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

[fishbrains]

I am sure this was not Puget's intention, but "unknowable reasons" is now my go-to excuse for everything.

Why didn't I follow that procedure? Unknowable reasons, bruh.

Why am I not making dinner? Unknowable reasons.

Absolutely perfect.

[Puget]

I am sure this was not Puget's intention, but "unknowable reasons" is now my go-to excuse for everything.

Why didn't I follow that procedure? Unknowable reasons, bruh.

Why am I not making dinner? Unknowable reasons.

Absolutely perfect.

You're welcome-- I'm glad some good could come of this fiasco.

[mamselle]

Our registrar/Enrollment management division "updated" the software for catalogs and, in doing so, 'wiped a bunch of prerequisites that had gone through governance from the system.  We protested but were told "the catalog is the official record".

I had to walk with last year's print catalog (the one they keep trying to retire) and show them what was required last year.  Only then did the Registrar "get" the problem and promise to fix it.  When I asked when, she said" after the semester ends (i.e. AFTER registration).

I told all the department chairs and we sent out a list of prerequisites and told our majors that, if they didn't have the prereqs by Jan 15, they would be dropped.  We'll see what happens.

Good grief, Snoopy!

M.

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

Miss the announcements? They are probably choosing to ignore the announcements.

Yep. That's what I meant to say. It's usually the same people. They're just not reading. So frustrating.

[the_geneticist]

A student who will probably fail my class has asked to postpone the appointment he made to make up a quiz (he was "sick" when the quiz was given). His reason? "Something came up." He is actually the third student to cancel or not show up for a scheduled meeting today. I could have worked from home for another hour . . .

Put a 0 in the grade book and call it done.

[FishProf]

I am sure this was not Puget's intention, but "unknowable reasons" is now my go-to excuse for everything.

I'm adopting it as a bookend to "best practices"

[ergative]

*bang bang bang*

No, Stu, you can't reorder your dependent variable and then comment about how its growth pattern looks different. Of course it looks different! You changed your data! I could make it loop-the-loop if I wanted. Argh.

[paddington_bear]

This isn't exactly despair, more like frustration (of my own making)......Students who did poorly on their writing assignments all semester currently still have low Bs or high Cs as their course grade because attendance/participation is worth almost half the total points. Obviously the students won't mind, but I'm irritated (with myself) that students who got Cs/Ds on their 3 papers  are going to get low Bs or high Cs in the class. That also means that if I make a re-write of their most recent paper an option, most students won't take the option because, one, it probably won't raise their grade enough to make it worth it, but also because their course grade isn't necessarily that bad to begin with, despite the "bad" grades on their papers.  I still might let the final paper be an optional re-write for everyone, though.  I need to re-think my priorities before I design spring syllabi.

[OneMoreYear]

BANG! BANG! BANG! Plagiarism in a dissertation proposal. Some of it is poor paraphrasing, some of it is patchwork plagiarism, but some of it is direct sentence lifts. How do you get this far in grad school and not be able to paraphrase the literature that you are supposed to be an expert on because you area writing a dissertation on it?

[Wahoo Redux]

Hobbit complains that hu cannot hear.  Complains that hu has not fixed hu's hearing aids yet.  Asks me to shout so hu can hear during class.  Plays on hu's phone.  It is week 2.

Week 14.  Hu's presentation.  Still no hearing aids.  "Well, okay Hobbit, we're going to go with this...but this was not the assignment" (which is also spelled out in detail on Blackboard).  "Why don't we go with this, okay."

Hobbit: "Oh my gosh, I am so, so sorry, I thought [misunderstanding the whole deal]."

Me: "It's okay, it's okay.  We can go with this.  Maybe just before the end of the semester you can [fill in the rest]."

As we are discussing hu's assignment with the class, I see the facemask below Hobbit's eyes start to darken with tears.

Oooooooohhhhhhhhhh......

[arcturus]

BANG! BANG! BANG! Plagiarism in a dissertation proposal. Some of it is poor paraphrasing, some of it is patchwork plagiarism, but some of it is direct sentence lifts. How do you get this far in grad school and not be able to paraphrase the literature that you are supposed to be an expert on because you area writing a dissertation on it?

This may sound harsh, but is based on my own experience with this: file all the appropriate misconduct reports and apply all the appropriate sanctions. My experience was with a student who lifted full paragraphs from a web site in a draft of his dissertation. I caught the plagiarism the usual way: the text was much too polished compared the prior material submitted. I did not file any paperwork, but just had the student remove the plagiarized material. Six months later, during hu's defense, the student lied about one of the experiments and he lied about some of the work he claimed to have done. In retrospect, it would have been better for everyone had I filed the misconduct reports and had the student kicked out of the program at the time I saw he was plagiarizing in the dissertation.

[OneMoreYear]

BANG! BANG! BANG! Plagiarism in a dissertation proposal. Some of it is poor paraphrasing, some of it is patchwork plagiarism, but some of it is direct sentence lifts. How do you get this far in grad school and not be able to paraphrase the literature that you are supposed to be an expert on because you area writing a dissertation on it?

This may sound harsh, but is based on my own experience with this: file all the appropriate misconduct reports and apply all the appropriate sanctions. My experience was with a student who lifted full paragraphs from a web site in a draft of his dissertation. I caught the plagiarism the usual way: the text was much too polished compared the prior material submitted. I did not file any paperwork, but just had the student remove the plagiarized material. Six months later, during hu's defense, the student lied about one of the experiments and he lied about some of the work he claimed to have done. In retrospect, it would have been better for everyone had I filed the misconduct reports and had the student kicked out of the program at the time I saw he was plagiarizing in the dissertation.

We are following procedure, which first involves meeting with the student (in this case, at the proposal meeting). The chair is looped in. I've filed paperwork before at both the undergraduate and graduate level, so I know the process.  I don't think the student will be kicked out; there are a range of penalties we could enact. I'm just cranky it's gotten this far. I'm about to make it a requirement that if you want me to serve on your committee, you have to submit your draft to our version of Turn It In in advance of when it is distributed to the committee to document your proposal is written correctly, so I'm not catching it right before the meeting. I know for most students, this will be a non-issue, but this is not the 1st time I've caught plagiarism right before the thesis/dissertation meeting, and I'm tired of being the heavy.

[the_geneticist]

I've had TWO graduate TAs contact me to say that the "messed up" and just assigned grades to presentations without using the provided rubric.
What?!
Why?!
Congratulations, TA.  You now get to go back and regrade them using the rubrics, share the scored rubrics with me, and you're going to be the one the students are mad at if their scores are lower.

[Langue_doc]

Stu who plagiarized at least three assignments and who hasn't bothered to respond to emails from the Academic Integrity office has, guess what, plagiarized again. Almost the entire discussion is from a website from which Stu plagiarized an earlier assignment.

[Wahoo Redux]

Stu who plagiarized at least three assignments and who hasn't bothered to respond to emails from the Academic Integrity office has, guess what, plagiarized again. Almost the entire discussion is from a website from which Stu plagiarized an earlier assignment.

At least Stu is consistent.