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

[smallcleanrat]

There are 16 students in the class, and they've gone to 6 other field trips.  I don't know if this student can't drive, or needs to carpool, or what - but they've managed to get themselves elsewhere.

As someone who doesn't drive and has a remarkable ability to get lost even with detailed directions, my move here would be either to 1) pick a day before the exam to practice getting there by public transport and/or 2) reach out to fellow students for a ride or a transit buddy.

Not sure it would occur to me to ask, "So about that exam. Can I just not?"

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

You are an adult.  You could drive.  But, "I can't figure out my local mass transit system and that makes me too uncomfortable to attend the final" is.....well, I don't know what to call it.

As a nondriver myself, I wouldn't assume the student can drive.

But a nondriver with access to mass transit likely uses that system regularly, unless hu is disabled in ways that prevent use of that system.

So yeah, that is very odd.

What's particularly odd is this:

My final exam in an Animal Behavior course is taking place at a Zoo.  It is both a practical exam (actually watch animals and show you learned the appropriate techniques) and an oral exam (explain concept X).  This has been the plan for about a month.  Due to weather, I have changed WHICH Zoo we are visiting, and I posted the change, including the directions for taking the Train/Subway to the site.

However the student was planning to get to the original zoo, it's hard to believe that with a month's warning something similar could not have been arranged. (It seems unlikely the student would have been within walking distance of the original zoo, for instance.)

This is what I was wondering too.

[RatGuy]

Student emails me at 10pm last night asking where our exam (8am today) is being held. I email him back at 715am today to say it's in our normal classroom. He doesn't show. He had a 72 before I gave him the zero, which then dropped him to failing range. He emails my chair to say "he didn't tell me where the exam was located." While I do give the class location on the syllabus, I don't explicitly state on the schedule that the exam is held in the same room; I assumed that was a given. I discussed the exam and its location in class. I hope the gods of put-upon faculty hear my prayers and that I'm not required to give this dude a makeup.

[FishProf]

There are 16 students in the class, and they've gone to 6 other field trips.  I don't know if this student can't drive, or needs to carpool, or what - but they've managed to get themselves elsewhere.

As someone who doesn't drive and has a remarkable ability to get lost even with detailed directions, my move here would be either to 1) pick a day before the exam to practice getting there by public transport and/or 2) reach out to fellow students for a ride or a transit buddy.

Not sure it would occur to me to ask, "So about that exam. Can I just not?"

That was my thought.  You have no other solution to this YOU problem?

For the record, if he insists, he can have a different exam, but he won't like it.

[Caracal]

Student emails me at 10pm last night asking where our exam (8am today) is being held. I email him back at 715am today to say it's in our normal classroom. He doesn't show. He had a 72 before I gave him the zero, which then dropped him to failing range. He emails my chair to say "he didn't tell me where the exam was located." While I do give the class location on the syllabus, I don't explicitly state on the schedule that the exam is held in the same room; I assumed that was a given. I discussed the exam and its location in class. I hope the gods of put-upon faculty hear my prayers and that I'm not required to give this dude a makeup.

This is a final? The exam location and time is presumably something the student can look up by going to the registrar's website. Even putting that aside, none of this makes sense. Let's suppose this guy, unlike everybody else in the class, actually has no idea where the exam is and somehow can't figure this out. If he sends you an email the night before, wouldn't he wake up the next morning, go to campus if he's not a resident student, and keep checking his email to see if you wrote him back? Even if you hadn't emailed him, wouldn't he go to the normal class location and hope that's where the exam is?

I'd be much more sympathetic if he just said he slept through his alarm. At least, that's just a boneheaded mistake, this is someone who is obviously just fishing for excuses.

[RatGuy]

Student emails me at 10pm last night asking where our exam (8am today) is being held. I email him back at 715am today to say it's in our normal classroom. He doesn't show. He had a 72 before I gave him the zero, which then dropped him to failing range. He emails my chair to say "he didn't tell me where the exam was located." While I do give the class location on the syllabus, I don't explicitly state on the schedule that the exam is held in the same room; I assumed that was a given. I discussed the exam and its location in class. I hope the gods of put-upon faculty hear my prayers and that I'm not required to give this dude a makeup.

This is a final? The exam location and time is presumably something the student can look up by going to the registrar's website. Even putting that aside, none of this makes sense. Let's suppose this guy, unlike everybody else in the class, actually has no idea where the exam is and somehow can't figure this out. If he sends you an email the night before, wouldn't he wake up the next morning, go to campus if he's not a resident student, and keep checking his email to see if you wrote him back? Even if you hadn't emailed him, wouldn't he go to the normal class location and hope that's where the exam is?

