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

[onehappyunicorn]

Blackboard collaborate: invented by Satan?
Has anyone NOT had a nightmare using this for teaching?

Our school pushed using Blackboard collaborate hard for a few weeks last semester. Our folks in charge of distance education hosted several training meetings with it and not once did it go well at all. Since then I haven't heard any major push to use it...

[Langue_doc]

Blackboard collaborate: invented by Satan?
Has anyone NOT had a nightmare using this for teaching?

Our school pushed using Blackboard collaborate hard for a few weeks last semester. Our folks in charge of distance education hosted several training meetings with it and not once did it go well at all. Since then I haven't heard any major push to use it...

Hah! I remember Blackboard Collaborate. Students were in one virtual classroom and I was in another. Instruction (and communication) was through emails during that class. That was the end of Blackboard Collaborate for me and the class that semester.

I'm banging my head as I just spent half an hour writing an email to two cheaters who submitted identical assignments. I had to painstakingly flag the numerous errors and typos. Both students write that "X decibels himself after leaving Y". I asked Stus to explain this sentence as well as the often hilarious other errors.

[OneMoreYear]

Blackboard collaborate: invented by Satan?
Has anyone NOT had a nightmare using this for teaching?

We're using it, as it's integrated into the LMS, though we do have the option of using another system that is not integrated into the LMS.  The Collaborate version we have is not good for group discussion, as you can only see about 4 people at a time, so I don't like it for my seminar class, but we're dealing with it. I find it cumbersome to use when switching back and forth to different files/media/applications. I teach basketweaving application lab & basketweaving stats, which have been complicated enough anyway to teach remotely. If all my classes were straight lecture with a powerpoint, Collaborate would be OK.  So, it's not a nightmare, it's just not particularly user friendly.  What's the nightmare on your end?

[the_geneticist]

I just reported more than 20 students to the conduct board for potential academic dishonesty.  They copied answers from a "study-help" website.  It was really obvious too since they didn't even properly answer the question that was asked.  Most of them are also re-taking the course.

[Parasaurolophus]

Most of them are also re-taking the course.

Oh man...

[Aster]

Big Urban College adopted BlackBoard Collaborate for about two weeks into the pandemic.

After the utter miserableness of that lamentable platform, Big Urban College co-adopted the Zoom platform. Now, just about everybody except for the adjuncts use the Zoom platform. We got it linked into our BlackBoard LMS without much fuss too.

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

I just reported more than 20 students to the conduct board for potential academic dishonesty.  They copied answers from a "study-help" website.  It was really obvious too since they didn't even properly answer the question that was asked.  Most of them are also re-taking the course.

Yikes!

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

How do students get into Calculus-based Physics II if they can't take a damned derivative? Someone, please tell me.

[Larimar]

Probably the same way they get into Comp 2 without being able to recognize a run-on sentence or a fragment.

[kiana]

How do students get into Calculus-based Physics II if they can't take a damned derivative? Someone, please tell me.

Chegging calculus and calc-based physics 1 last fall?

I have a feeling we're going to see some catastrophic failure rates when we finally do go back to in-person tests, and unfortunately those are going to be people with about 3 semesters of cheating stacked up and therefore no real possibility of ever passing the course in question.

[PScientist]

How do students get into Calculus-based Physics II if they can't take a damned derivative? Someone, please tell me.

Chegging calculus and calc-based physics 1 last fall?

I have a feeling we're going to see some catastrophic failure rates when we finally do go back to in-person tests, and unfortunately those are going to be people with about 3 semesters of cheating stacked up and therefore no real possibility of ever passing the course in question.

Last semester's trig-based physics 1 had a large-scale Chegg outbreak, and the academic integrity people let the students off easy, so they are in physics 2 (of which I am teaching a section) in spite of doing little of their own work in physics 1.  We are normally having Zoom class, but we are insisting that they will come to campus for exams, reserving multiple classrooms to allow for plenty of distance.  They are very aware of why we are insisting on this.  I am sure it will be lots of fun, but so far there is only one student who seems to have learned absolutely nothing from the first semester (as in, W = mg was not a familiar concept).

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

How do students get into Calculus-based Physics II if they can't take a damned derivative? Someone, please tell me.

Chegging calculus and calc-based physics 1 last fall?

I have a feeling we're going to see some catastrophic failure rates when we finally do go back to in-person tests, and unfortunately those are going to be people with about 3 semesters of cheating stacked up and therefore no real possibility of ever passing the course in question.

Last semester's trig-based physics 1 had a large-scale Chegg outbreak, and the academic integrity people let the students off easy, so they are in physics 2 (of which I am teaching a section) in spite of doing little of their own work in physics 1.  We are normally having Zoom class, but we are insisting that they will come to campus for exams, reserving multiple classrooms to allow for plenty of distance.  They are very aware of why we are insisting on this.  I am sure it will be lots of fun, but so far there is only one student who seems to have learned absolutely nothing from the first semester (as in, W = mg was not a familiar concept).

Daaang.

[secundem_artem]

Tungsten = milligrams?

Not a familiar concept to me either.

[mythbuster]

weight= mass* gravity.

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

Tungsten = milligrams?

Not a familiar concept to me either.

Lol! Unfortunately, a lot of my students think that W = mg means to put the mass in milligrams.