveries.

M.

[ciao_yall]

I had a student today who emailed after class to apologize for the background noise from his phone (I had to mute him mid presentation). The reason why- he was on his phone, in a car, with a bunch of other people at the time.

At least he was trying to be in class.  I think we are going to have a HUGE problem with online learning simply because it doesn't feel "real" compared to an in person class.

Yep. Mine are complaining that they want to be more engaged, but their cameras are off, their mics are muted and they are driving, doing dishes, whatever instead of participating in discussion or breakout activities.

[mythbuster]

Mamselle, Hedy Lamar, Marie Curie etc did not contribute to Microbiology. Specifically, this was the unit on Germ Theory. So this is  Pasteur, Koch, Lister etc. As much as I would love to highlight a woman, there just isn't one. I figured I was acknowledging the issue. My students are so resistant to learning the names of people as it is that I think they would also balk at adding extras such as Noguchi, who discovered syphilis for the sake of increased diversity.

[mamselle]

Sorry, I didn't see a reference to Micro.

Noguchi sounds like a good start, though.

M.

[onthefringe]

Sorry, I didn't see a reference to Micro.

Noguchi sounds like a good start, though.

M.

Fanny Hesse? Alice Catherine Evans? Lady Montagu?

[arcturus]

Dear students: when you state that you will use "credible sources" for your project, this is a clear indication to me that you have not started working on this project at all. This defeats the whole point of providing scaffolding assignments to assist you in completing a long term project.  Also, let me be specific: if the prompt requests a timeline with dates, you should provide a timeline, with dates. Merely stating that "I will complete the project using credible sources by the due date" is not an adequate response.

[Cheerful]

I was also informed today that one of my students took offence to the question prompt: "Match the dead old white guy with their scientific discovery."
Huh? I figured this was the opposite of offensive- it acknowledges the lack of diversity in the early days of the field.

I find the phrase "dead old white guy" offensive.  A similar phrase was discussed on another thread some months ago.  Why not state "match the person with their scientific discovery"?

If you are a Hispanic female, do you want to be remembered as a "dead old Hispanic female?"  If you had a beloved father who reached old age, would you want him remembered as a "dead old____guy?"

[Biologist_]

Ugh. Student just emails me to say that hu hasn't bought the text yet. Um, we're in the fourth week of class and you're telling me this now? I know the world is basically on fire (well on the West coast in the U.S.) and we're in the middle of a pandemic, but why wait until the fourth week to tell me?

Student should be fine though. Intro Physics hasn't changed in a long time, so really any Calc-based text is fine. I've been inundated by student email all day, so I suppose I'm just grumpy. Teaching six classes online doesn't help either...

Would the OpenStax book do the trick? Free to download the pdf or read it through a web browser.
https://openstax.org/details/books/university-physics-volume-1

I don't know how good the physics book is, but I know of some chemistry departments that use the general chemistry book and consider it to be similar in quality to print texts from major publishers.