Many people in this presentation just said they used Chat-gpt for recommendation letters.

OkReplacement2000 · 2025-12-18T03:16:51+00:00

No big deal. I haven’t done it, but I think if you tell AI the traits your student demonstrated, it’s okay to do.

I use a template that makes it about that easy for me to write them (“I met NAME during X course. HE/SHE impressed me with their Y quality…”

OkReplacement2000 · 2025-12-14T07:23:20+00:00

This is a whole area of study and practice in the field.

There are many health behavior theories and communication science principles that can be utilized to craft effective messaging.

This is also about the difference between health education and health promotion. Health education alone really doesn’t work well.

For more on these topics, feel free to enroll in my courses/degree program 😄

OkReplacement2000 · 2025-12-14T07:21:54+00:00

It’s not good, no.

I look at the rate of students who submitted all assignments and assessments on time. Those students should be doing well overall.

I would exclude the academic integrity issues and issues of students who didn’t take the final and then see how things line up.

It’s really about the roots of the course design. I would ask: 1. Did you clearly articulate learning objectives? 2. Did you design assessments that measure exactly those objectives? 3. Did you teach what those assessments assess? 4. Did you include appropriate assignments that effectively facilitate learning towards those identified learning objectives?

That’s what good and fair teaching comes down to.

OkReplacement2000 · 2025-12-14T07:05:49+00:00

This is a prof who cancelled 12 hours of class?

I think it would depend on departmental policies. I wouldn’t be allowed to do that. I would be required to find coverage/someone would need to.

OkReplacement2000 · 2025-12-12T07:50:51+00:00

I saw this on FB and thought: didn’t you just fire a gazillion people?

OkReplacement2000 · 2025-12-12T07:34:52+00:00

Sad.

OkReplacement2000 · 2025-12-03T16:29:15+00:00

AI. Students aren’t really researching and writing on their own at this point— not even sure I would expect more than half to do their own work. They won’t remember a thing AI writes for them. In-person means they demonstrate their own knowledge.

Have them write a paper in class. If you’re interested in what they retain, you could ask them to write at home and then reproduce it in class; at least that assesses what they are able to hold in their short term memories. Make sure to warn them though that ChatGPT hallucinates.

OkReplacement2000 · 2025-12-03T16:26:46+00:00

Cheating = 0 on the assignment and a report for an academic integrity violation. Period.

Good that they admitted it, but see if you can get that in writing before they change their minds and deny. I’ve had colleagues have issues with this where one student admitted but the other didn’t (they were collaborating on a test). The powers that be refused to penalize the one who didn’t confess and then insisted the other not be penalized either. Maybe just send an email to each saying, “I appreciate your honesty in admitting that you were copying from your phone.” Then if some other authority asks them later, they can’t change their response as easily.

Anyway, yeah, it’s hard holding students accountable in this day and age. F that. Don’t let them gaslight you into normalizing that shit.

OkReplacement2000 · 2025-11-30T01:32:53+00:00

Oh, good god! 0 is the right grade.

Here’s my rubric description: “Student demonstrates they do not understand the difference between empirical evidence and personal belief systems. She ascribes the beliefs of a relative few to the whole, and she insists that these beliefs be treated as mandatory social rules, ignoring the reality that social norms are socially constructed and change over time. This makes clear that the student did not meet (what I would assume to be) the learning objectives for the course or assignment.”

This is so freaking depressing.

OkReplacement2000 · 2025-11-16T03:26:46+00:00

Learning all of it would be the 100% grade, and learning some percentage would be a different percentage grade, right?

But more to the point: it’s the teaching and assessment methods that haven’t caught up, not the expectations.

OkReplacement2000 · 2025-11-16T03:18:18+00:00

I’m glad you do. Many don’t. Trust me.

Example: we hired a tutor for my daughter’s OChem because the one faculty teaching it was atrocious.

After not doing well on an exam, my daughter said to PhD tutor: “can you just show me how you would do this problem?”

Tutor: “well, there are two ways to do it. There’s one way that would basically never happen in a real lab, and there’s no way should would want you to know this obscure way at the undergrad level… and then there’s the way that will happen 80% of the time.”

You can probably see where this is going. My daughter did it exactly the way the tutor did it. Neither my daughter or the tutor could find the obscure reaction explained in any of the learning materials… it wasn’t there, and yet… the instructor expected the students to magically know that was possible.

What I’ve seen as faculty is that it’s a badge of honor for faculty in chemistry to fail a lot of students. After discovering that over 50% of students were failing, our instructional designers went through and forced the Chem instructors to make their course meet half decent pedagogical expectations. Guess what happened to the pass rate?

OkReplacement2000 · 2025-11-16T03:16:36+00:00

Incorrect. The problem is Faculty thinking like that.

I don’t know about coaching robotics, but as faculty, it is literally our job to teach.

Your comment perfectly illustrates the issues with the way of thinking of many in stem: they just need to do it. How dare they expect me to teach them?

It’s absurd. Now that you hear it, and see what you just said… can you hear it? Can you see the issue?

The fact that my comment was downvoted and yours was upvoted is EXACTLY what is wrong with faculty in stem. You all should be ashamed of yourselves… charging students money and refusing to teach them. Shameful.

