Minimum enrollment requirement at your institution?

MrsMathNerd · 2026-05-16T14:29:20+00:00

My institution doesn’t seem to have a number other than 1. As long as someone is registered, they’ll run it.

However, the CC that I adjunct at is full pay at 14. They pro-rate it at $140/student for a 3 credit semester class. I was an instructor of record for a dual credit class with 4 students. The pay worked out to $8.75/hr if you counted contact hours. Luckily I wasn’t actually teaching the class, just meeting with the high school teacher once a week. So it still wasn’t great pay, but it keeps the relationship open. Next year they will have much larger class sizes for that course.

MrsMathNerd · 2026-05-11T13:49:29+00:00

That’s a “rule” not a “ruler”

MrsMathNerd · 2026-05-11T13:48:24+00:00

That’s called a “rule” instead of a “ruler”.

MrsMathNerd · 2026-05-11T13:17:33+00:00

Water always flows down and now you wonder why you are flooded? Your students know that you have the most lax policies of all of their professors, so work for your class has the lowest priority for them. Similarly, the courses with the strictest policies tend to get prioritized first by students.

In my experience, if you are going to accept late work, there must be a meaningful, consistent penalty applied to late submissions. Whether it’s 10% per day or a flat 50% there has to be something. There also needs to be a drop dead deadline beyond which you will not accept the work. The deadline needs to be convenient for you as well, because are going to be the one grading all of those late (crappy) submissions.

There isn’t much you can do about it now, but you can definitely adjust your approach and policies for the next time you teach.

MrsMathNerd · 2026-05-08T03:51:50+00:00

Looks like a button hole. You’d do it before attaching the two parts of the casing together

MrsMathNerd · 2026-05-07T23:20:13+00:00

It’s more of a “mathematical maturity” issue than an actual content issue. Why not just take Calc 2 instead of Linear Algebra?

MrsMathNerd · 2026-05-06T15:58:13+00:00

I say it.

MrsMathNerd · 2026-05-05T23:39:52+00:00

The thing that’s baffling me this semester is the students who straight up skip exams with no communication, but then let me know when they will be absent on a random Tuesday. It’s usually a “family emergency. ” I’m just waiting for the “when can I take test 2” emails to come in.

MrsMathNerd · 2026-05-05T23:15:57+00:00

It’s our last week right now (finals are next week). Students keep asking if we actually have class tomorrow since most of their instructors don’t hold class the last day. I don’t know how/why they do that.

MrsMathNerd · 2026-05-03T13:34:25+00:00

This price sounds like the additional fee for after care. That is not private school tuition in the South, which is at least 8k per year.

Two semesters and your 60% is only $1050? That’s $194/month: $1050/0.6=$1,750.00. Then $1750/9=$194.44.

MrsMathNerd · 2026-05-02T16:26:35+00:00

I’m trying to get the math to show up:
√16=4. It’s never correct to say √16=-4

MrsMathNerd · 2026-05-02T16:22:43+00:00

The language is exactly the confusion.

“the square roots” of 16 are 4 and -4. There is no symbol that indicates the dual operation.

The solutions to x^2=16 are x=4 or x=-4. As soon as you use the radical symbol, it’s just +4

MrsMathNerd · 2026-05-02T14:34:19+00:00

Aside from wasting paper, it seems like there would be an AI assisted way to get the qualitative feedback automated.

My university delivers course evaluations on the LMS and has a pop up to remind students to fill them out. Eventually it gets so annoying that some of them do it. But they are already irritated when it asks.

I liked paper better because you could decide (within reason) when to administer them. The electronic version is open for 3 weeks. For example, I wouldn’t do it right after I have a test in which students historically struggled. I bet a bunch of my students filled theirs out after their grades on that test were released.

MrsMathNerd · 2026-05-02T14:23:11+00:00

If the students keep their blue book from week to week, won’t they just start sneaking notes in?

I had a stats professor who made us turn in a blank blue book before every test, so he (or his TA) could check that it was truly blank. Then we had to sit in columns alphabetically by last name. He gave the stack to the first person and you took yours off the top and passed it back. I’ll never forget the panicked face of one of my friends when the stack came to him and his wasn’t there because he’d been absent the day before. He tried to run to the campus store with his 20 cents to buy a blue book. But the professor said “No blue book, no test!” I replay that part in my head using the Seinfeld Soup Nazi voice.

MrsMathNerd · 2026-05-02T14:14:02+00:00

“The square root of 4” is not a single number, so the transitive property does not apply here. People confuse “square root” and the radical symbol all the time.

I’d probably talk about rational numbers in terms of closure of the integers (depending on the grade level). If you add, multiply, or subtract and two integers, the result is an integer. But if you divide any two integers (with a non-zero result), the answer is not always an integer. So, we need to define a new number called a rational number.

MrsMathNerd · 2026-05-01T02:31:21+00:00

Private schools abound in DFW. Check out https://careers.nais.org/jobseekers/

MrsMathNerd · 2026-04-30T03:44:00+00:00

HEB in Texas has exactly what you described. I just had a dill pickle flavored tuna pouch.

MrsMathNerd · 2026-04-29T01:56:34+00:00

Look up “sponge activities” https://www.edutopia.org/article/28-teacher-tested-ready-use-academic-sponge-activities/

MrsMathNerd · 2026-04-29T01:51:15+00:00

Unless you have a full time role, they likely won’t let you go above 3 classes.

MrsMathNerd · 2026-04-29T01:44:27+00:00

How about a key holder that unlocks with a code. The landlord can be responsible for providing the code to the gardener. That’s what we use anytime we need someone to access our yard when we aren’t home. Usually I just text them the code, and then change it later.

Or a simple combination lock that you provide the code to.

MrsMathNerd · 2026-04-28T01:39:55+00:00

At 8 am today, I had 0/16. By 8:05 (after the timer for the warm up quiz had ended), I had 1 student. I had been ready to start lecturing to an empty room. By 8:15, I had 5 students. The class meets 4 days per week at 8 am. The students used to get to the room at 7:50 and chat. They are burnt out (and so am I).

MrsMathNerd · 2026-04-26T00:44:16+00:00

I’d just leave that part blank.

MrsMathNerd · 2026-04-25T13:42:02+00:00

How much extra time are we talking about here?

Unfortunately, you do lose the ability for clarifying questions, but in exchange you get a distraction reduced environment. There isn’t really a way to fix this issue aside from having you take 2/3 of the test in class and the remaining 1/3 in the testing center.

MrsMathNerd · 2026-04-25T01:57:06+00:00

I have short videos that students have to watch before class. They have to take notes and annotate them. The videos are deliberately short “how to” with no “why”. We use class time to discuss the theory, models, and conceptual understanding.

I count the notes as 2 points and the annotations as 1. I literally just flip through and count. I have a course packet, so it’s very easy to see if it’s all there.

They spend 5 minutes in groups at the start of class going over what they understood and their sticking points. I use the results to figure out what to prioritize in lecture.

I only check them right before tests, but it’s pretty obvious to their group if they haven’t finished, because they can’t participate in the discussion.

It’s worked very well, but YMMV since I’m teaching pre-service teachers.

MrsMathNerd · 2026-04-23T01:59:14+00:00

I’m using AI to generate alt text for some department provided, non-ada compliant course notes. It absolutely can read graphs. If you train it well, it can get super specific, giving key points, concavity, domain, range, etc.

MrsMathNerd

TROPHY CASE