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

[EdnaMode]

A graduate student submitted a comment instead of the assignment, earned a zero, then wrote me a nasty email saying hu wanted me to give them another chance to resubmit because they did not know a submission was required. This is the third class the student has taken with me, and I think at this point in a graduate program they should know assignments require actual work. I responded that they could have asked me questions any time since the semester began before this was due in the eighth week and open the entire time. The student responded defensively that they did not have confusion about the assignment and I am not giving them the credit they deserve for their effort (!?!?) Ok...

Situations like this are why I have in my syllabus that it is the sole responsibility of the student to upload the correct assignments to the correct place by the correct time. And I also tell them that having a screen grab of their upload from their phone, or inserting a comment is never a substitute for getting the work turned in. I got tired of all the "Canvas ate my assignments" excuses. But I currently only teach undergrads. I'd hope (hah!) that grad students could figure out how to submit assignments without any handholding or step by step instructions.

[darkstarrynight]

The student knows how to submit assignments, but alas, "earned" a C and F in my previous two courses, so that might explain more.

[the_geneticist]

I had 5 students miss their quiz in discussion (sick, car crash, etc.).
No problem - here's the online makeup version.  It's due by [day & time].

3 finished it (yay)
1 turned it in late = 0
1 didn't even open the assignment = 0

Why??  At least I can say they earned that 0

[downer]

I have a test where one of the possible answers is "frugal." Many of the students won't know what frugal means. So I looked up synonyms. But economical, sparing, and thrifty, let alone abstemious and parsimonious are not really great equivalents in this context. 

[kaysixteen]

If (and I suspect you are right) do not know what frugal means, whose fault is this, and what should be done about it?

[the_geneticist]

A graduate student submitted a comment instead of the assignment, earned a zero, then wrote me a nasty email saying hu wanted me to give them another chance to resubmit because they did not know a submission was required. This is the third class the student has taken with me, and I think at this point in a graduate program they should know assignments require actual work. I responded that they could have asked me questions any time since the semester began before this was due in the eighth week and open the entire time. The student responded defensively that they did not have confusion about the assignment and I am not giving them the credit they deserve for their effort (!?!?) Ok...

Situations like this are why I have in my syllabus that it is the sole responsibility of the student to upload the correct assignments to the correct place by the correct time. And I also tell them that having a screen grab of their upload from their phone, or inserting a comment is never a substitute for getting the work turned in. I got tired of all the "Canvas ate my assignments" excuses. But I currently only teach undergrads. I'd hope (hah!) that grad students could figure out how to submit assignments without any handholding or step by step instructions.

Ugh, I think I need to add a similar policy. "I accidentally uploaded the wrong file so I emailed me TA the [assignment] as a [not the correct format] right away*"

* = after the deadline

[apl68]

I have a test where one of the possible answers is "frugal." Many of the students won't know what frugal means. So I looked up synonyms. But economical, sparing, and thrifty, let alone abstemious and parsimonious are not really great equivalents in this context. 

If you could spend $100 doing something, but find a way to spend only $20 and still do it just as well, you're being thrifty.

If you really needed to spend $100, but tried to get by with spending only $20, you're being cheap.

If you really needed to spend $100, but spent only $20 because that's all you had, you're being frugal.

If somebody else needs $100 and you have it to give, but you only give them $20, you're being stingy.

[kaysixteen]

I am not sure I buy your definition of frugal.  If I need to spend $100 but only have $20 to spend, that is not frugality, it is reality, and I probably will end up doing without what costs $100, or something else to make up the difference.

[the_geneticist]

I thought that frugal was a sort of poor, but still able to have some nice things.  Like buying inexpensive fish instead of expensive steak so you can also have a bottle of good wine.  Like a dignified way to make a small budget stretch.

[Hegemony]

Frugal and thrifty are pretty much interchangeable, in my book.

[fleabite]

Frugal and thrifty are pretty much interchangeable, in my book.

+1

Merriam-Webster agrees: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/frugal (scroll down to the section titled "Choose the Right Synonym for frugal").

[spork]

Two traditionally-aged grad students working in my lab were unable to figure out how to save their data to a flash drive. They said,"We didn't know how to do it, so we didn't do it."

Digital natives my a%$^#!

It is shocking that they got 4 year college degrees and still have no clue how to do this. But worse yet, there was no way for these grad students to, say, ask Google, "Google, how do you save a file from a PC to a flash drive?"

Now I have to go across to another building to pull the data from the machine they were using. The saddest thing is that when I was showing them how to use the equipment, I SHOWED THEM HOW TO SAVE THE DATA! Not very helpful Research Assistants...

:(

UGGGGGGGG!!!!!!

I'm increasingly interested in changing careers. What about firing them and taking applications for new RAs? I could probably be more productive than both of them put together.

[the_geneticist]

Students had an assignment that was graded as points for completion.  As in, you at least started to answer all of the questions.

Apparently, that is "confusing" because they* thought they would get full points for turning *anything* in. No, I'm not giving you points if you turned in an entirely blank assignment.

*a small handful of students.  Most of them did a fantastic job

[EdnaMode]

Students had an assignment that was graded as points for completion.  As in, you at least started to answer all of the questions.

Apparently, that is "confusing" because they* thought they would get full points for turning *anything* in. No, I'm not giving you points if you turned in an entirely blank assignment.

*a small handful of students.  Most of them did a fantastic job

I recently had a student come in and show me Canvas on his phone and ask why he got a 0 on an assignment. I pointed and said "If you look right there, it says 'missing' so that means you didn't turn it in and therefore didn't earn any points." He said he thought it was graded as credit/no credit. I said that he was correct, it was prep work for a future lab, and they got credit just for turning it in as long as it was mostly correct. He turned nothing in so earned a zero. He said that he thought credit/no credit meant he didn't really have to do it, it was like a bonus or something if he turned it in. This is a 300-level course. I have been doing activities like this for 12+ years (the whole time I've been teaching here) and never had someone misunderstand a credit/no credit assignment.

[Hegemony]

For that kind of assignment, I used to get all kinds of nonsense. I finally worded the instructions with "You will get points for any kind of sensible answer." That eliminated the time-wasters. Some of them now just don't answer at all.