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

[dr_codex]

All of you struggle to catch all the Chegg cheaters, don't despair! Help is at hand!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJA32WsIS-I

(Brought to you by Chegg. Having created the problem, we know the solution!)

[Caracal]

I once had a TA who told me that hu had "philosophical objections to writing on students' papers". This was a writing class; I told the TA that writing, aka correcting/giving feedback was required for the job and to let me know whether hu could do the job. Some "education" schools apparently believe that corrections are detrimental to students' self-esteem!

I'm assuming that's someone's bad interpretation of a theory. It is really misplaced for writing courses. When I taught writing, I made a point to emphasize to students that drafts weren't supposed to be good. We all write crummy drafts which then need to be turned into something decent. Becoming a better writer is mostly about accepting that everything needs revision and learning how to do it.

Kind of an aside, but one of the practical problems here in teaching is that the good students will often work very hard on the first "draft" and so what they hand in originally is better than what many weaker students hand in after revision, and so if they actually get graded on changes they make then they actually have to "mess up" their draft intentionally in order to have things to "improve".

I don't understand the logic of grading a final draft based on changes made. The final paper should be graded on its quality.

That said, I haven't ever graded any paper or draft from a student that couldn't have been improved substantially. That's true even of exceptionally good papers. Its actually much easier as an editor to help students take something good they have worked hard on, and make it better.

[marshwiggle]

Kind of an aside, but one of the practical problems here in teaching is that the good students will often work very hard on the first "draft" and so what they hand in originally is better than what many weaker students hand in after revision, and so if they actually get graded on changes they make then they actually have to "mess up" their draft intentionally in order to have things to "improve".

I don't understand the logic of grading a final draft based on changes made. The final paper should be graded on its quality.

I agree. I grade the draft and final the same way, and if students are happy with the grade they get on the draft, they don't need to revise it.

That said, I haven't ever graded any paper or draft from a student that couldn't have been improved substantially. That's true even of exceptionally good papers. Its actually much easier as an editor to help students take something good they have worked hard on, and make it better.

Sure. It's more a matter of how they want to spend their time; whether it's worth doing incremental improvements on this versus putting more time into something else. (Especially late in the term as they get busy.)

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

One of my "D" students has been emailing my Chair about a grade change. I feel bad for the student, but this student does not know Physics and it was a miracle that stu got a "D." Stu wants 'extra credit' so that stu can get a "C" in the course.

Waiting to hear my Chair's response...

[the_geneticist]

And yet another TA who just doesn't get the idea of fair & equitable grading.
No, you can't just be super lenient/lazy with grading because you "forgot" to do it on time.  Giving full points for incorrect answers means that the students have no idea that their answers were incorrect.  How is that helping them learn?
Yes I do notice and yes you will have to go back and RE-GRADE all of the damn assignments.  I don't care that the students will be upset with you when they see their lower scores.  I am upset with you and I have the power to block you from teaching this class again.

I have one TA who went too far the other way, and repeatedly flunked perfectly acceptable responses, two years in a row. I had to make him go back and regrade them all, both times. The second time he tried to argue with me, so then I had to shut him down about that too.

This year, a colleague suggested getting him to help out with final exam grading, but I shut that idea down right away.

I had two TAs at the same time that were polar opposites: one "I can't take off points!  That's just mean!"  and one "I dislike your choice of pen color! 0 points".  Neither of them was willing to follow the rubric and I had to regrade everything.  If I could have just kept ONE of them, at least it would have been consistently skewed.

[kiana]

Dear Cheaty Snowflake,

Ignoring the emails doesn't make it go away any more than refusing to sign a speeding ticket invalidates it.

[permanent imposter]

Pro-tip: If you design two fun co-curricular assignments that are supposed to be easy-to-complete grade boosters, more students than you anticipated will forget to submit these assignments at the end of the semester (despite repeated reminders), thus harming their grades rather than helping.

And I'm the one who ends up feeling guilty about it!!

[the_geneticist]

All of you struggle to catch all the Chegg cheaters, don't despair! Help is at hand!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJA32WsIS-I

(Brought to you by Chegg. Having created the problem, we know the solution!)