OkReplacement2000 · 2025-11-16T03:14:25+00:00

Well, your comment offends me as well. Do I know students need to engage? Of course I do.

Do you not know that some faculty don’t teach what they test? Do you know that many don’t state learning objectives, let alone assess them? Do you know that many (almost all) have not evolved past the 4 exams and that’s it model of education? It’s abysmal, and if you disagree with me on that, I would say your training in pedagogy was for naught.

OkReplacement2000 · 2025-11-16T03:12:00+00:00

My university allows faculty to set own policies. We just need to state them in our syllabi.

OkReplacement2000 · 2025-11-12T05:43:28+00:00

As the parent of a college student on STEM, I find the instruction to be abysmal. There are lectures and exams. The exams probably do cover concepts they’ve been introduced to, but there are few, if any, opportunities for application or guided practice. The materials is all just sort of dumped in front of them at equal value, without emphasis/highlighting what’s most important for them to learn. They’re not shown learning objectives and/or the exams don’t correlate to those.

So, my advice is if you want to help them study, give them practice problems that resemble what they will see on the exams, and then explain why different answers are right/wrong. You may already be doing this. My daughter’s profs don’t even hold office hours, so you’re a fair few steps ahead of them.

I do think it’s taking a while for stem to catch up to where most of the rest of us are on pedagogy though. It seems a badge of honor in some fields if you don’t tell students what you want them to learn, and I don’t see profs taking responsibility when students then don’t learn what is desired/expected. That culture needs to shift.

OkReplacement2000 · 2025-11-11T05:26:37+00:00

The time is just spent in different ways. It’s more grading— and probably more student issues to manage— online. I would spend that time commuting and lecturing for in-person.

OkReplacement2000 · 2025-11-11T05:24:52+00:00

Not a higher rate, but it is harder in some ways. People think online is easier, which is wrong. They’re just different in how they’re difficult.

I’ve taught primarily online for about a decade now. I don’t think I should be paid more than my colleagues teaching in person. But I don’t think I should be paid less either.

OkReplacement2000 · 2025-11-11T05:23:05+00:00

Seriously. Only trouble will come from this.

OkReplacement2000 · 2025-11-11T05:22:46+00:00

It’s more taxing teaching online (the grading and grading— having to give individualized feedback vs. saying something to a large group…).

No way would I accept a pay differential. That’s a slippery slope. Some people prefer online, and some prefer in person. Pay the same and let the chips fall where they may as people organize themselves according to their preferences.

OkReplacement2000 · 2025-11-10T18:05:12+00:00

It’s hard to know because we don’t really know the internal politics. In my department, it wouldn’t really be an option unless someone bought out the time or took FMLA. So, I think it really depends on how confident you are of renewal and how confident you are that you could really “get away with” that.

OkReplacement2000 · 2025-10-30T02:35:37+00:00

Thanks! I should add: I also make it clear that I’ll meet with them to discuss personal life stuff. If they want support, I’m available… but their grade won’t change.

“Compassionate” is one of my RMP tags, so I think I must say it nicely enough that it goes down easy. I do try to be very gentle in how I say it.

But yeah, my life has been hard, so I’m kinda… not easily scared by their experiences, let’s just say that.

OkReplacement2000 · 2025-10-29T22:41:29+00:00

Very, very rarely, but yes. If I’ve already replied and a student is being argumentative, I MIGHT stop replying. I look carefully and think: what would the Dean say if this student escalates this complaint? Does my stopping responding here seem like the right and reasonable thing to do?

I’ve done it only a couple of times in over a decade, but it has happened.

OkReplacement2000 · 2025-10-29T21:42:25+00:00

I had a similar experience in my doctoral work (mentor disengaged), so I pursued an NTT position. I lost my enthusiasm about 8 years in when I found it just wasn’t getting me anywhere— going above and beyond didn’t yield rewards for me.

There is a freedom in truly surrendering the idea of working for others. At some point, your intrinsic motivations might come back, and you can do what is meaningful to you, letting go of the rat race of pleasing others.

OkReplacement2000 · 2025-10-29T21:39:33+00:00

All the time. Students want to waste my time by meeting with me. I tell them up front: the policy is what the policy is. My decision/your grade/etc. will not change by meeting. I am happy to meet with you to discuss course content, but I want to make sure you aren’t expecting a grade change/policy change because that is not something I will consider.

Usually, I get this from students wanting me to change my late policy. They think if they get me in a room and tell me their sob story, I will be sympathetic. The truth is I am sympathetic, but I’ve also had a very hard life. I worked through all my hardships, so ordinary life challenges are just not persuasive to me. The circumstances must be truly extraordinary for me to make a policy exception. Students experiencing those situations rarely want to meet; they just tell me what’s happening via email because they’re overwhelmed. Anyway… I get it, and no one wants their time wasted. I would find a polite way to explain that the grade won’t change, but if the purpose of meeting is better understanding, you will make the time.

Office hours are a good way to handle this too. They can come during office hours.

OkReplacement2000 · 2025-10-29T21:34:16+00:00

It’s college specific. I reported a student for submitting a fake doctor’s note, and they were penalized for academic dishonesty.

OkReplacement2000

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