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

[polly_mer]

We're having a practical exam in lab today. The instructions say [do technical thing] to ALL the [parts]. And it is in all caps, bolded, and underlined on the instructions. Stu raises his hand, I walk over to his table, and he asks "When the instructions say to do [thing] to all the parts. Does that mean this one too?" and he points to a part. I replied "All means all."

**sigh** I think we've reached the point of the semester when even the good students (and faculty too) are having a hard time getting multiple brain cells to work in unison.

I'm more sympathetic to the clarifications for what should be very clear now that I've had far more experiences than I'd like with "Dear manager, did you really mean I should do this very costly thing that is blatantly stupid instead of doing this more reasonable thing for much less cost?"  It has saved my neck to have in writing that I am indeed to spend several hours at $250/hour to document why these $10 were not misspent. 

It has also saved my neck to have in writing, "No, that policy doesn't apply here.  Please do X instead of Y", when it turned out Y was indeed absolutely required.

I have also been relieved to get in writing, "Oh, no, no.  Let's loop in the relevant decision maker to confirm, but I'm pretty sure that Y is not right and you should to do X" with a confirmation in writing by the decision maker to save much effort and money because no one thought of the edge cases or hadn't updated the policy as technology changed or had cut and pasted without updating. 

I am no longer surprised on what was once bolded, underlined, in red, and in extra large font that is no longer applicable and no one noticed for six months or a year because most people don't actually read all the instructions.  My training leader is no longer surprised by the string of emails I send while doing annual training and has a couple times sent me materials before posting so I can provide feedback early enough to matter.

[onehappyunicorn]

I do wonder what students learn in high school, or indeed any courses.

In response to an assignment to discuss the value of literature, a student gives as their example the lyrics from a One Direction song. In apparent sincerity.

And this is one of the better students in the class.

Well, some institutions (perhaps not yours) have played into this by "diversifying" their definitions of literature to include movies, popular music, etc. Especially modern, urban, etc.

I'm fine with including movies, pop music, and whatever. There are many great works in there. I'm not happy with someone who thinks that the lyrics of One Direction have any literary value.

Yeah, I have a digital painting project where the prompt is essentially just to try out making your own brushes in Photoshop and make a simple digital painting. Students are required to research three painters, two contemporary and one historical, and draw on those painters as a source of inspiration. It's a super-simple assignment to get students a bit familiar with some of the painting tools in Photoshop and to introduce them to the idea of basic research in creating art. One student came back with their final as almost a direct copy of this:
https://www.redbubble.com/i/t-shirt/Wolf-howling-at-the-moon-by-SennoxDesign/49126312.NL9AC
Not surprisingly this was the same student who refused to meet with me to discuss sketches (which they never turned in) and was otherwise non-communicative for several weeks. They were surprised to learn that plagiarism does indeed apply to the visual arts.

[AvidReader]

I wanted to reply to the post from last month about the student who skipped class to attend office hours and then wanted the office hour professor to verify the excuse and times, but I can't. Here's mine anyway:

Student in an online course emailed to ask if student could attend my in-person office hours, (our school is still on campus, so I offer both online and in person office hours). Yes, of course. I pointed out my existing hours (some in the morning, some in the mid-afternoon) and said that if those didn't work because of other commitments and classes, I could meet at any time on a different day.

Student showed up at office hours, with a friend (also in my class). Still fine. They had questions about their essays. Yay! We talked about essays and chatted for a bit. I remarked that I was surprised to see them, since I thought they had other morning classes. (Spoiler: they did).

Both students are not only in my class, but in my *dual enrollment* class. Their high school is having classes every day, and this was not a work-at home-day. Both students played hooky to come to my office hours.

AR.

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

Both students played hooky to come to my office hours.

AR.

That's hilarious!

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

I detest grading formal lab reports. Why? A majority of the students do not READ the directions or follow the format. Not surprising. One of the requests that I have of students is that they LOOK at the files they turn in online to make sure they don't have any formatting errors. Do they do it? NOPE.

Student #1 has formatting errors AND over 300% error. Hmm.

This is just painful.

Edit: I just looked at another part of the lab and the student has 765% error...................

[marshwiggle]

I detest grading formal lab reports. Why? A majority of the students do not READ the directions or follow the format. Not surprising. One of the requests that I have of students is that they LOOK at the files they turn in online to make sure they don't have any formatting errors. Do they do it? NOPE.

Student #1 has formatting errors AND over 300% error. Hmm.

This is just painful.

Edit: I just looked at another part of the lab and the student has 765% error...................

At least it wasn't negative.

