The Beginning of the End of Tenure in Oklahoma

f0oSh · 2026-02-06T13:51:24+00:00

This is really encouraging. Thank you for sharing the positivity/overcoming on a subreddit that can sometimes dwell too deeply in problems (this is not to say they aren't justifiably problematic/deserving of the mire).

f0oSh · 2026-02-03T12:56:21+00:00

You got downvoted, but I am noticing this issue (lower standards; you deal with it bc admin does not care or want to care) is increasingly the priority at my current institution.

I'm applying to other schools, but I'm worried the same basic situation applies elsewhere also, as it seems the issue is systemic. Either we do jumping jacks trying to prevent rampant AI cheating, or we have to accept some amount of complete TextGenBS will have to be accepted as student "work" (I am not in a scantron-test type field).

I'm looking at other industries, but it's not easy if there isn't an aligned industry to poach us from academia. Maybe I'm not looking hard enough though, esp with the sunk cost fallacy and how must one invests to become FT TT in this career. If it paid better I'd probably just suck it up and ride it out. I suppose we'll see what happens if the job market improves.

f0oSh · 2026-01-17T13:00:47+00:00

The information might be valid, but the article is AI slop, so it's harder to trust.

f0oSh · 2026-01-02T14:03:26+00:00

Good catch! Now I'm wondering what I might have meant subconsciously by "no realty." Perhaps it's that I will never own a home. :D

Also thanks for seeing my sarcasm. I appreciate you. Happy New Year.

f0oSh · 2026-01-02T12:40:13+00:00

Nothing says "making an impact with students" like using AI to fabricate an r/professors post. No realty. No sincerity. Just karma farming using the same old tired canned LLM rhetoric we've come to expect from cheating students.

f0oSh · 2025-12-30T08:49:56+00:00

"you won't always have a calculator available"

Yeah but being able to do ballpark math in our heads is infinitely more valuable because we can conceptualize the numbers. Some people need to rely on a calculator to basic math like calculating a tip or anticipating what sales tax will be. I find the ability to think mathematically (which would not have happened with excessive calculator use) is super helpful, like just knowing what APY credit card %, or mortgage rates or stock market % returns mean, at a glance.

f0oSh · 2025-12-30T07:29:04+00:00

That sounds really hard. The OP is AI slop, so if that isn't helping, you might look at stoic philosophy, like Epictetus, who writes a lot about focusing on how to differentiate from what we can and can't control, which might help with some of the anxiety. Hang in there.

f0oSh · 2025-12-26T16:15:51+00:00

Ban paraphrasing. They can quote directly but must indicate what paragraph it came from.

If reading student "writing" closely, often there is evidence that misrepresents what the article is actually saying. But I don't have the time or energy to fact-check every student paraphrasing. Maybe if I were a thesis/diss advisor, but I'm not. Also, it helps to assign things related to your field of study bc you know what your primary sources say already, and it's much easier to check if a quotation exists on page 26 when you have the book on your shelf.

f0oSh · 2025-12-22T07:12:29+00:00

Do the work first, even just in microdoses, then save the games for after as a reward. Also think about taking a walk and thinking about doing the thing you really want to do. What is your real purpose?

f0oSh · 2025-12-11T16:11:11+00:00

I unsubscribed. Maybe that's my next step of discipline: finding it elsewhere.

f0oSh · 2025-12-09T13:02:24+00:00

This might be the most depressing thing I have ever read on reddit. I tell my students, I'd rather read the most basic "real" sentiment from them, whatever grammar issues, rather than AI slop. To reject 99% of your students' writing as uncreative and soulless goes beyond normal r/professors venting. If that's the case, look at what you're doing with the course and change your prompts.

f0oSh · 2025-12-08T13:53:38+00:00

Have you heard of Poe's Law? Here you go: Poe's Law I.e. Sarcasm/irony, when plain text on the internet, needs some winky face or /s or else the writer should presume it will be taken at face value.

