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

[Biologist_]

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 would probably avoid that wording.
Instead, I might put an explanatory two or three sentence preamble acknowledging that the reason that most of the notable scientists and scientific discoveries in microbiology (and most other scientific disciplines) were white males was that they were the only ones allowed to participate in science, etc. Then just ask the matching question without the embedded commentary.

That way, you wouldn't be asking students to decode the message of the prompt. We have all heard that terminology before and automatically read it as shorthand for acknowledging historical (as well as current) inequities. However, students may or may not be as familiar with the idea or the way we use the phrase.

But perhaps you have already had that discussion with your class in more detail and the student who took offense was just not paying attention...

[marshwiggle]

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?"

Ah, it's no worse than  if the Nazis had said "Match the Jew with their scientific discovery."
It serves the same purpose....

[dismalist]

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?"

Ah, it's no worse than  if the Nazis had said "Match the Jew with their scientific discovery."
It serves the same purpose....

The Nazis actually would have said "Match the Jew with their Jewish scientific discovery". Hence, the contemporary equivalent would be "Match the white man with his white scientific discovery.

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

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.

Thanks. At the time, I was overwhelmed (well, still am) and frustrated. The student had another book that should work, so the issue was resolved.

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

I have no words. Granted, I'm pretty frustrated at the moment. Astronomy lab report. Student has to answer questions about objects in the sky using a flow chart (in order to identify the object).

When you answer 'yes' to a question, you either have one more question to answer, or you're done. What does the student do? Student goes to the opposite side of the flow chart (after answering yes) and then proceeds to answer 'no' to the remaining questions. Did the student identify the object correctly?

Student #2 is supposed to take make angular distance measurements (hand in different positions) of objects with their hands in the pics. What does student send me? Pictures of the objects, but no hand.

Banging. My. Head.

[AvidReader]

This seems pertinent:

It is the week before midterms here.
All the textbooks seem to be rentals. (I tried to buy a copy of the book before I started this job so I could prep my syllabus, and it was impossible to purchase one.)
This year, all textbooks were pre-bundled by student number, and students drove through a car line to have those bundles dropped into their cars.

Yesterday, a student showed up in one of my classes for the first time. He did not have the book. He also informed me that he had not "bought" the book. Given this structure, this likely also means he has none of his other books for any other classes either.

AR.

[mamselle]

He's waiting for the elves and fairies to drop it off through the ventilator system the way Santa Claus does Christmas gifts down the chimney.

Modernized expectations, and all that...

M.

[Parasaurolophus]

Not entirely a bang, because I actually found this really funny, although I was poleaxed for a second when it happened:

Last week was the first week of my intro to metaphysics and epistemology, and the topic was 'What is philosophy?'. Among other things, I introduced students (asynchronously) to the Wikipedia philosophy game ([urlhttps://en.wikipedia.org/.../Wikipedia:Getting_to_Philosophy]you know the one[/url]). In their weekly quiz, I had them play two rounds of the game for pre-selected Wikipedia pages.

In today's live Q&A, the first question was: "I don't get it. How do I download the game?"

[Cheerful]

Last week was the first week of my intro to metaphysics and epistemology, and the topic was 'What is philosophy?'. Among other things, I introduced students (asynchronously) to the Wikipedia philosophy game ([urlhttps://en.wikipedia.org/.../Wikipedia:Getting_to_Philosophy]you know the one[/url]). In their weekly quiz, I had them play two rounds of the game for pre-selected Wikipedia pages.

In today's live Q&A, the first question was: "I don't get it. How do I download the game?"

Must be an esports major!  (Interthreaduality, see Adrian - liberal arts.)

[apl68]

Last week was the first week of my intro to metaphysics and epistemology, and the topic was 'What is philosophy?'. Among other things, I introduced students (asynchronously) to the Wikipedia philosophy game ([urlhttps://en.wikipedia.org/.../Wikipedia:Getting_to_Philosophy]you know the one[/url]). In their weekly quiz, I had them play two rounds of the game for pre-selected Wikipedia pages.

In today's live Q&A, the first question was: "I don't get it. How do I download the game?"

Must be an esports major!  (Interthreaduality, see Adrian - liberal arts.)

The Digital Native strikes again!

[ergative]

Not entirely a bang, because I actually found this really funny, although I was poleaxed for a second when it happened:

Last week was the first week of my intro to metaphysics and epistemology, and the topic was 'What is philosophy?'. Among other things, I introduced students (asynchronously) to the Wikipedia philosophy game ([urlhttps://en.wikipedia.org/.../Wikipedia:Getting_to_Philosophy]you know the one[/url]). In their weekly quiz, I had them play two rounds of the game for pre-selected Wikipedia pages.

