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

[secundem_artem]

We've just finished week 4 of the semester and I have a student who has not attended any classes at all.  Has Covid become the all purpose "get out of jail free" card??

[marshwiggle]

We've just finished week 4 of the semester and I have a student who has not attended any classes at all.  Has Covid become the all purpose "get out of jail free" card??

For 4 weeks???!!! Unless this person has some kind of incredibly serious immunocompromising condition, it's hard to see how that could work.

[Langue_doc]

We've just finished week 4 of the semester and I have a student who has not attended any classes at all.  Has Covid become the all purpose "get out of jail free" card??

For 4 weeks???!!! Unless this person has some kind of incredibly serious immunocompromising condition, it's hard to see how that could work.

Reminds me of a student in one of my once-a-week four-hour class a few years ago. Stu went to the wrong classroom the first week, and then after receiving the early warning alert, emailed me after the fourth week about not being able to find the classroom which was in a very obvious building and in an equally obvious location. Stu was administratively dropped after four or five weeks.

[arcturus]

We've just finished week 4 of the semester and I have a student who has not attended any classes at all.  Has Covid become the all purpose "get out of jail free" card??

This happens frequently enough at my university that we have a special final grade designation for "fail - never attended". We don't do administrative drops here (although I wish we could).

[EdnaMode]

The freshpeeps are using a computer program to do an assignment that I had just gone over in detail, including walking them through all the steps they needed to do to complete the task. I also gave them a handout with the steps on it and encouraged them to take additional notes.

Stu: What do I do now?

Me: What do you think you should do now?

Stu: [next step]

Me: Right

Stu: But how do I do that?

Me: What does it say on the handout?

Stu: To do [next step]

Me: Okay

Stu: But how do I get there?

Me: What do you think you should do? What options do you have on the screen? [Hoping Stu will notice the big green "OK" button that finishes that task, the same button in the same place he had to click more than once to get where he was at the moment.]

Stu: I don't know! [Starting to sound angry]

Me: How about you click the OK button, like it says to do in the handout and like I demonstrated not half an hour ago.

Stu: Fine [still sounding angry]

Digital natives, my a**. Could I have just said to click the OK button? Perhaps so, but when will they learn for themselves? Ugh. Isn't clicking an OK button to finish something universally understood?

[marshwiggle]

We've just finished week 4 of the semester and I have a student who has not attended any classes at all.  Has Covid become the all purpose "get out of jail free" card??

This happens frequently enough at my university that we have a special final grade designation for "fail - never attended". We don't do administrative drops here (although I wish we could).

We have that too, although I've never used it and am not sure what it means. I'm guessing a student can claim they didn't know they were registered and could get it dropped form their record.

[FishProf]

I got a pair of labs for a class I've never taught dropped in my lap 4d before the semester start.

There is a software package used in the class - it is excellent, but I've never used it.

Students are given info on how to purchase, install and test.

Week 1 and 2, we don;t use it b/c I have other assignments to give and I am not yet up to speed.

Week 3 (now) we are using it in lab.

35 students.  20 have purchased the software.

Of the 20, 15 show up to lab, purchase and install and get up and running (30 minutes late or so).

1 student has a 2012 Macbook and is angry that the software won't work. (Specs are in the syllabus)

2 Students bought the software outside of the LMS and without the school email, so they can't link it.  Had to buy again and then argue with the company.

1 hadn't updated her computer in 2 years, so the software wouldn't run.

1 hadn't restarted her computer.  Ever.  So the software wouldn't run until she restarted and ran the automatic updates.

And ~ 15 complained with "why are we expected to know how to do this stuff".  After 2 years of remote learning, and growing up with computers, SRSLY?

Digital natives my ass.

[marshwiggle]

1 hadn't restarted her computer.  Ever.  So the software wouldn't run until she restarted and ran the automatic updates.

That truly boggles the mind.

Digital natives my ass.

I want that on a T-shirt to wear in computer labs.

[sinenomine]

Re: Digital natives [said with a tone of sarcasm], I've had students stare blankly at the screen and say they can't find the information that's there — because 1) they hadn't scrolled down, or 2) they hadn't clicked on embedded links.

Re: Excuses to skip classes, I just had to intervene with a student who was trying to use her accommodations letter to miss classes because she had cramps. That was not one of the accommodations.

[the_geneticist]

The start of the term means I get lots of emails.  Many of which can be answered by "read the syllabus".

Got this gem today (emphasis added):

Hi Dr. [Geneticist]! I hope you're doing well! I was going over my course materials and it shows that I don't need a [thing the syllabus says you need]. I just wanted to confirm if we need a [thing the syllabus says you need]?

Maybe "read and understand the syllabus" would be better.

[ergative]

The start of the term means I get lots of emails.  Many of which can be answered by "read the syllabus".

Got this gem today (emphasis added):

Hi Dr. [Geneticist]! I hope you're doing well! I was going over my course materials and it shows that I don't need a [thing the syllabus says you need]. I just wanted to confirm if we need a [thing the syllabus says you need]?

Maybe "read and understand the syllabus" would be better.

Is it possible that 'course materials' means something like 'automated list provided by the campus bookstore when I put in my course code'? If so, this email might be a warning sign that the bookstore screwed up somewhere.

[the_geneticist]

The start of the term means I get lots of emails.  Many of which can be answered by "read the syllabus".

Got this gem today (emphasis added):

Hi Dr. [Geneticist]! I hope you're doing well! I was going over my course materials and it shows that I don't need a [thing the syllabus says you need]. I just wanted to confirm if we need a [thing the syllabus says you need]?

Maybe "read and understand the syllabus" would be better.

Is it possible that 'course materials' means something like 'automated list provided by the campus bookstore when I put in my course code'? If so, this email might be a warning sign that the bookstore screwed up somewhere.

Turns out ergative called it!  Damn.
Time to add "call the bookstore, get this fixed, send apologetic clarifying announcement to all students" to my to-do list.

[Anon1787]

My university's disabilities office is introducing a "streamlined process" (i.e. shifting more of the burden to faculty) for dealing with student absences due to a disability. Faculty are asked to consider the following questions in determining whether disability-related excused absences can be reasonably granted in your course:

Is attendance an essential part of the class? No. Faculty don't do much of anything during class, so there's no reason for anyone to bother to attend.

Do student contributions and interactions between the instructor-student and student-student constitute a significant component of the learning process? We have perfected the process of learning by osmosis so that students and faculty can be thousands of miles away from each other and have no interactions with each other whatsoever.

[fishbrains]

My university's disabilities office is introducing a "streamlined process" (i.e. shifting more of the burden to faculty) for dealing with student absences due to a disability. Faculty are asked to consider the following questions in determining whether disability-related excused absences can be reasonably granted in your course:

Is attendance an essential part of the class? No. Faculty don't do much of anything during class, so there's no reason for anyone to bother to attend.

Do student contributions and interactions between the instructor-student and student-student constitute a significant component of the learning process? We have perfected the process of learning by osmosis so that students and faculty can be thousands of miles away from each other and have no interactions with each other whatsoever.

Yes, it's interesting how many questions I field can be answered with, "Hey, f*ck you too." Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr . . .

[kaysixteen]

I suspect that students 20 years ago were actually much more 'digital natives than they are today.   More complicated, less user friendly tech then, more need to know stuff, less mind-sapping distractive technologies/ gizmos, and much less (even more pandemic accelerated, too) coddling and helicoptering in school.