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

[FishProf]

Stu: I want to discuss my test with you, but your office hours don't work for me.
Me: OK, please send me a list of your available times and we'll find one that works.
Stu: Sends my list of times that *includes one of my office hours*.
Me: bangs head on desk, suggests Stu use the office hour time.

Student needs a meeting ASAP to discuss my entirely online class.
Student: "when are you available?"
Me: "use the link at the beginning of the syllabus to schedule a time"

Cue 3-4 back and forth emails clarifying 'syllabus' 'link' and 'schedule'
finally, he schedules a zoom meeting.  In reply to the zoom meeting confirmation email, which says time, and the zoom link for the meeting: "where are me meeting?"

When we finally connect, he wants to know when I will start posting things to the course and why his grade is so lo when he hasn't failed anything (hint: he hasn't DONE anything)

I finally get him to understand that he has to take the syllabus quiz and get 100% before he can see anything else for the course.  Once he does, he can see everything.

"How was I supposed to know that"?

Ahem.  It is stated on
1) Class announcements on CMS five times. 
2) on the syllabus itself
3) on the video that reviews the syllabus
4) at the syllabus quiz (which he took already)

Let's play a game.  Guess who wants an extension on the December 18th due date....

[Puget]

Stu: I want to discuss my test with you, but your office hours don't work for me.
Me: OK, please send me a list of your available times and we'll find one that works.
Stu: Sends my list of times that *includes one of my office hours*.
Me: bangs head on desk, suggests Stu use the office hour time.

Student needs a meeting ASAP to discuss my entirely online class.
Student: "when are you available?"
Me: "use the link at the beginning of the syllabus to schedule a time"

Cue 3-4 back and forth emails clarifying 'syllabus' 'link' and 'schedule'
finally, he schedules a zoom meeting.  In reply to the zoom meeting confirmation email, which says time, and the zoom link for the meeting: "where are me meeting?"

When we finally connect, he wants to know when I will start posting things to the course and why his grade is so lo when he hasn't failed anything (hint: he hasn't DONE anything)

I finally get him to understand that he has to take the syllabus quiz and get 100% before he can see anything else for the course.  Once he does, he can see everything.

"How was I supposed to know that"?

Ahem.  It is stated on
1) Class announcements on CMS five times. 
2) on the syllabus itself
3) on the video that reviews the syllabus
4) at the syllabus quiz (which he took already)

Let's play a game.  Guess who wants an extension on the December 18th due date....

Your student has my student beat-- mine at least figured out how to use the link to schedule a slot without further assistance.

One the plus side, I got to send congratulatory messages to three students who scored above 100% with extra credit on the exam. I like sending those messages a lot more than the "I'm concerned about your progress in this course" messages.

[chemigal]

Stu Dent waited after class to have a chat with me.  She was very seriously puzzled as to why she is failing my college chemistry course.  SHE HAS ONLY COMPLETED 7% OF THE ENTIRE COURSE!!!!!!!!!!! We are more than 2/3 of the way through the semester.  She has completed 1 lab (out of 7 so far), 1 homework (out of 10 weekly assignments), 1 exam (out of 3), and 0 quizzes (out of 6).  When I told her she is well past the point of no return and has zero hope of passing my course she looked at me like I had grown another head.  She literally sat there and stared at me in uncomfortable silence for a full 60 seconds before I said I had to leave for another appointment. 

[apl68]

Stu Dent waited after class to have a chat with me.  She was very seriously puzzled as to why she is failing my college chemistry course.  SHE HAS ONLY COMPLETED 7% OF THE ENTIRE COURSE!!!!!!!!!!! We are more than 2/3 of the way through the semester.  She has completed 1 lab (out of 7 so far), 1 homework (out of 10 weekly assignments), 1 exam (out of 3), and 0 quizzes (out of 6).  When I told her she is well past the point of no return and has zero hope of passing my course she looked at me like I had grown another head.  She literally sat there and stared at me in uncomfortable silence for a full 60 seconds before I said I had to leave for another appointment.

Nine years after completing my last formal grad courses for my library degree, I continue to have nightmares about finding myself in this situation, on multiple courses, in college.  It happened just last night.

And in real life I never missed a class or exam in four years of college, apart from the two weeks when I was on an international mission trip, with the school's knowledge and permission.

[FishProf]

Mid-term open note essay exam.

Mean 57%, Range 13 - 80.5%

Did I mention this was Open Note?

Oddly, no individual question was particularly bad.  Sometimes I'll have a stinker of a question that no one gets, but this time, there was no abysmal question, but also no one who hit on all cylinders.

The debrief on Wednesday will be interesting.

[Aster]

Today's quiz today.

Two students scored 1 out of 10 correct. On a multiple choice quiz.

[ciao_yall]

Since we are still 100% online, I notice student learning is just not at the level it is when we are in the classroom. They really do bounce off each other in real life in such stronger ways that just staring at the Zoom screen and posting to discussion boards.