In today's live Q&A, the first question was: "I don't get it. How do I download the game?"

This is the first I've heard of this game. How interesting. I did manage to get there, but I had to skip the links about pronunciation and so on. There was a bit of a loop in which an IPA pronunciation link sent me to the IPA page which sent me to linguistics over and over again. It's like an emergent wiki version of the Collatz conjecture. I wonder if it's an accident that this result leads to an entry about knowledge in a wiki that is about storing knowledge. If there were a different wiki of a comparable complexiity--such as TV Tropes---would all paths end up leading to the entry for 'television' or something? Or is it an accident, and if Wikipedia were regrown from scratch we'd find that all paths end up leading to some similarly well-linked article, like 'language' or 'biology' or something, and it's just an accident that philosophy specifically ends up the target in this universe?

[polly_mer]

This is the first I've heard of getting to philosophy through Wikipedia links.  Wikipedia is my go-to first stop for general knowledge and I don't think I've ever ended up on a philosophy page by following links unless I started on a directly related page.

[OneMoreYear]

I suppose this could be on the email thread, but I'm banging my head over it.
The first major assignment for one of my classes (graduate level) is due today. I've been fielding emails over the last 48 hours (the task requires an integration of several skills, so I expect questions).  However, last night, I received an email that essentially asked if I was grading on accuracy.  Umm, yes?

[Parasaurolophus]

Not entirely a bang, because I actually found this really funny, although I was poleaxed for a second when it happened:

Last week was the first week of my intro to metaphysics and epistemology, and the topic was 'What is philosophy?'. Among other things, I introduced students (asynchronously) to the Wikipedia philosophy game ([urlhttps://en.wikipedia.org/.../Wikipedia:Getting_to_Philosophy]you know the one[/url]). In their weekly quiz, I had them play two rounds of the game for pre-selected Wikipedia pages.

In today's live Q&A, the first question was: "I don't get it. How do I download the game?"

This is the first I've heard of this game. How interesting. I did manage to get there, but I had to skip the links about pronunciation and so on. There was a bit of a loop in which an IPA pronunciation link sent me to the IPA page which sent me to linguistics over and over again. It's like an emergent wiki version of the Collatz conjecture. I wonder if it's an accident that this result leads to an entry about knowledge in a wiki that is about storing knowledge. If there were a different wiki of a comparable complexiity--such as TV Tropes---would all paths end up leading to the entry for 'television' or something? Or is it an accident, and if Wikipedia were regrown from scratch we'd find that all paths end up leading to some similarly well-linked article, like 'language' or 'biology' or something, and it's just an accident that philosophy specifically ends up the target in this universe?

Yeah, you have to click on the first link that's not a footnote, in italics, or in brackets. Pronunciation stuff is typically in brackets.

The explanation I've seen is twofold. Partly, it's because philosophy is more or less the ur-discipline for most of the academy, and its subject matter is highly general and highly fundamental stuff, so there's always something philosophical in the vicinity of any subject.

More importantly, it's just got to do with Wikipedia's architecture. I don't remember how it's structured, but it's something to the effect that the structure prioritizes as top-level content the kinds of very general subject pages that are the bread and butter of philosophy (like 'knowledge' or 'logic', etc.). (Ironically, the logic page sends you on an infinite loop now. It didn't used to.)

There's another neat structural feature, although I can't find the confirmation of it any more: from any given wikipedia page, you can get to philosophy (or maybe it's a topic in philosophy?) within something like seven clicks (not nevessarily by clicking on the first link each time, though).

[bopper]

This is the first I've heard of this game. How interesting. I did manage to get there, but I had to skip the links about pronunciation and so on. There was a bit of a loop in which an IPA pronunciation link sent me to the IPA page which sent me to linguistics over and over again. It's like an emergent wiki version of the Collatz conjecture. I wonder if it's an accident that this result leads to an entry about knowledge in a wiki that is about storing knowledge. If there were a different wiki of a comparable complexiity--such as TV Tropes---would all paths end up leading to the entry for 'television' or something? Or is it an accident, and if Wikipedia were regrown from scratch we'd find that all paths end up leading to some similarly well-linked article, like 'language' or 'biology' or something, and it's just an accident that philosophy specifically ends up the target in this universe?

From TV Tropes I got to a page that compares TV Tropes to Wikipedia....https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Administrivia/ThereIsNoSuchThingAsNotability