And we PROMISE to not post your questions during a 6 hour time period (of your choosing!). 

If I rolled by eyes any harder, they'd get stuck.

I'd offer to test out the feature by showing them that a clever student will post any of the following to get around their "restrictions":
a screen capture of the question (it's not the question, it's a picture of the question!)
the question with a word or two added, removed, or changed (it's not THE question, it's just 99.99% similar!)
a rewritten question stem with the answers listed (it's not THAT question, it's a similar question with the same answers!)

And got to love how Chegg makes no mention of what they will do with your questions after the exam ends.

[apl68]

All of you struggle to catch all the Chegg cheaters, don't despair! Help is at hand!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJA32WsIS-I

(Brought to you by Chegg. Having created the problem, we know the solution!)

And we PROMISE to not post your questions during a 6 hour time period (of your choosing!). 

If I rolled by eyes any harder, they'd get stuck.

I'd offer to test out the feature by showing them that a clever student will post any of the following to get around their "restrictions":
a screen capture of the question (it's not the question, it's a picture of the question!)
the question with a word or two added, removed, or changed (it's not THE question, it's just 99.99% similar!)
a rewritten question stem with the answers listed (it's not THAT question, it's a similar question with the same answers!)

And got to love how Chegg makes no mention of what they will do with your questions after the exam ends.

Sounds like a lot of what Chegg does ought to be opposable on intellectual property violation grounds.

[the_geneticist]

All of you struggle to catch all the Chegg cheaters, don't despair! Help is at hand!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJA32WsIS-I

(Brought to you by Chegg. Having created the problem, we know the solution!)

And we PROMISE to not post your questions during a 6 hour time period (of your choosing!). 

If I rolled by eyes any harder, they'd get stuck.

I'd offer to test out the feature by showing them that a clever student will post any of the following to get around their "restrictions":
a screen capture of the question (it's not the question, it's a picture of the question!)
the question with a word or two added, removed, or changed (it's not THE question, it's just 99.99% similar!)
a rewritten question stem with the answers listed (it's not THAT question, it's a similar question with the same answers!)

And got to love how Chegg makes no mention of what they will do with your questions after the exam ends.

Sounds like a lot of what Chegg does ought to be opposable on intellectual property violation grounds.

Yes, I am constantly asking for my course materials to be removed based on a violation of copyright.  If you write the questions, then they are yours.  Students are free to share their answers, since those are their property.  But the answers are often useless without the questions so they generally post the questions too.
If publishers bother to check, they could also get their materials removed too.

[Liquidambar]

I just graded a lackluster paper about cancer.  The student chose the topic because his parent died of cancer.  I felt bad giving him the grade the paper warranted, but I did it anyway.  Ugh.

Others of you are probably more accustomed to grading papers on topics that students have a strong emotional connection to.  Usually my students' emotional connections are more like "I'm writing my paper about sharks because sharks are cool."

[mythbuster]

I had a student who wanted to do a research project on genital herpes because she contracted it when she was raped.  I successfully talked her out of that idea.

[ergative]

Usually my students' emotional connections are more like "I'm writing my paper about sharks because sharks are cool."

The best possible reason there is. We should all be so lucky to have such students.

[Caracal]

I had a student who wanted to do a research project on genital herpes because she contracted it when she was raped.  I successfully talked her out of that idea.

Why did you think that was such a bad idea? Lots of people become interested in a topic because of a traumatic personal experience of some sort.

[Langue_doc]

I just graded a lackluster paper about cancer.  The student chose the topic because his parent died of cancer.  I felt bad giving him the grade the paper warranted, but I did it anyway.  Ugh.

Others of you are probably more accustomed to grading papers on topics that students have a strong emotional connection to.  Usually my students' emotional connections are more like "I'm writing my paper about sharks because sharks are cool."

I've had to grade worse than mediocre papers on similar topics. While the emotional connection is strong, the quality of writing is weak. I give extensive feedback on how to revise these assignments.