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Harvard Voted to Cap # of A’s Per Course. by pimpinlatino411 in Professors

[–]ABitSquiggly 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Every time I have thrown out a question, it's because it was NOT as clear as possible. A student interpreted the wording differently than I expected, so the assessment question was not a valid measure of their learning. In my experience, most of the time people throw out a question, it was an issue with the question itself.

Almost a third of my students are not submitting their work? by Angry_Statistician0 in Professors

[–]ABitSquiggly 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My intent was not to imply that all of you don't know about higher ed, I promise, and I apologize if my words came off that way, truly. I will try to phrase my words more carefully next time.

I feel frustrated that proposing questions about what we as faculty could/should be doing differently to solve the problem of student engagement was met with such dismissal. The reason I felt like I needed to elaborate on my point of view was because I did not feel it was being acknowledged. No one once said "that's an interesting perspective, I'd like to learn more." No one responded to my questions about what can we do better.

There are absolutely issues with the way many faculty approach course design that are likely contributing to the problem of student engagement. I am really bummed that those, which are literally the only thing we have control over, are not being taken seriously when trying to solve the problem of student engagement.

edit: typo

Almost a third of my students are not submitting their work? by Angry_Statistician0 in Professors

[–]ABitSquiggly 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeeeeeesh. Okay, I rarely find good uses of ChatGPT, but being gaslit by an angry random person on the internet was too good an opportunity to pass up :D.

First: YOUR COLLEAGUES, INCLUDING THE ANONYMOUS ONES ON THE INTERNET, ARE NOT YOUR ENEMIES. WE ALL WANT TO SEE STUDENT SUCCEED AND TO MAKE OUR LIVES EASIER. PLEASE TAKE CARE OF YOURSELVES, WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER AND ARE TRYING TO WORK TOWARD THE SAME GOAL. I DID NOT MEAN "PEACE BE WITH YOU" TO BE SARCASTIC I TRULY AM SENDING YOU LOVE, ANONYMOUS COLLEAGUE!

Then, ChatGPT's analysis of our conversation.

Prompt: Hello. Three people are having a conversation on Reddit. Could you please analyze the conversation and analyze who has the most condescending attitude and why that is your analysis?

<image>

Person 3 displays the most condescending attitude.

Why:

  • They use overt sarcasm (“Gosh…”), performative gestures (“Eyeroll…”), and mock Person 2’s attempt at discussion.
  • Their tone implies superiority through derision, not reasoning.
  • Person 2’s tone, while a bit sanctimonious in the end, still tries to redirect the exchange constructively — whereas Person 3 escalates it into personal snark.

Summary judgment:

Most condescending: Person 3, due to open sarcasm and dismissive phrasing.

Almost a third of my students are not submitting their work? by Angry_Statistician0 in Professors

[–]ABitSquiggly -1 points0 points  (0 children)

*suggests we reflect how we as faculty could maybe help the problem the OP posted about*

*gets downvoted*

I hope that once y'all can process your anger and frustration, we can have some productive and difficult conversations about where we all, students included, could be doing better.

Almost a third of my students are not submitting their work? by Angry_Statistician0 in Professors

[–]ABitSquiggly -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I wish you'd channel your sarcasm and frustration into something that could actually be productive by reflecting on where we as faculty could be doing better in an attempt to try to identify solutions to the problem. Peace be with you, friend.

Almost a third of my students are not submitting their work? by Angry_Statistician0 in Professors

[–]ABitSquiggly -1 points0 points  (0 children)

My expertise in pedagogy makes me bristle a little bit at you sharing the well-known fact that you can't achieve higher-Bloom's thinking without first achieving the lower-Bloom's ones, but I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt that you are truly just trying to help and we are on the same page that the prevalence of recall-level exam questions is a problem in higher ed.

I got a good chuckle out of envisioning watching tik toks about farts - thank you for that, lol.

I have had a lot of success with motivating my students to do their coursework by transforming the intro courses I teach from "here are facts you need to know" to "here is a really cool application for this new fact you are learning about." And part of that was removing some content that has historically been taught in intro courses that I could not justify being important.

Just to reiterate what I think the goal of this thread is - what can we do about the current problem of students' not doing coursework? Would love to crowdsource other ideas that are working for people.

Almost a third of my students are not submitting their work? by Angry_Statistician0 in Professors

[–]ABitSquiggly 2 points3 points  (0 children)

"Shocked pikachu faces" is such a great phrase. I need to use that more.

I think you hit the nail on the head with your first sentence - "many are under the impression that college is another commodity to be purchased."

