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

[Liquidambar]

The bicycle wheel is for a standard demo about angular momentum:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaauRiRX4do  I don't know about the other stuff.

[mamselle]

Were they trying to replicate Moholy-Nagy's "Light-Space Modulator"? (1930)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHdK19meZTk

and (more effective with the lights off)...

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByJ3r39JNBA

M.   

   

[secundem_artem]

Were they trying to replicate Moholy-Nagy's "Light-Space Modulator"? (1930)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHdK19meZTk

and (more effective with the lights off)...

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByJ3r39JNBA

M.   

I thought it may have been for the Illudium Q36 Explosive Space Modulator

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuUJfYcn3V4

[mamselle]

Ha!

That cheered me up no end!

M.

[the_geneticist]

Not really a teaching issue but some of you teach in this field and it happened in a classroom so.......

My non-physics course classroom is in the physics department.  Today, I found what may have been the leftovers from some weird teaching experiment.  In the corner of the room were: (1) a bicycle wheel with no tire, but a 4" wooden handle coming out of the hub on each side; (2) what looks vaguely like a gyroscope; (3) a Dremel tool; (4) several electric cords.

What in the name of Nic Tesla is this stuff used for?

Physics teaching demos get all the cool toys!
If I'd known that I could have gone for a Ph.D in physics education, I would have done it.  I LOVED those sorts of demos as a kid at the science center.  Undergraduate me thought "Real physicists don't get to play with bowling balls, pendulums, and catapults.  Guess I better stick with biology".  Missed opportunity!

[mythbuster]

Geneticist- since you love that stuff, I highly recommend that you go find "Something Incredibly Wonderful Happens". It's the biography of Frank Oppenheimer (brother of J. Robert) and founder of the Exploratorium in San Francisco. 
   If you've never been the Exploratorium is the Grandaddy (and the best!) of all hands on science museums. Nothing but these great demos and huge interactive exhibits. And then there was the tactile dome. . . . but I digress.

[EdnaMode]

I'd reply with "The instructions/due date/syllabus information is correct"

...

Seriously, what would they do if I said "Hah!  You have solved the riddle!  You have been chosen to be the only student that has to attend lab this Monday, even though the term hasn't started yet."

I usually reply "What does it say in the instructions? On the syllabus? etc." or "The instructions are correct. Please follow them." and they often manage to still maintain that confused/hurt look. I have been tempted to bring out the snark and say, "Only for YOU are the instructions different, but, you have to guess the answer, I won't tell you." But I'm sure that would either bring tears, or have them running out of the room to go see the dept chair and tell him how horrible I am.

[Puget]

Apparently we have entered the head banging portion of the semester--

Student asking for extension on the weekly assignments because she has an exam in another class next week. Also wants to take the second exam in my class on a different day because she has other exams that day as well. Um, no, these are normal conditions of college, also experienced by most of your classmates. I did offer to meet with her to discuss time management strategies. She doesn't seem to want to do that though.

[mamselle]

Clearly, her time management strategies are focused on getting her profs to change exam dates for her....

M.

[AmLitHist]

Apparently we have entered the head banging portion of the semester--

It's been Dead Grandma season here for three weeks already. Also, Things at Home Have Been a Mess season, as well as "I have been in Thailand for a month on a trip that I planned early this year, but I'll be back next weekend, so give me a list of what I've missed and need to catch up on" season.

In other words, it's Prof. AmLitHist's Life Sucks Just as Much as Yours, and I Still Have to Show Up and Work, So Suck It Up season.

[Caracal]

Also, my allergies act up, too. You know what, I still have to get stuff done. I don't think it prepares them for work after college if they can't differentiate between something that requires OTC medication and something that warrants an extension. And, it's not as if this assignment popped out of the blue - we've been talking about it in class for weeks and all students were required to have a one-on-one meeting with me to report on their progress, ask questions, etc.

In life after college, what warrants an extension depends on some combination of what is due, who you are, and what the reason you can't do it is. Some things just have to get done unless you a bus runs you over. There are lots of things that aren't particularly time sensitive where all kinds of excuses would be acceptable and nobody would bat an eye if you asked someone if you could submit something in a day or two since your allergies were acting up and you were having a hard time putting the finishing touches on it.

Often, this would be fine if it was a rare occurrence, but not if it happened constantly. Sometimes, extensions are basically the industry standard. My inbox is filled with blanket extensions on deadlines for conference proposals because almost everyone was late in submitting. As far as I can tell, editors of journals and edited collections assume that many contributors won't actually finish stuff by the deadline and plan accordingly.

It's fine to not accept things late if doing so is going to defeat the purpose of the assignment or mess up your timetable, but there really isn't some sort of big lesson students need to be learning about asking for extensions.

[Puget]

Also, my allergies act up, too. You know what, I still have to get stuff done. I don't think it prepares them for work after college if they can't differentiate between something that requires OTC medication and something that warrants an extension. And, it's not as if this assignment popped out of the blue - we've been talking about it in class for weeks and all students were required to have a one-on-one meeting with me to report on their progress, ask questions, etc.

In life after college, what warrants an extension depends on some combination of what is due, who you are, and what the reason you can't do it is. Some things just have to get done unless you a bus runs you over. There are lots of things that aren't particularly time sensitive where all kinds of excuses would be acceptable and nobody would bat an eye if you asked someone if you could submit something in a day or two since your allergies were acting up and you were having a hard time putting the finishing touches on it.

Often, this would be fine if it was a rare occurrence, but not if it happened constantly. Sometimes, extensions are basically the industry standard. My inbox is filled with blanket extensions on deadlines for conference proposals because almost everyone was late in submitting. As far as I can tell, editors of journals and edited collections assume that many contributors won't actually finish stuff by the deadline and plan accordingly.

It's fine to not accept things late if doing so is going to defeat the purpose of the assignment or mess up your timetable, but there really isn't some sort of big lesson students need to be learning about asking for extensions.

The difference to me is fairness, given the context of a class where everyone is being evaluated-- If I give extensions to only students who ask, it isn't equitable because a lot of students wouldn't ask in these circumstances. And students from more privileged background are more likely to ask, so this is particularly bad. That's why outside of serious illnesses and emergencies,  I vastly prefer just dropping the X lowest scores for everyone-- they all get the same number of freebies and I don't need to play judge.

[apl68]

Sometimes, extensions are basically the industry standard.

True.  Perhaps some of these students are hoping for a career at NASA.

[MarathonRunner]

I ask in class today what their first word was and when they said it. They always used to have answers, but this year they have no idea. I ask if they just never talk to their parents? Awkward laughter. I assign them to ask their parents before the next class.

Some students might be adoptees, fosters, or wards of the State? I've always hated questions about family history and my early days, because as an adoptee, I have no idea. I'm sure I'm not the only one. I have no idea what why first word was and I don't think either of my adoptive parents have any idea either.

[Puget]

I ask in class today what their first word was and when they said it. They always used to have answers, but this year they have no idea. I ask if they just never talk to their parents? Awkward laughter. I assign them to ask their parents before the next class.

Some students might be adoptees, fosters, or wards of the State? I've always hated questions about family history and my early days, because as an adoptee, I have no idea. I'm sure I'm not the only one. I have no idea what why first word was and I don't think either of my adoptive parents have any idea either.

A few of them maybe (and I try to be sensitive to that), but not many (such are the demographics of our private university, and even many adoptees were adopted as infants), certainly not the approximately 90% of the class who had no idea.