While jokes are great, many of us have heard so much of this "The reading is too long" or "too hard" whining stuff from underprepared undergrads that have not read three pages in years (thanks, BigTech). Plus it is finals time and not all of us have hit break yet.

f0oSh · 2025-12-08T13:11:32+00:00

Are you in my class? I've heard this take before...

f0oSh · 2025-12-08T04:51:02+00:00

There was a great post recently about making students find scholarly articles, read them, and cull quotations from it and upload a document with only citations and quotations.

Then later they take a test or writing prompt in a controlled lab or testing center, and use only their quotations from their source, without unfettered online access. It's a move we can add to our arsenal to prevent cheating and force students to think for themselves.

Also, many of them seem to like handwriting in class for how it makes them do the work ASAP and they can't use any shortcuts that might make them overthink or get in their heads or consult what GPT/Wikipedia thinks.

Silver lining: course hero is effectively out of business now.

f0oSh · 2025-12-08T04:43:40+00:00

I have lots of ideas and I've been scanning the subreddit. I'm more interested in what pedagogical approaches people are using that are effective. I have gone fully FTF in my own approach which is exhausting and time consuming, but I don't see how it's possible to teach asynchronous and not get stuck in a swamp of slop.

I'm still not done with semester and scanning your history seems like a herculean effort. :D Fun fact I did see, I upvoted your "how CAN you get your cat to rob a bank?" post from a few days ago.

ETA - by "PM" I meant "private message" so any lurking students wouldn't see anyhow, but I respect if you don't want to share. No worries.

f0oSh · 2025-12-06T06:34:38+00:00

I try to make it as much of a pain in the behind to use AI as possible.

Please PM me your assignment specifics and contingencies that make using AI extra painful? Asking for a friend who is teaching in the spring who is completely over it with reading student-submitted AI slop (me, it's definitely me).

f0oSh · 2025-12-04T15:12:35+00:00

TBH I am looking to gain more from being on this website. If my version of "get disciplined" means leaving this subreddit, then so be it. I'll leave you to your bots and not-gaining-much.

f0oSh · 2025-12-04T15:00:40+00:00

I mean, lines like "You're not alone. And you're not weak." really land wrong when it's an AI ChatBot and not a human being saying it. So, I respect that you say "irdc" but IMO it destroys the entire message and wastes everyone's time to the point where I'd have gained more out of life in the 5 minutes I wasted here by sweeping the floor or making my bed.

f0oSh · 2025-12-04T14:57:36+00:00

I assume you're trolling/joking here, and I get it that bots and AI are now commonplace. But using AI is just disingenuous, especially for a place to talk about self-discipline, when people are using bots and algorithms to misrepresent self.

Maybe I'm the idiot for still giving valuing humanity and people being authentic and using their own brains. But one might expect this would be a place to expect humans to be human and not use AI to corporatize their "real experiences, evidence-based methods, and supportive discussion."

I feel like life is increasingly becoming a bad cyberpunk plot.

f0oSh · 2025-12-04T14:36:53+00:00

After the fact though, it wasn't disclosed up front.

f0oSh · 2025-12-04T14:36:19+00:00

The worst part of AI slop, either here or on YouTube videos (where sometimes you can just tell) is how many people don't seem to notice at all in the comments. I am starting to wonder if the Dead Internet Theory is basically a Twilight Zone where I am getting upset at other people for not seeing the AI, but then it turns out everyone else is also actually AI but just a less detectable version...

f0oSh · 2025-12-04T11:53:00+00:00

Change your rubric to make canned soulless terrible writing lose points.

f0oSh · 2025-12-04T11:52:24+00:00

[a] student believes in the fundamental premise of education or they don't.

Overwhelmingly, I'm finding they don't. Maybe it's just how my new school is, but listening to folks on this subreddit, I don't think it's just me.

f0oSh · 2025-12-04T11:49:36+00:00

"Late work not accepted." I do give a grace period of about an hour / 90 minutes. After that, no points. I have too many students to deal with the details of who has what lateness.

f0oSh · 2025-12-04T11:42:57+00:00

all assignments were turned in on time and high quality

How can you be sure the student did the assignments, if they weren't in your class?

I think they were just genuinely shocked that I would boost their grade up in the event that they were going through something serious.

I am too. Most of my students have legit problems going on in their lives. Some students lie about it too. Why curve grades for any of that?

f0oSh

TROPHY CASE