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

[apl68]

Maybe some of these students confused "astronomy" with "geology?"

[polly_mer]

Maybe some of these students confused "astronomy" with "geology?"

I think it more likely that the students memorized something in Nth grade science and blindly repeat back the memory when prompted by the similar prompt.

I was amazed the first time I encountered a student who could give a fabulous oral overview of certain topics in general science, but were unable to write a coherent paragraph on other topics including What I Did Last Summer.  I am no longer amazed because it tends to correlate with having had a teacher at some point who made the student essentially memorize the overview verbatim without any effort to teach them the actual scientific thinking or material beyond the fabulous overview.

One of the biggest frustrations I had while trying to teach elementary science to aspiring K-8 teachers and those who wanted the "easiest" gen ed lab course was getting people to let go of those carefully memorized isolated bits in favor of new material, let alone actual scientific thinking.

Every term, we spent much of the term (even beyond the physics unit) reinforcing the difference between velocity and acceleration, difference between mass and weight, and the observable effects of gravity (the big one being that shape of an object is important to falling speed on Earth while weight doesn't matter at all because of air resistance).  When I asked the question using exactly the same words that the students memorized, almost everyone got it right almost every time. 

When I used slightly different words, most of the time the students picked the standard fallacy instead of the simple restatement of the observable science, even when we had done many activities so they could observe for themselves.  I continue to wonder how people can't learn from their own direct experience, but some people cannot and will pick a comfortable remembered (even when inapplicable) response over applying something new.

[mamselle]

They have to think too hard to think.

M.

[Anon1787]

A grade grubbing student answers a multiple choice question one way but then in part of the answer to an essay question (just 2 questions later) says the exact opposite. Do students not remember what they said 2 minutes ago?

[sprout]

A grade grubbing student answers a multiple choice question one way but then in part of the answer to an essay question (just 2 questions later) says the exact opposite. Do students not remember what they said 2 minutes ago?

I've seen this so many times I can't hardly even roll my eyes at it anymore.  Did you read that answer you just wrote down?

[kiana]

A grade grubbing student answers a multiple choice question one way but then in part of the answer to an essay question (just 2 questions later) says the exact opposite. Do students not remember what they said 2 minutes ago?

I've seen this so many times I can't hardly even roll my eyes at it anymore.  Did you read that answer you just wrote down?

Nope.

In a handwritten test I will often use (for example) the same quadratic in different parts of the test. If they're paying enough attention to realize that they've just factored it for one, they don't HAVE to redo the whole thing. About 10% notice and those are usually getting A's.

If they do corrections (I usually allow this for fractional points) about 25% realize on the corrections.

[secundem_artem]

Dear Stu

You dropped 3 courses and have a D or an F in the remaining 2.  I really don't think a double major PLUS a minor is in the cards for your immediate future as you work your way to becoming a cardiac surgeon.

Dr Artem

[OneMoreYear]

Dear Grad Student,
You earned a C on this assignment because because you were not paying attention. No, I am not going to spend 10 hours creating another version of this assignment so you can do the assignment again. I gave you the opportunity to do the assignment correctly the first time. Please do let me know what my chair says when you tell them how mean I am.
Dr. OMY

[polly_mer]

A grade grubbing student answers a multiple choice question one way but then in part of the answer to an essay question (just 2 questions later) says the exact opposite. Do students not remember what they said 2 minutes ago?

Some students remember exactly what they wrote and are hedging their bets because they noticed the questions are similar, but they don't actually know the correct answer.  At least, that was the answer students gave when I asked the direct question of "how did you know the answer here, but not there?" 

Those students were proud of their strategy in getting at least one answer right, even though they didn't know the material.  I started requiring explanations for multiple guess and T/F answers to limit the ability to hedge that way.  Most students were appreciative of the opportunity to get partial credit by having a good explanation of a not-quite-right answer.  The hedgers were not at all happy.

[EdnaMode]

Dear Stu,

No, you cannot resubmit your work from earlier in the semester because you just now, when you noticed you were close to failing, got around to reading the feedback on the grading rubrics and "hadn't realized you were doing [thing] wrong on multiple assignments." Also, every dropbox page reminds students to do [thing]. You can still pass if you do the rest of the work correctly this semester.

