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

[sinenomine]

I taught that unit....

[Sea_Ice]

I taught that unit....

OMG!!  No words - just the beverage of your choice.  On the plus side, you now know something important about your student...

It would be tempting to have a f2f review of the unit, but that would be time-consuming and rather aggressive - perhaps something like an exam-wrap for everyone, during the next class?

[the_geneticist]

One of my students just told me they couldn't find anything in the library about Pearl Harbor. I think they didn't look very hard.

*facepalm*
They really expected you to say "OK!, I'm sure there is absolutely nothing"?
Heck, there is even trashy historical fiction about Pearl Harbor

[apl68]

One of my students just told me they couldn't find anything in the library about Pearl Harbor. I think they didn't look very hard.

Time to assign a "learn how to use the library" refresher - I assume that librarians are still happy to offer those?

Oh yes!  If only more instructors would let us.

[apl68]

One of my students just told me they couldn't find anything in the library about Pearl Harbor. I think they didn't look very hard.

*facepalm*
They really expected you to say "OK!, I'm sure there is absolutely nothing"?
Heck, there is even trashy historical fiction about Pearl Harbor

I do recall a friend who had recently gotten hired as a history instructor at an under-resourced state university who said that he'd found that when he assigned students topics to produce one-page annotated bibliographies on, there was for most topics basically one right answer.  A case of a newly-minted PhD having to remind himself that not every institution is an R1.  But he did get hired right out of grad school!

[Langue_doc]

Forumites, this is a venting thread, rather than a "give gratutious advise to the newbies" thread. Sinenomine, who comes across as quite experienced, already taught the unit in question.

Banging our heads in despair ≠ asking for advise.

I taught that unit....

[the_geneticist]

*bang! bang! bang!*

Students are working on their presentations for the end of the term.  It's a big project that they've been building pieces towards for weeks. They are presenting in teams to say what they each individually contributed to the big class set of data and work as a team to ask & answer a bigger question from that big set of data.

A TA that teaches TODAY* emailed this morning to say they are "confused"
Are the students in teams?  Why is there an individual portion?
Why are they supposed to include "unrelated information" about their individual [basket]?
What do I tell the students?!?

Tell. Them. To. Use. The. Project. Guidelines. That. Have. Been. Posted. All. Term.

Seriously, day 1 of the class included having them read the guidelines & scoring rubric.  We've been building this for weeks. 

[Tell me you haven't bothered to read the class materials without telling me you haven't bothered to read the class materials]

*Oh no, it's even worse.  They taught lab yesterday.  This cannot be good.

[sonoamused]

One of my students just told me they couldn't find anything in the library about Pearl Harbor. I think they didn't look very hard.

They clearly just walked in, looked around and upon failing to see a sign pointing them to the Pearl Harbor section, or failing to find a database called "Pearl Harbor" - they left.

[Hegemony]

I was in our library once when I overheard the librarian explaining to a pair of baffled students that some reference work or other was in alphabetical order. The students had not heard of alphabetical order. "So it's based on the first letter? How do you know which letters come first?"

At least the students had heard of letters. I think.