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

[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."

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.

This was the final version--no chance for revisions.  I looked at my old emails to verify that the student had ignored multiple suggestions from me to discuss his progress and get feedback.

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.

One student was particularly known for this.  He wrote papers about sharks for all his classes.

[qualiyah]

Two students writing about a particular text both began their paper with a long discussion of the superego, which was completely irrelevant to the topic. I was confused by the first one, but when I came across a second paper doing the same thing, I was truly baffled. So I went back to check the reading I'd given them--maybe the assigned text actually did go on some bizarre tangent about the superego that I'd just forgotten??

Turns out, the reading I had given the students was a pdf scanned from a book. The book in question was a reader with a bunch of excerpts. The excerpt I had assigned them to read began on the right-hand side of the first page of the pdf, the assigned excerpt clearly marked by a heading with the author's name and title. The left-hand side of the scan was occupied by the tail-end of whatever the previous excerpt was in the reader, which appears to have been something by Freud.

I had thought myself well-apprised of the foibles of the modern student, but it really had not occurred to me that this could be confusing.

[Parasaurolophus]

Two students writing about a particular text both began their paper with a long discussion of the superego, which was completely irrelevant to the topic. I was confused by the first one, but when I came across a second paper doing the same thing, I was truly baffled. So I went back to check the reading I'd given them--maybe the assigned text actually did go on some bizarre tangent about the superego that I'd just forgotten??

Turns out, the reading I had given the students was a pdf scanned from a book. The book in question was a reader with a bunch of excerpts. The excerpt I had assigned them to read began on the right-hand side of the first page of the pdf, the assigned excerpt clearly marked by a heading with the author's name and title. The left-hand side of the scan was occupied by the tail-end of whatever the previous excerpt was in the reader, which appears to have been something by Freud.

I had thought myself well-apprised of the foibles of the modern student, but it really had not occurred to me that this could be confusing.

Lol!

I've occasionally been caught up by that, and started reading at the tail end of whatever, although I was always quick to notice my mistake.

(Also, that's a very well-chosen moniker!)

[arcturus]

One of my teaching assistants found some of our course material on one of the infamous "we are here to help you learn" websites. I have notified the website of the posting of academic course material, so we will see if it gets removed. However, from the student perspective, this was a waste of energy since, for this assessment, we allow an infinite number of attempts with the same question and the same multiple choice answers (re-shuffled). So, really, looking for the answers on the internet is much more work than just clicking, and then clicking again.

[OneMoreYear]

Seriously?! Seriously?! This is graduate school. I don't think I should have to even say "don't plagiarize." I'm pretty sure you should know that by now, but in order to make sure that you know what is expected in this course and that I'm not making assumptions about what you do or do not know after two semesters of graduate school (and because of all the crap that when down last semester, when I had 3 academic integrity cases in a class of 20 graduate students), I have:
1. put the academic integrity policy on the syllabus
2. conducted a paraphrasing exercise during the 1st day of class for the relevant citation style for this course
3. put on the assignment--summarize the article "in your own words" as a reminder
And still! STILL! You copy and paste entire sentences! Did you not think I would notice? Did you not think I would care? Are you really going to fail this class because you could not bother to write a brief summary of 4 articles?
I would have thought the rumor mill about how much I am a hardass about this would be enough to clue you in that I am actually series, but apparently not because this is just egregious and now I have to spend my holiday documenting this crap so I'm ready to have a meeting this and give you an opportunity to explain what the heck you were thinking before I take this to student conduct. Gah!

[teach_write_research]

Two students writing about a particular text both began their paper with a long discussion of the superego, which was completely irrelevant to the topic. I was confused by the first one, but when I came across a second paper doing the same thing, I was truly baffled. So I went back to check the reading I'd given them--maybe the assigned text actually did go on some bizarre tangent about the superego that I'd just forgotten??

Turns out, the reading I had given the students was a pdf scanned from a book. The book in question was a reader with a bunch of excerpts. The excerpt I had assigned them to read began on the right-hand side of the first page of the pdf, the assigned excerpt clearly marked by a heading with the author's name and title. The left-hand side of the scan was occupied by the tail-end of whatever the previous excerpt was in the reader, which appears to have been something by Freud.

I had thought myself well-apprised of the foibles of the modern student, but it really had not occurred to me that this could be confusing.

This happened for the first time, that I can remember, in an undergrad class. I assigned a research article from Science. The article ended at the top of page 3 with a second article at the bottom. Ok, the second article was on a similar topic but clearly different given the style of the article title in larger bold font and the different authors. I was going crazy trying to find the obviously-quoted material in the assigned article. It was from the unassigned article of course. Next time I will explain the different parts of the article or insert a white box to cover the unassigned article. On one hand, what?!?! On the other hand, not everyone is an observant reader.