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

Today's quiz today.

Two students scored 1 out of 10 correct. On a multiple choice quiz.

I feel ya' on this. A lot of my online students (about a third of the class on average out of three sections) have fallen off the face of the Earth, or are turning in things a week late (which results in a 70% deduction). The most recent lab has shown me that they cannot do Math. Period. Critical thinking? Hell no! Can they follow instructions? Hell no! Even though I give them a step-by-step tutorial? Hell no!

I had a question today about logarithms. All they have to do is enter a number and then push "log" (base 10) on the calculator. That's it! And someone still doesn't 'get it.'

I don't have the mental energy to deal with any of this.

[dismalist]

Today's quiz today.

Two students scored 1 out of 10 correct. On a multiple choice quiz.

How many choices per question and how many students in the class? This, this, this... could be what what one might expect! :-)

[dismalist]

I had a question today about logarithms. All they have to do is enter a number and then push "log" (base 10) on the calculator. That's it! And someone still doesn't 'get it.'

It's the ln button that confused everybody! :-)

[the_geneticist]

Since we are still 100% online, I notice student learning is just not at the level it is when we are in the classroom. They really do bounce off each other in real life in such stronger ways that just staring at the Zoom screen and posting to discussion boards.

+1000

And they are so behind in their critical thinking, logic, etc skills when they come back to the in person classroom. 

[apl68]

Since we are still 100% online, I notice student learning is just not at the level it is when we are in the classroom. They really do bounce off each other in real life in such stronger ways that just staring at the Zoom screen and posting to discussion boards.

That lack of "bouncing off each other" opportunities is also why online professional "conferences" are turning out to be so much less satisfying and productive than face-to-face.  At our latest online library "conference" we had a presentation on how to do better virtual presentations.  Despite her best efforts, the presenter inadvertently demonstrated why virtual isn't really much of a substitute.

[mamselle]

It might be the very different circumstances--scale, size of class, etc.--in which I'm teaching, but I find my private music students--all geeks or geeky-sweet children of geeks, or both--are doing fine with virtual instruction.

Only one of the 8 has asked if we might be doing in-person soon, but otherwise, they continue to grow in their work, and as I've mentioned before, the music theory class I'm teaching couldn't have happened in-person, given their schedules and different school locations, in any other way.

The online folk dance program I participate in has also now gone hybrid, and we have had both 20+ participants online and another 20 students in-person.

The only problems I've observed so far with hybrid otherwise is with a chapel service and a worship hour where the microphones aren't always made available to all speakers (so their voices 'bubble' in and out, making audibility hard) and cases where presenters don't put their chargers in: dependence on their battery alone seems to sap the vigor of the sound stream.

Both those are easily fixed, and usually are, once mentioned.

I've also attended three other online worship services (closest I get to classes, but the formats are very similar) in which good A-V prep and careful attention to listeners' needs have led to quite satisfactory participation as far as I'm concerned (and as a musician, I am picky about those issues, so I'm not just 'being nice.')

I didn't start using Zoom with any great expertise on my own (had a good bit of A-V work in other settings) and I agree it can be tiring, at times, but so is in-person teaching.

I'm actually looking at other options for things I can present or teach online that were not easily arranged for in the past. As an independent scholar, I want the work to be well-done and reliable--I also want to get it out there, and think exploring those options for their best capacities, rather than fussing about things that are hard, but can be fixed, might be more productive.

I've also pondered how I might teach other types of classes (like, say, the French I I've taught at one place, that gets about 15 students) and can see how it could work--I'd need to use breakout rooms for individual pronunciation work or create added challenges to spur students on, but that's not so much different than what I was heading towards when I started making dialogue slides in WordThread--and that school has someone who teaches French wholly online, with whom I considered consulting at one point, so that could be another way to go.

I don't mean to say I lack empathy with those who have much larger classes, etc., because I know that not all A-V support structures are created equal, and some can be doozies of inefficiency, mis-matched apps, etc., and it sounds like some departments are so flip-floppy that it must be awful to even know which way to jump.

So, I do get it, but I'm just wanting to point out that online and hybrid aren't all entirely bad, as it seems to me. For one thing, I save four hours at least in travel across town to teach in-person, and I can stay at home in peace and get more done, which is also happening, and for which I'm grateful.

   <<ducks and runs...>>

M.

[ciao_yall]

One Of My Students Insists On Writing Everything In Title Case. I Have Suggested Sentence Case And Even Other Students In Discussion Posts Have Suggested Her Writing Would Be More Readable If She Used Sentence Case. She Says She Is Well Aware And Continues.

She Just Wrote A Whole Paper. In Title Case. My Eyeballs Are Bleeding.

[FishProf]

She Just Wrote A Whole Paper. In Title Case. My Eyeballs Are Bleeding.

Wow, a multi-page title and no body text?  Sounds easy to grade.