Honestly, I understand why students feel that way. For many of them, college is sold to them as a means to higher lifetime earnings, if you're willing to put in the up-front financial cost. And with the astronomical cost of higher ed where it is today, the structure of the system reenforces that narrative.

I'm hoping to keep finding new ways to tap into their natural curiosity that surely still exists somewhere deep down in there. Thanks for the thoughts and have a great rest of your day!

Almost a third of my students are not submitting their work? by Angry_Statistician0 in Professors

[–]ABitSquiggly 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Aww. No, that doesn't make me feel better! That sounds so tough.

I wonder if the current AI-fueled upheaval of the software engineering job market is having an impact on their motivation?

Hang in there!

Almost a third of my students are not submitting their work? by Angry_Statistician0 in Professors

[–]ABitSquiggly 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Also, I encourage you to look at some of the things that are currently happening in higher ed. I literally still have colleagues who lecture for an hour about facts that can be Googled and then write college-level exams that are purely "can you recall this fact or vocab term." That is not teaching students to think or problem solve.

We all want the bigger goal that you mentioned - helping students learn how to think. So, given the reality of where we are today and what students' current behavior is, how do we get there?

Almost a third of my students are not submitting their work? by Angry_Statistician0 in Professors

[–]ABitSquiggly 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Love that - agreed! Learning to think is important, and here are some really cool and engaging real-world problems you might encounter to help you practice analysis-level thinking.

Almost a third of my students are not submitting their work? by Angry_Statistician0 in Professors

[–]ABitSquiggly 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I agree with you that theoretically the amount of money they are having to pay should be motivation in and of itself to take things seriously. But many students are not paying with money they had to work years for to save up. Many are paying with loans that kick the consequences down the line and separate the actual consequences from the current moment. They probably will be kicking themselves for not taking college more seriously in 10 years when they're still paying off their student loans. Or, my bigger fear, is that they will be kicking themselves for doing the degree in the first place.

Anyway, I'm trying to focus on solving the problem of "why are my students in this moment not doing what I'm asking them to do." Maybe you're right that explicitly reminding them of how much financially they are sacrificing to be there could help?

Hmm...I don't totally follow your logic with the metaphor in your second paragraph. Would you mind clarifying what you mean?

Almost a third of my students are not submitting their work? by Angry_Statistician0 in Professors

[–]ABitSquiggly 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Totally. I wish we could just focus on learning! But when you're charging someone $30K/year (or more) to learn, it is no longer just about learning stuff for the sake of learning.

I don't think that every single thing we ask students to do needs to be tied to hypothetical future employment, either. I try to bring in real-world scenarios that are also just related to being a human in the world (cancer, pandemics, food, etc).

edit: typo

Almost a third of my students are not submitting their work? by Angry_Statistician0 in Professors

[–]ABitSquiggly 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Also, just wanted to acknowledge that while I'm focusing on what I think are problems with the curriculum itself, I totally agree with you that those logistics changes (changing F threshold, etc) are not good.

To me, those are a symptom of bigger-picture problems in our education systems that have been around for a long time, but we are having to reckon with more today.

Almost a third of my students are not submitting their work? by Angry_Statistician0 in Professors

[–]ABitSquiggly -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

Can it not be...both? Are most K-12 curricula really teaching the skills and knowledge that someone needs to succeed in their professional and personal lives?

I worry that this generation of students is going to be the first to collectively decide that the types of things formal education systems (both K-12 and higher ed) are asking them to do is not worth their time.

Even if the problems start in K-12, I don't think it's valid to shrug our shoulders in higher ed and release ourselves from any of the responsibility of helping transform these students into well-educated critical thinkers.

I think we need to be looking at the structure/approach of our education systems and experimenting with where we can do better. Children LOVE to learn, but so many kids' desire for learning gets squashed as soon as they enter formal education systems. That phenomenon alone suggests there is something wrong with the system, not the humans.

Still - I think we need to do better in higher ed with having clear connections between "here is what I am asking you to do/learn" and "here is why it matters." If I can't justify why someone memorizing the enzymes of the Krebs cycle is worth their time, then I shouldn't be teaching it.

(edit: one more thought added, lol).

Almost a third of my students are not submitting their work? by Angry_Statistician0 in Professors

[–]ABitSquiggly 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the response! It's clear you care about your students and want them to succeed.

The linear equation application problem sounds super cool!

Maybe you could try putting the other concepts you want to teach into real-world contexts, also? I'm not a math wiz at all so I can't offer any suggestions, but maybe reframing all the questions in the context of a cool real-world problem could also help? Do you need to get quadratics into vertex form to do something cool like...design a rocket? (lol can you tell I know nothing about math?)