[the_geneticist]

Haha!  You're giving me flashbacks to my first term as a freshman. I was taking a class that said the reading for week 1 was 1-12 in the book.  I got through Chapter 7 or so of taking careful notes & trying the practice problems and had a bit of a panic since it covered SO MUCH material. College was supposed to be hard, but I didn't think it meant 1/3 of the textbook in a week.  I then realized the reading was PAGES 1-12, aka chapter 1.

[teach_write_research]

Haha!  You're giving me flashbacks to my first term as a freshman. I was taking a class that said the reading for week 1 was 1-12 in the book.  I got through Chapter 7 or so of taking careful notes & trying the practice problems and had a bit of a panic since it covered SO MUCH material. College was supposed to be hard, but I didn't think it meant 1/3 of the textbook in a week.  I then realized the reading was PAGES 1-12, aka chapter 1.

Wow! I will always remember that now when writing out the reading instructions and be reassured that the extra few minutes to be specific are worth it for students :-)

[the_geneticist]

Dear students,
Your final exam is Friday.  Yes, I know that [other class] also has a final exam on Friday.  No, you cannot take the final exam for this class another day.  Your exam is available ALL DAY on Friday.  You can choose what time to take it.  I suggest you use your time wisely.
Dr. Geneticist

[Stockmann]

Students are required to upload their working for exams, in addition to submitting the answers directly. No working, no points. They're supposed to use their full name as file name. Some didn't but wrote down their names in their submissions. But someone didn't put down their name anywhere. Since there are two exams missing a submission, it's not immediately obvious whose is it. I'm not really willing to do the detective work needed to try and figure it out; I uploaded a list of grades, expecting that seeing a zero would make the anonymous student contact me. Nope.

[FishProf]

Lab reports are submitted via Blackboard, with a required naming and format convention.  If it isn't followed, they aren't accepted.

The first lab report had 100% compliance (a first!).  The second, only 33%. Let the wailing and gnashing of teeth commence.

[the_geneticist]

The final exam was last week Friday.  I contacted the handful of folks who missed it, but still showed as registered for the class.  All except 1 got back to me to say that they had filed for a late withdrawal & still waiting for the form to be proceeded.
The 1 student emailed me YESTERDAY to say they "didn't realize" the class had a final exam and were "completely unaware" that they'd missed it and could they please take it on Friday after they finish the rest of their exams. 

I'm so tempted to let that 0 stand.

[downer]

The final exam was last week Friday.  I contacted the handful of folks who missed it, but still showed as registered for the class.  All except 1 got back to me to say that they had filed for a late withdrawal & still waiting for the form to be proceeded.
The 1 student emailed me YESTERDAY to say they "didn't realize" the class had a final exam and were "completely unaware" that they'd missed it and could they please take it on Friday after they finish the rest of their exams. 

I'm so tempted to let that 0 stand.

Assuming that you had alerted students about the exam and made it clear from the start that there would be an exam, the NO answer seems straightforward. A student would have to work to win me over to let them take it. I had a slightly similar case last semester and eventually the student's tale of woe was enough to convince me.

[AmLitHist]

I received this on Tuesday.

Hi,  I'm enrolled in your College Comp II class. I'm emailing you to make sure you received my final draft for the standard argument titled "College Debate". It says it was submitted successfully but I unfortunately sent my rough draft to you as well titled "College Argument". I just wanted to clear up any confusion and make sure you grade the right essay, because I worked very hard on it. Thank you for your time and you have a good one.

Well. . . .

-- 1.  Spring semester ended May 15. 
-- 2.  I don't recognize the student's name.
-- 3.  We use a mandatory "course of record" for Comp II online, and there's no essay by that title. The first essay in the semester is sort of related though--which again begs the question: the semester's done a month ago, and this maybe-related paper was due in Week 3 of that semester.
-- 4.  I got to looking further, and this guy took the class from me in Spring 2020.

Seriously?

It's waited this long.  It can wait awhile longer. . . .

[the_geneticist]

The final exam was last week Friday.  I contacted the handful of folks who missed it, but still showed as registered for the class.  All except 1 got back to me to say that they had filed for a late withdrawal & still waiting for the form to be proceeded.
The 1 student emailed me YESTERDAY to say they "didn't realize" the class had a final exam and were "completely unaware" that they'd missed it and could they please take it on Friday after they finish the rest of their exams. 

I'm so tempted to let that 0 stand.

Assuming that you had alerted students about the exam and made it clear from the start that there would be an exam, the NO answer seems straightforward. A student would have to work to win me over to let them take it. I had a slightly similar case last semester and eventually the student's tale of woe was enough to convince me.

It was on the syllabus on the first day of class.  I posted a study guide.  I sent out reminder emails. 
The student claims that they thought that they had already taken it since they remember taking an exam that day.  I checked and they did have a midterm in a DIFFERENT CLASS. 
The student has now emailed to apologize, begged for a second chance, and promised to buy and use a paper day planner from now on.