[Parasaurolophus]

I detest grading formal lab reports. Why? A majority of the students do not READ the directions or follow the format. Not surprising. One of the requests that I have of students is that they LOOK at the files they turn in online to make sure they don't have any formatting errors. Do they do it? NOPE.

Student #1 has formatting errors AND over 300% error. Hmm.

This is just painful.

Edit: I just looked at another part of the lab and the student has 765% error...................

One time, in a HS physics lab exam, I had 1000+% error. I performed all the steps correctly, but... The teacher couldn't figure out what went wrong, so I re-did the exam under his supervision, repeating all the same steps I'd meticulously logged earlier. That time everything went smoothly, so he put it down to equipment failure. (I suspect it wasn't, but I have no idea what I did wrong.)

FWIW, my assignments come with a cover page of instructions. Not only does almost nobody follow them, but I get *many* students emailing me to ask what the assignment topics are. The answer is always the same: look at the second page.

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

I detest grading formal lab reports. Why? A majority of the students do not READ the directions or follow the format. Not surprising. One of the requests that I have of students is that they LOOK at the files they turn in online to make sure they don't have any formatting errors. Do they do it? NOPE.

Student #1 has formatting errors AND over 300% error. Hmm.

This is just painful.

Edit: I just looked at another part of the lab and the student has 765% error...................

One time, in a HS physics lab exam, I had 1000+% error. I performed all the steps correctly, but... The teacher couldn't figure out what went wrong, so I re-did the exam under his supervision, repeating all the same steps I'd meticulously logged earlier. That time everything went smoothly, so he put it down to equipment failure. (I suspect it wasn't, but I have no idea what I did wrong.)

FWIW, my assignments come with a cover page of instructions. Not only does almost nobody follow them, but I get *many* students emailing me to ask what the assignment topics are. The answer is always the same: look at the second page.

The student made an egregious unit conversion error. It was just a simple time constant calculation (time constant = RC) where R = resistance and C = capacitance. Both values were GIVEN.

This student is, unfortunately, one of those students who really does not know what is going on (I have had numerous conversations with stu) and I feel bad for the student, but MAN oh MAN, does this student make me want to bang my head- and not in a good way.

[Parasaurolophus]

<facepalm>

[kiana]

This student is, unfortunately, one of those students who really does not know what is going on (I have had numerous conversations with stu) and I feel bad for the student, but MAN oh MAN, does this student make me want to bang my head- and not in a good way.

I've got one of those too. A recent interaction:

Me: So if f(x) = -8x + 1, what is f(2)?

Student: 5?

This is not a developmental class. This is college algebra.

[kaysixteen]

How does one get an error rate greater than 100%?   Am I missing something?

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

This student is, unfortunately, one of those students who really does not know what is going on (I have had numerous conversations with stu) and I feel bad for the student, but MAN oh MAN, does this student make me want to bang my head- and not in a good way.

I've got one of those too. A recent interaction:

Me: So if f(x) = -8x + 1, what is f(2)?

Student: 5?

This is not a developmental class. This is college algebra.

I get it. Earlier this evening, I wrote a how-to guide on how to calculate natural log of a number on a calculator (students asked). I'm not kidding.

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

How does one get an error rate greater than 100%?   Am I missing something?

Yes, you can calculate a percent error over 100%. It's basically the difference between the measured and accepted values divided by the accepted value, then multiply by 100 to get a percentage. Typical error for an intro lab should be under 20%. If a student calculates a value that is multiple times the accepted value, then stu will get a very large percent error (over 100%). That is not a good sign.

[marshwiggle]

This student is, unfortunately, one of those students who really does not know what is going on (I have had numerous conversations with stu) and I feel bad for the student, but MAN oh MAN, does this student make me want to bang my head- and not in a good way.

I've got one of those too. A recent interaction:

Me: So if f(x) = -8x + 1, what is f(2)?

Student: 5?

This is not a developmental class. This is college algebra.

I get it. Earlier this evening, I wrote a how-to guide on how to calculate natural log of a number on a calculator (students asked). I'm not kidding.

I had a student who had supposedly passed high school physics who couldn't handle the simple lens equation, i.e.
1/i + 1/o = 1/f
(for those unfamiliar with it).

Actually the number of STEM students who can't handle fractions is non-negligible.

[mamselle]

This student is, unfortunately, one of those students who really does not know what is going on (I have had numerous conversations with stu) and I feel bad for the student, but MAN oh MAN, does this student make me want to bang my head- and not in a good way.

I've got one of those too. A recent interaction:

Me: So if f(x) = -8x + 1, what is f(2)?

Student: 5?

This is not a developmental class. This is college algebra.

- 15,  right?

And I'm in the arts...

M.