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alleyoxenfree
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« Reply #405 on: November 20, 2009, 03:39:11 PM » |
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Fully half of yesterday's students failed to show for the conferences that they themselves signed up for.
Today, only one flaked out, but half of those who showed up arrived....without the papers we were to discuss. Then I had to suggest to them that they take some notes (after asking one, "Do you think you will remember all these things we have talked about?" and he said, "Some of it.") Yes, I provided both paper and pen.
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baphd1996
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« Reply #406 on: November 20, 2009, 06:06:43 PM » |
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It's in the instructions "Do not abbreviate!" I tell it to them over and over again "Do not abbreviate!" yet, almost half my students wrote "4th" instead of "fourth" (some wrote "forth"). Then they tried to argue that "4th" isn't an abbreviation! What is it then?
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I don't have time to read what I wrote!
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concordancia
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« Reply #407 on: November 20, 2009, 06:19:28 PM » |
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The only student holding us back from having 100% passing on a particular assessment measure thinks that grad school in this subject is a good idea.
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I like money. I like to buy stuff and experiences with money.
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llanfair
Village idiot and Very
Distinguished Senior Member
Posts: 22,211
Whither Canada?
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« Reply #408 on: November 20, 2009, 06:30:35 PM » |
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The only student holding us back from having 100% passing on a particular assessment measure thinks that grad school in this subject is a good idea.
Somehow, they always do. |
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Because, you know, that stuff on the syllabus is like, in writing, and there are so many ways you can, like, read that, but when the guys who sit by you in class, like, you know, must know what's really going on, right? -- AmLitHist, channelling student
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tee_bee
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« Reply #409 on: November 20, 2009, 06:33:33 PM » |
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After class he showed up in my office and asked how he did. I tried to explain to him that his arguements made no sense and he had no evidence to back them up. He responded by saying that I didn't know anything.
And now, no doubt, he's out there complaining that liberal professors are grading him based on his political views and their bias. What fun. You do know one thing: you can give him a big juicy F. Or, if you like, a D--at my old uni, Fs didn't count in the GPA--they just got no credit hours, while a 3 hr class with a D earned the snowflakes a whopping 3 grade points. Bonus! |
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mad_doctor
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« Reply #410 on: November 20, 2009, 07:57:36 PM » |
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The only student holding us back from having 100% passing on a particular assessment measure thinks that grad school in this subject is a good idea.
Somehow, they always do. Well, obviously the problem must be with either the assessment or the professor, because hu's going to grad school. |
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polly_mer
teaching science to the masses one person at a time
Distinguished Senior Member
Posts: 28,389
Do you want a career in science? Sure, you do!
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« Reply #411 on: November 21, 2009, 09:21:23 AM » |
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The only student holding us back from having 100% passing on a particular assessment measure thinks that grad school in this subject is a good idea.
Somehow, they always do. Well, obviously the problem must be with either the assessment or the professor, because hu's going to grad school. Yes, he waaaaaaaants to go and haven't you heard that it's a free country? |
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It is only a match if you shout back. Otherwise it is your colleague acting like a lunatic.
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short4bob
New member
Posts: 46
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« Reply #412 on: November 21, 2009, 10:03:39 AM » |
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This one's not so much despair as amusement.
One of my assignments this semester was to write a minimum five-page paper on [field related] issue and provide solutions to the problem based on what we've covered in class. Students handed them in this week.
Most of the papers ranged from okay to outstanding, with a few people who had completely missed the point of the assignment. One particular paper was the winner, though: it was all about trains.
I have a student who loves trains and all things railroad-related. It's all he talks about, and I've had to steer his class input away from said trains on several occasions, as they generally don't have much to do with any of the topics of the day. We talked about him doing a paper that tied trains and our field together. He got the train part. The our field part? Not so much.
Yep, the train guy wrote about ... trains. Not field-related problems with trains, but just ... trains. Five pages of loving, gory detail about the history of trains, how steam engines work, how diesel engines work, how various engines are put together, how you get train parts, and trains and trains and trains. Seven pages of trains, to be exact.
This guy's smart and sweet as pie, but he is obsessed. So much so that he completely lost the thread of the assignment and wrote a love letter to all things train in its stead.
I've given up on trying to derail him, as it were, although I'm starting to wonder if he wouldn't be better off in mechanical engineering instead of a social science.
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polly_mer
teaching science to the masses one person at a time
Distinguished Senior Member
Posts: 28,389
Do you want a career in science? Sure, you do!
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« Reply #413 on: November 21, 2009, 10:16:39 AM » |
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This I agree with to a large xtent, which is why I still support giving group work in classes with strong applied components such as service learning or consulting for industry. But in such cases, I believe that we as instructors have a responsibility to teach students how to manage the group process effectively and to deal with the obvious freeloaders. If you don't follow through on your work in the professions, you'll be fired eventually. And yet it's not terribly easy to "fire" students from a class.
But you can allow students to fire each other from a team. I have my students write their own group contracts. If a student does not follow through, the team can boot them. Now Slacker has to do the major project solo, and will either fail or get a valuable life lesson. Since no one is firing Workhorse, Genius, or TeamPlayer, the groups have very little extra work to do, but get to shed the parasite. Students can only fire based on contract violation, not popularity, prejudice, etc. I agree that we have a responsibility teach good group skills and encourage students to negotiate before going nuclear. Oh, I have no problem with students reading other students the riot act and then in essence firing them if the slackers don't shape up. Redistributing the workload and exiling a slacker often is the way things work in real life and I want students to learn how to do that. I just don't want to deal with whining, "Well, we woulda done that, buuuuuuuut that was Slacker Student's part and he didn't do nothing for weeks so it's not fair that we all get C's". If everyone in the group turns in a peer evaluation that states, "Slacker Student was a waste of space and energy so we worked around him to finish the project", then Slacker Student is getting a poor grade, regardless of how well the group as a whole did on the project. That is also real life. |
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It is only a match if you shout back. Otherwise it is your colleague acting like a lunatic.
