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

[Langue_doc]

I responded to the student who 'lost a wife, 2 kids and a dog in a tragic boating accident.' I supplied links to counseling, withdrawal, etc. Stu emails me back with, 'Nah. I'm fine. I realized we didn't have anything due this week.'

Wtf student? God, I'm just so very tired of all of this. I'm 99.99999999999999999999% sure that stu is just full of shit, but for the love of everything that is holy, why do I have to get the psychopaths?

Breathe through that insanity.

I would report this student and let the higher-up decide what kind of support the student needs. Stu should not be sending those emails to anyone, let alone a professor. I would bump this up the chain of command and refuse to engage with this student.

You can still report it as a concerning behavior. I mean, we are all in the middle of collective trauma so jokes about extreme trauma, especially if trying to manipulate a professor, are inappropriate and borderline lacking in integrity. If it is maybe a real trauma, then this overly casual reaction is still a concern.

Yep. Stu is sending more email. SO thinks that stu is looking for attention. I'm leaving it until tomorrow.

I seem to have inserted my post in EPW's post. Here it is again: I would report this student and let the higher-up decide what kind of support the student needs. Stu should not be sending those emails to anyone, let alone a professor. I would bump this up the chain of command and refuse to engage with this student.

[the_geneticist]

I responded to the student who 'lost a wife, 2 kids and a dog in a tragic boating accident.' I supplied links to counseling, withdrawal, etc. Stu emails me back with, 'Nah. I'm fine. I realized we didn't have anything due this week.'

Wtf student? God, I'm just so very tired of all of this. I'm 99.99999999999999999999% sure that stu is just full of shit, but for the love of everything that is holy, why do I have to get the psychopaths?

Report it to ALL of the support folks.  That is not something to joke about.  Stu is either an immature prankster and needs to grow up or they have some issues that are way above your pay grade to handle. 
Stu needs to have the equivalent of a support SWAT team kick in their door.

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

Edit: I forgot I already posted that stu responded with 'Nah, I'm fine.'

Shaking my damn head.

Stu then responded again telling me that stu 'found' the missing family members.

I'm at a loss for words. And I'm tired, so tired of this crap.

[Langue_doc]

I would not engage with this student. See the_geneticist's post above.

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

I would not engage with this student. See the_geneticist's post above.

I agree and I haven't. I'm just going to report to the higher ups.

[the_geneticist]

Look here TA, it's the end of week 2 and you have done ZERO grading.  The agenda for our end of the week meeting in week 1, and your contract, and my emails all included "all grades to be posted within 1 week of assignment due dates".  You are failing to do your job and being unfair to your students.  Emailing me today to ask "where are the answer keys" that I shared with you a week ago is not making me feel any better about your capabilities.

I will be checking the grade book to make sure that you hold to your promise of finishing grading TODAY.  And I'll be cc'ing our emailed conversations up the chain of command.  Don't make me escalate this. 

Bang! Bang!

[darkstarrynight]

Look here TA, it's the end of week 2 and you have done ZERO grading.  The agenda for our end of the week meeting in week 1, and your contract, and my emails all included "all grades to be posted within 1 week of assignment due dates".  You are failing to do your job and being unfair to your students.  Emailing me today to ask "where are the answer keys" that I shared with you a week ago is not making me feel any better about your capabilities.

I will be checking the grade book to make sure that you hold to your promise of finishing grading TODAY.  And I'll be cc'ing our emailed conversations up the chain of command.  Don't make me escalate this. 

Bang! Bang!

I do not usually have a TA's assistance, but my department head offered to hire a doctoral student for five hours a week to help me grade my largest course (40 masters students in that one online). The TA seemed great initially, but soon I got emails from students telling me the TA called them different students' names in the class when grading, so they were not sure if they received the correct grade and feedback. It is so embarrassing because students attribute this sloppiness to my teaching. The TA apologized to students via email, but now I have to grade certain people who the TA upset previously. I asked the TA to stop using names in comments to avoid this since it happened multiple times (I did not go back and check how bad it was). Even though it helps when the TA grades 20 students' work since I have two other graduate classes that are quite large, the TA grades more slowly and cannot keep names straight (which are in the LMS at the top when grading a specific student's work, so I am not sure how it is even possible to pick another student's name and write it in the comment box). Sigh.

[AvidReader]

Is it possible that the TA is copying and pasting feedback? I keep a file of paper comments and have had to train myself to add student names only after importing any of these because I had a few near misses. Right now I am grading something that students worked on in groups and I am pasting the same two sentences describing a recurring error into every single comment box.

AR.

[Langue_doc]

My Lost Student has lost it totally as Stu is now uploading assignments that are off-topic. For one assignment, instead of uploading the annotated bibliography, Lost Stu uploaded an annotated reading. There are a couple more such mis-assignments.

[fishbrains]

Is it possible that the TA is copying and pasting feedback? I keep a file of paper comments and have had to train myself to add student names only after importing any of these because I had a few near misses.

+1

[the_geneticist]

Look here TA, it's the end of week 2 and you have done ZERO grading.  The agenda for our end of the week meeting in week 1, and your contract, and my emails all included "all grades to be posted within 1 week of assignment due dates".  You are failing to do your job and being unfair to your students.  Emailing me today to ask "where are the answer keys" that I shared with you a week ago is not making me feel any better about your capabilities.

I will be checking the grade book to make sure that you hold to your promise of finishing grading TODAY.  And I'll be cc'ing our emailed conversations up the chain of command.  Don't make me escalate this. 

Bang! Bang!

They actually finished!  They stayed up until nearly midnight, but they are caught up for now.
They have another set of worksheets to grade before tomorrow that they haven't started yet.  Sigh.  Time for another reminder email . . .

[darkstarrynight]

Is it possible that the TA is copying and pasting feedback? I keep a file of paper comments and have had to train myself to add student names only after importing any of these because I had a few near misses. Right now I am grading something that students worked on in groups and I am pasting the same two sentences describing a recurring error into every single comment box.

AR.

I do not think so, only because the TA asked me to provide samples for grading and feedback on the various assignments as hu is not familiar with my subject area (a niche of hu's broad area). I do not have a bank of feedback (I know, I know, this would probably speed my grading up but I give very personalized feedback).

[teach_write_research]

A student who has not attended class or submitted work since early Feb, now has a couple recent small assignments submitted for me to grade and scheduled an appointment for this week. I think I'm just despairing at my capacity to be professional and calm about it. I'm still stuck on, WTF!? No! Why?! What did you think that constant string of 0s meant?? I know there could be all kinds of legitimate problems that created the situation, but there is no path to complete the course at this point and I am worn out from being patient and professional.

arcturus posted a helpful reply on this situation, reminding me that the registrar and financial aid offices would need to confirm last date of attendance. So the student reappearing after a looooong silent period makes some sense.

But why is Dear Student turning in the final project? There is absolutely no way to pass the course.

[downer]

I had a student submit work from early in the semester today. They got 55% on it before the late penalty. With the late penalty they got 0%. Hopefully they learned something though. They will certainly fail unless they withdraw.

[Puget]

But why is Dear Student turning in the final project? There is absolutely no way to pass the course.

I had a student last semester who literally never turned in a single assignment, took the first exam (which she did poorly on), didn't take the second exam at all, ignored all attempts at contact from me and her advisor all semester, and then showed up to take the final exam, which she predictably failed. Even if she had gotten 100% on it she wouldn't have come within a mile of passing though. And then, after the semester was over, she sent me and her advisor a long sob story email asking to make up all the work she missed--the magical thinking runs deep in some students.