All the best,

Dr. Mode

[fishbrains]

Dear Grad Student,
You earned a C on this assignment because because you were not paying attention. No, I am not going to spend 10 hours creating another version of this assignment so you can do the assignment again. I gave you the opportunity to do the assignment correctly the first time. Please do let me know what my chair says when you tell them how mean I am.
Dr. OMY

Yeah, buddy. I'm teaching at the freshizzle level, and apparently I'm inflicting the same kind of meanness on my hapless students--or at least those students who took a four-week absence in the middle of the semester and now have "no idea at all what's going on." I'm pretty cool, but even I can't recreate lost time.

[kiana]

How. The. Fuck. Do you get into a college algebra class and not understand how to round.

I understand occasional "Oh damnit I feel dumb now" errors. I understand not reading the directions and rounding to the wrong place.

But literally not understanding how to round 4.71 to the nearest tenth?

Them: Is it 4.8?

Me: So the number after 7 is 1. Is 1 smaller or bigger than 5?

Them: Smaller (thank goodness).

Me: So does it round up or down?

Them: So it's ... 3?

[polly_mer]

How. The. Fuck. Do you get into a college algebra class and not understand how to round.

I understand occasional "Oh damnit I feel dumb now" errors. I understand not reading the directions and rounding to the wrong place.

But literally not understanding how to round 4.71 to the nearest tenth?

Them: Is it 4.8?

Me: So the number after 7 is 1. Is 1 smaller or bigger than 5?

Them: Smaller (thank goodness).

Me: So does it round up or down?

Them: So it's ... 3?

I wonder if this person went to the same school as one of my students years ago who submitted a problem set that was just bizarrely wrong.

I asked the student to show me how she entered the numbers on her calculator.  She replied, "Oh, I didn't do that; I just guessed".  She...just...guessed on math computations.  Didn't estimate.  Didn't round.  Didn't have an entry error.  Didn't fail on order of operations.  Didn't misread the questions.

She...just...guessed random numbers for basic arithmetic.  The point of the assignment was to establish where the math skills were before we jumped into unit conversions because I'm accustomed to having to teach order of operations and even how to use a scientific calculator.

She...just...guessed numbers with no estimate on order of magnitude.

I got nothing for someone who refuses to believe that math is a thing.

[the_geneticist]

How. The. Fuck. Do you get into a college algebra class and not understand how to round.

I understand occasional "Oh damnit I feel dumb now" errors. I understand not reading the directions and rounding to the wrong place.

But literally not understanding how to round 4.71 to the nearest tenth?

Them: Is it 4.8?

Me: So the number after 7 is 1. Is 1 smaller or bigger than 5?

Them: Smaller (thank goodness).

Me: So does it round up or down?

Them: So it's ... 3?

I wonder if this person went to the same school as one of my students years ago who submitted a problem set that was just bizarrely wrong.

I asked the student to show me how she entered the numbers on her calculator.  She replied, "Oh, I didn't do that; I just guessed".  She...just...guessed on math computations.  Didn't estimate.  Didn't round.  Didn't have an entry error.  Didn't fail on order of operations.  Didn't misread the questions.

She...just...guessed random numbers for basic arithmetic.  The point of the assignment was to establish where the math skills were before we jumped into unit conversions because I'm accustomed to having to teach order of operations and even how to use a scientific calculator.

She...just...guessed numbers with no estimate on order of magnitude.

I got nothing for someone who refuses to believe that math is a thing.

I am so grateful to my first college physics professor who made us estimate "how big" our answer should be.  Like, how big is the fountain in the main square?  Should your answer be closer to 10 meters squared or 1 kilometer squared?
Same for a graduate microbiology class where the professor said "There is no such thing as 'luck' in genetics.  If you have 10X more positive examples than you estimated, you didn't get 'lucky', you made a bad assumption.  Find it!"

I know that logic is a learned skill and that estimations are part logic & part experience, but I've heard some doozies too.
And yet there are folks who work in construction and have had no formal math past grade school who can frame a house, tell you exactly how much cement you'll need to pour a pathway, or determine how many gallons of paint you'll need to repaint your living room.  I bet a lot of our students would benefit from some "real life" apprenticeships with construction companies.

[kiana]

Upon inspection of my post history I also posted about them about 2 weeks ago.

I really think they're dyscalculic and what I want to know is how the hell they got placed into this class.