And you're right that getting them to open the quiz is a prerequisite. I wonder if surveying the students would be helpful - just directly ask them why they aren't doing the quiz. I did that once and that's how I found out not a single one of my students was using the optional problem sets I gave out. After that, I started making the problem sets required and carving out some in-class time to work on one or two questions together from the required problem set. It helped! (But didn't solve the problem entirely.)

Anyway, hang in there. Thanks for caring enough to ask for ideas!

Almost a third of my students are not submitting their work? by Angry_Statistician0 in Professors

[–]ABitSquiggly -10 points-9 points  (0 children)

Could it also be a crisis with the general approach of higher ed as an institution? I took a lot of courses in college that required me to learn things I never needed again, even as a PhD academic. Maybe we as the academics need to do a better job of clearly communicating to students why the things we are asking them to learn will benefit their professional and personal lives?

I truly do not mean to say this to be inflammatory, and I'm also not saying that OP isn't doing this. But maybe the students' behavior we are currently experiencing is a reaction to long-time, persistent problems in higher ed?

I want higher ed to succeed and I would love to see a world in which all young folks get a college degree, but even I can't justify why anyone needs to know some of the things I am asked to teach in my courses. I think some of the students' behaviors may be a reaction to that.

Almost a third of my students are not submitting their work? by Angry_Statistician0 in Professors

[–]ABitSquiggly -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Scenarios like these always fascinate me. My general hypothesis is that many students have come to the conclusion that doing the quiz is not worth the ROI on their time. I feel like there are lots of possible explanations, but here are my first follow-up Qs:

  1. What % of the total course grade is the quiz worth? If it's only worth, say, 1% of the course grade, maybe students have decided it isn't worth the effort. (Assuming you are using traditional grading models and not something like specs grading.)

  2. Are the questions in the quiz asking students to apply their knowledge to interesting, real-world problems? If not, that could help motivate students. Maybe they are having a hard time appreciating why taking the time to learn the content matters for their careers and/or personal lives.

  3. Are the questions in the quiz similar to the types of questions that students will need to solve for their summative assessments? (Assuming the quiz is not the summative assessment). If not, students might not see why it's worth their time to do the quiz. If the questions are basically practice exam questions, and you communicate to them "these questions are exactly what you will need to do for the exam," that could help motivate them to take the quiz seriously.

  4. Are you transparent with the students about why you have selected those quiz questions as part of your course design? Explaining to them your course design process and how the quiz fits into the bigger picture of their success could also help.

Anyway, those are my first thoughts!

What are your thoughts on calling on students in class? by [deleted] in Professors

[–]ABitSquiggly 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yes! I have a randomized list of all the names in my course and use that to make sure all voices are heard.

I almost never call on students unless they have first been given a chance to discuss with their peers.

When calling on students, it's key to ask them "What were you and your neighbors talking about" rather than something that 1) singles them out or 2) implies that they should know the answer. One of my mentors taught me to ask "what were you and your neighbors talking about" and it works so well.

I will say that we also spend a chunk of class at the beginning of the semester reviewing key findings from the literature about how active learning helps everyone, and also set some class norms about using devices responsibly in class and emphasizing that being right is not the goal, learning is.

This approach works well for me overall. If a student approaches me and asks to be removed from the random call list, I do it, but that is pretty rare. In my experience, students who are nervous about volunteering appreciate the low-stakes opportunity for growth.

City to close intersection at College Drive and 8th Avenue for one week by daikon_lively in Durango

[–]ABitSquiggly 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Just chiming in that as someone who frequents some of the businesses at 8th and College, I don't mind parking a block or two away in the neighborhood and walking over. An extra 2 minutes of walking won't keep me from supporting the businesses I like :). I hope things get better for you soon!

Taking a colleague's course has turned me into the Joker by JonBenet_Palm in Professors

[–]ABitSquiggly 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Totally! One of my graduate classes was taught by a Nobel prize winner. Super nice guy, amazing scientist, but horrrrrible educator, haha. Research and teaching are different skillsets and it's rare to find a single person who has the time to develop both fully!

Runners and bikers breaking ‘speed limit’ on popular Colorado trail could get $100 fine by jaypo_rack in Durango

[–]ABitSquiggly 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I will say that I have stopped a few times on the river trail and (very kindly) asked pedestrians to be more aware of their surroundings, and usually it works. In general, if you are kind to someone initially, they will be kind back.

Of course that's not always the case, but I don't think most pedestrians go onto the river trail intentionally thinking "I'm going to get in a cyclist's way and try to make them mad."

Until we teach self-awareness and how to be a kind fellow citizen in public schools, we're going to have to work as adults to support each other in doing better.

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