I'd be much more sympathetic if he just said he slept through his alarm. At least, that's just a boneheaded mistake, this is someone who is obviously just fishing for excuses.

FWIW, he's a chronically late student. He'd often arrive 10 minutes into a 50 min class, after the other students had completed a quiz. He then would ask after class if he could take the quiz -- even though he was there as we were going over answers and covering material. I'd always tell him no. But I do think this is part of his pattern of asking for a makeup only once he knows the questions/answers are already in circulation.

[mythbuster]

Our animal behavior lab is also held at the zoo. It is incredibly popular because of this. Also- if the T goes to said zoo, I bet Uber does as well!

I just finished grading the revisions portion of the final paper for my Writing for Bio Majors class. I warn them, repeatedly and in bold, that you will fail if there is no evidence of revision.
Even if it was a good paper the first time round.  I recommend they add a cover sheet that lists their revisions.

But every semester I get students who think fixing 3 typos is sufficient, when their original paper got a list of 8-10 major revision points in comments from me.  They will be sorely disappointed. It's so easy to tell when I can pull up the old and the new side by side. The few that took the revision process to heart are well rewarded.

[the_geneticist]

Student emails me at 10pm last night asking where our exam (8am today) is being held. I email him back at 715am today to say it's in our normal classroom. He doesn't show. He had a 72 before I gave him the zero, which then dropped him to failing range. He emails my chair to say "he didn't tell me where the exam was located." While I do give the class location on the syllabus, I don't explicitly state on the schedule that the exam is held in the same room; I assumed that was a given. I discussed the exam and its location in class. I hope the gods of put-upon faculty hear my prayers and that I'm not required to give this dude a makeup.

This is a final? The exam location and time is presumably something the student can look up by going to the registrar's website. Even putting that aside, none of this makes sense. Let's suppose this guy, unlike everybody else in the class, actually has no idea where the exam is and somehow can't figure this out. If he sends you an email the night before, wouldn't he wake up the next morning, go to campus if he's not a resident student, and keep checking his email to see if you wrote him back? Even if you hadn't emailed him, wouldn't he go to the normal class location and hope that's where the exam is?

I'd be much more sympathetic if he just said he slept through his alarm. At least, that's just a boneheaded mistake, this is someone who is obviously just fishing for excuses.

FWIW, he's a chronically late student. He'd often arrive 10 minutes into a 50 min class, after the other students had completed a quiz. He then would ask after class if he could take the quiz -- even though he was there as we were going over answers and covering material. I'd always tell him no. But I do think this is part of his pattern of asking for a makeup only once he knows the questions/answers are already in circulation.

I'd err on the side of writing a new version of the exam and make stu take it in your office.  If it was multiple choice, change it to free-response; swap out some questions for new versions; and call it good enough.  If he knows the materials well enough, he will still pass. 

[Langue_doc]

Our animal behavior lab is also held at the zoo. It is incredibly popular because of this. Also- if the T goes to said zoo, I bet Uber does as well!

I just finished grading the revisions portion of the final paper for my Writing for Bio Majors class. I warn them, repeatedly and in bold, that you will fail if there is no evidence of revision.
Even if it was a good paper the first time round.  I recommend they add a cover sheet that lists their revisions.

But every semester I get students who think fixing 3 typos is sufficient, when their original paper got a list of 8-10 major revision points in comments from me.  They will be sorely disappointed. It's so easy to tell when I can pull up the old and the new side by side. The few that took the revision process to heart are well rewarded.

Lucky you! I get identical submissions uploaded as "revised" submissions every single semester. It's easy to compare the before-and-after assignments because all assignments have to be uploaded on Canvas. I merely note that there is no change in scores because both assignments are identical or, in the case of fixing three to four typos, note that feedback has been ignored hence no change in scores. This is a course that requires three essays and a research paper, so one would think that after the first attempt, students would know better than to submit the same assignment as the "revised" one, but some never learn. Revising and resubmitting is optional so students have the choice of not revising their assignments. Some still think that they can fool me into giving them higher scores by uploading the same assignment as their "revised" one.

FishProf and RatGuy, it sounds like we are required to babysit our students. Why would a student enrolled in a course that requires fieldwork not know how to get around the city, especially for a final? Does your admin expect you to drive the student to the zoo or send an Uber to Stu's house? And for the student who claimed not to know where the final was going to be held, I hope the chair/admin remind him that this was information that was given out in class, and in case he was confused, it was his responsibility to ask for clarification during class. Are instructors required to send emails to each student reminding them about the dates and locations of their finals?

[FishProf]

Does your admin expect you to drive the student to the zoo or send an Uber to Stu's house?