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mad_doctor
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« Reply #414 on: November 21, 2009, 10:17:04 AM » |
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I've given up on trying to derail him, as it were, although I'm starting to wonder if he wouldn't be better off in mechanical engineering instead of a social science.
8-D |
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karmie
Junior member
Posts: 61
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« Reply #415 on: November 21, 2009, 11:03:19 AM » |
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This one's not so much despair as amusement.
One of my assignments this semester was to write a minimum five-page paper on [field related] issue and provide solutions to the problem based on what we've covered in class. Students handed them in this week.
Most of the papers ranged from okay to outstanding, with a few people who had completely missed the point of the assignment. One particular paper was the winner, though: it was all about trains.
I have a student who loves trains and all things railroad-related. It's all he talks about, and I've had to steer his class input away from said trains on several occasions, as they generally don't have much to do with any of the topics of the day. We talked about him doing a paper that tied trains and our field together. He got the train part. The our field part? Not so much.
Yep, the train guy wrote about ... trains. Not field-related problems with trains, but just ... trains. Five pages of loving, gory detail about the history of trains, how steam engines work, how diesel engines work, how various engines are put together, how you get train parts, and trains and trains and trains. Seven pages of trains, to be exact.
This guy's smart and sweet as pie, but he is obsessed. So much so that he completely lost the thread of the assignment and wrote a love letter to all things train in its stead.
I've given up on trying to derail him, as it were, although I'm starting to wonder if he wouldn't be better off in mechanical engineering instead of a social science.
SEND HIM OVER TO MY CLASS! I'd adore a paper written about a topic the student actually cared about. I do freewriting, brainstorming exercises, and even lecture over the importance of writing about a topic that actually interests the student and how it leads to better grades (and is less of a "drag" to write), yet I STILL have 7 papers on global warming and 5 on illegal immigration in ONE class. Granted, a few of those students might actually be very passionate about those issues, but I doubt all of them are. I even had a student tell me "Yeah, I'm gonna write about healthcare. I don't really care about it, but I figure it's easy to find sources to quote." Another student was chatting with me before class started about boxing. He was so passionate about how much skill is required to be good at it and even showed me clips on YouTube of the recent Pacquiao vs. Cotto fight (he was "boxing" along with "Pac-man" as those clips played). I'm not a boxing fan, but it was a very enjoyable conversation. When he left, all I could think to myself was "God, I hope he wrote his research paper on boxing." |
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baphd1996
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« Reply #416 on: November 21, 2009, 11:08:21 AM » |
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After class he showed up in my office and asked how he did. I tried to explain to him that his arguements made no sense and he had no evidence to back them up. He responded by saying that I didn't know anything.
And now, no doubt, he's out there complaining that liberal professors are grading him based on his political views and their bias. What fun. You do know one thing: you can give him a big juicy F. Or, if you like, a D--at my old uni, Fs didn't count in the GPA--they just got no credit hours, while a 3 hr class with a D earned the snowflakes a whopping 3 grade points. Bonus! A "D" is a good idea because then you don't have to deal with the student next term. |
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I don't have time to read what I wrote!
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polly_mer
teaching science to the masses one person at a time
Distinguished Senior Member
Posts: 28,389
Do you want a career in science? Sure, you do!
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« Reply #417 on: November 21, 2009, 11:10:36 AM » |
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After class he showed up in my office and asked how he did. I tried to explain to him that his arguements made no sense and he had no evidence to back them up. He responded by saying that I didn't know anything.
And now, no doubt, he's out there complaining that liberal professors are grading him based on his political views and their bias. What fun. You do know one thing: you can give him a big juicy F. Or, if you like, a D--at my old uni, Fs didn't count in the GPA--they just got no credit hours, while a 3 hr class with a D earned the snowflakes a whopping 3 grade points. Bonus! A "D" is a good idea because then you don't have to deal with the student next term. Not at my school. Students can retake a certain number of D's. Evidence is that many do because if they were good enough at the logic of why they should put their energy into something else, then they likely would not have earned that D the first go round. |
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It is only a match if you shout back. Otherwise it is your colleague acting like a lunatic.
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thrillcheese
Award-winning Alpha Bitch. Yes, I really have a medal for that.
Senior member
Posts: 468
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« Reply #418 on: November 23, 2009, 12:24:01 PM » |
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So, I'm in my first-semester freshman writing course. As a class, they've been good at doing homework on time. Today, however, 9 of 20 students hadn't written the required "sketch" of their researched topics, saying they were unclear on when it was due. Hadn't they looked at the posted course calendar, I asked. One girl said, "No. But I checked Facebook to see if anybody [from class] was online, and they weren't so I did something else." Other heads nodded.
Arrrrggghghghghgh!
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My tuition dollars pay your salary, you know! And stay out of the liquor cabinet. (post-functional)
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lotsoquestions
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« Reply #419 on: November 23, 2009, 12:45:23 PM » |
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I just got a frantic message from a student who apparently just noticed that there's a compatibility problem between his computer and the software program for our statistics class (which ends in three weeks). Which leads me to believe that: he never did any of the independent tutorials or lab assignments he was supposed to be working on; if he handed in previous homework it was done by someone else on someone else's computer; somehow or other he's decided to learn statistics in the last three weeks of the semester. I have no words for this -- except the perennial "your failure to plan doesn't make this my emergency." Even I'm kind of shocked by this one -- and I'm really cynical.
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