My school won't pay for transportation.  I'd much rather drive (or have them driven) as a group.

This particular student is non-traditional, is a functional adult, and showed (up to now) Zero evidence of snowflakery.  I am curious to see if he shows tomorrow.

[history_grrrl]

Argh! I debated where to post this and settled on headbanging and despair.

Just had my second virtual meeting with the same student who, I am 100% certain, used AI for five assignments in two classes. First meeting was about an essay with fake quotations, citations, and sources; the whole thing was pretense, with him acting like he had written this essay. Then I looked at his other essay, saw the same problems, and filed an academic integrity complaint. That meeting is with my chair in a few weeks.

Meanwhile, I reviewed his final exams, both of which contain generic claims and almost no evidence (in the few cases where evidence appears, it's wrong). Met with him about these, separate from the integrity meeting because I can't "prove" AI. Again it was an absurd charade in which he pretended to be "looking at his notes." Upshot: he admitted to randomly tossing in comments like, "As we learned in lecture," to make it look as though he was referring to course material.

What a waste of time. I should have asked him a few questions and then gotten off the call. Instead, I allowed him to blather on about how stressed and anxious and exhausted he was, how busy he was with his multiple jobs and summer courses, how he's already switched to a different major, how he was blown away that I was asking all these questions and wanting to see his notes, how in four years nothing like this had ever, EVER happened to him before, and on and on. Oh, and if he has to drop his summer courses and pay another year's tuition, that'll be my fault, of course. For "bashing" him.

He's likely going to fail these classes anyway, because his exams are garbage and his essays are full of falsified material. Why not just 'fess up and save us all the phoniness and aggravation?

I need to get a lot better at cutting this type of thing off at the knees, that's for sure.

[Hegemony]

History_grrrl, that sounds so frustrating. And infuriating. What a complete toad that student is. I hope he gets everything that's coming to him. You are a wonder of patience!

[Caracal]

Meanwhile, I reviewed his final exams, both of which contain generic claims and almost no evidence (in the few cases where evidence appears, it's wrong). Met with him about these, separate from the integrity meeting because I can't "prove" AI. Again it was an absurd charade in which he pretended to be "looking at his notes." Upshot: he admitted to randomly tossing in comments like, "As we learned in lecture," to make it look as though he was referring to course material.



He's likely going to fail these classes anyway, because his exams are garbage and his essays are full of falsified material. Why not just 'fess up and save us all the phoniness and aggravation?

I need to get a lot better at cutting this type of thing off at the knees, that's for sure.

For what it's worth, I do get students who write things like that with no assistance from AI.

I'm sure you're right about this student, but I still think this is going to end up being a bad use of your time and energy. You're getting drawn into this guy's bs because you need him to admit to cheating and he knows it. You can't really prove he used a bot to write his essay. If you give him the failing grade on the exam that it deserves he hasn't gotten away with anything. He probably would have gotten a better grade by writing his own crummy essay.

I just can't imagine you really want to spend your time with ineffective cheaters instead of students who are actually trying.

[history_grrrl]

Meanwhile, I reviewed his final exams, both of which contain generic claims and almost no evidence (in the few cases where evidence appears, it's wrong). Met with him about these, separate from the integrity meeting because I can't "prove" AI. Again it was an absurd charade in which he pretended to be "looking at his notes." Upshot: he admitted to randomly tossing in comments like, "As we learned in lecture," to make it look as though he was referring to course material.

He's likely going to fail these classes anyway, because his exams are garbage and his essays are full of falsified material. Why not just 'fess up and save us all the phoniness and aggravation?

I need to get a lot better at cutting this type of thing off at the knees, that's for sure.

For what it's worth, I do get students who write things like that with no assistance from AI.

I'm sure you're right about this student, but I still think this is going to end up being a bad use of your time and energy. You're getting drawn into this guy's bs because you need him to admit to cheating and he knows it. You can't really prove he used a bot to write his essay. If you give him the failing grade on the exam that it deserves he hasn't gotten away with anything. He probably would have gotten a better grade by writing his own crummy essay.

I just can't imagine you really want to spend your time with ineffective cheaters instead of students who are actually trying.

I completely agree. There are problems with the exams, and I thought I should give him a chance to explain if he could. The "explanations" are bogus, so now I can just go ahead and grade as is. My mistake was giving him time and space to ruminate about all his problems and blame me for them. Lesson learned.

[the_geneticist]

You can try typing the essay prompt into ChatGPT. My bet it you'd get a very, very similar essay to what he submitted.  Now, it doesn't prove that the student used Ai, but does demonstrate the similarities in the writing.