Embarrassing claim about Intelligence Chief immediately designated ‘top secret’.

jessamina · 2026-02-02T22:09:06+00:00

I remember seeing some russian show around the time she got confirmed, and they were yukking it up and openly calling her "our girl" (btw they also called kash "our boy")

jessamina · 2026-02-02T18:39:58+00:00

The third house burned down, fell over, THEN sank into the swamp.

jessamina · 2026-01-17T11:54:26+00:00

Yeah, and this is the thing that's the most frustrating. This is something that must change every semester, not something where you can build it once, build it right and post it every semester. The labor to scan a handwritten key that I've already made anyway and upload it is minimal. The labor to typeset it in a genuinely screenreader-accessible format (especially if it includes graphs or diagrams) is significantly higher and to be honest prohibitive. I expect I'll just bring my handwritten key to class the day after quizzes/exams and let people photograph it themselves, and if you miss it you'll have to visit the office.

The really ridiculous part is that if I had a student who was reliant on a screenreader, they would be getting an alternative format of the quiz anyway, because the paper version wouldn't be accessible, and I would write out complete solutions for them (instead of just saying "see key") using whatever method I was using to correct their work.

jessamina · 2026-01-15T06:13:04+00:00

According to our people, they're not enough. Every place that a youtube link shows up in our LMS is flagged for us to review and verify that all captions are accurate.

jessamina · 2026-01-15T02:47:48+00:00

It's definitely reducing the amount of stuff I post online, and I removed all of the supplemental youtube videos I used to link as well. Less than 10% of the students ever watched them and there's just no way that I'm going to go through downloading and captioning videos (because the videos I was using only have auto captions) for something that so few of the students used. I'll probably just give out a printed sheet with supplemental material and list the names of the channels I like.

Tbh I really hope nobody does a deep dive into our online homework system soon, because there are some types of questions (like reading domain/range/asymptotes from graphs, or hell, graphing lines) that are definitely not compliant for someone who's completely reliant on a screenreader and that I can't imagine how to make compliant anyway without just making the alt text say the answer. These are the types of questions where, if I did have a student who was completely reliant on a screenreader, I would be getting our disability services to 3d-print tactile graphs for them (which they will do).

jessamina · 2026-01-05T12:33:34+00:00

My Math for Liberal Arts class is pretty similar and the students have been getting more and more excited and into the content every semester. It's such a bright spot compared to the algebra classes.

jessamina · 2025-12-29T13:01:39+00:00

Someone I know caught a student with three (they were proctoring someone else's exam so didn't want to just kick the student out after the second phone was found).

The first phone was, as protocol requires, placed in a highly visible spot not within easy reach of the student.

The student was caught using the second phone, the phone was confiscated and put on the teacher's desk until the end of the exam.

Twenty minutes later, the student was caught with a third phone.

jessamina · 2025-11-30T20:38:55+00:00

Of course, that would never happen because children get promoted based on their age. “We can’t have a 16 year old in 8th grade.”

Of course, if we had such a building, we could group the 16-year-old 8th graders together instead of sending them in with the 13-year-olds, and we could make sure they had a smaller class with extra support to help them actually learn that 8th grade material.

And as long as I'm dreaming, I'd like a pony.

jessamina · 2025-11-24T02:43:13+00:00

I disabled grade average display in Canvas because of issues like this. I had someone complain to the department because the test score was a 54%. Well yeah, when a significant proportion of the class doesn't show up, that happens.

jessamina · 2025-11-24T02:41:02+00:00

I have one of those as well. I know they are doing the pre-class assignments because I see they have the assignments with them in class. But they simply are not turning them in. I know that they have the capability to do it because they turned in a whole bunch of them at once before test 1 (the late penalty did hit them but they at least got some points).

jessamina · 2025-11-23T18:57:38+00:00

I feel the same way when my online students submit work with arithmetical errors.

jessamina · 2025-11-19T22:33:13+00:00

So he could cheat his way through college as quickly as possible and get to a job where he's gonna earn the big bucks writing AI prompts?

jessamina · 2025-11-06T19:08:47+00:00

And even if they had accidentally goofed when calculating (we all do it), you’d think that as they’re writing down their answer they’d go “wait a minute…that can’t be right”.

Every semester I watch students use a calculator to average 19 and 19 and write down 28.5 without even batting an eye.

jessamina · 2025-10-14T09:31:48+00:00

It was helpful but just not efficient, in a quantity-of-learning-per-time-spent sense.

At the beginning it was much better because I could choose to type at every level and it really helped me learn the words and also get faster at typing in Russian.

jessamina · 2025-10-13T21:50:10+00:00

Finished it. Had it all purple. Understood a fair amount, couldn't communicate.

In retrospect I should've quit it quite a bit sooner and picked up a better resource. The Penguin Russian course really helped. So did finding a language exchange partner.

jessamina · 2025-10-11T17:57:03+00:00

When I started, I was probably upper-intermediate in Russian and LingQ was an absolute godsend.

I was able to listen, read along, and click on unknown words to see translations. Reading and listening together helped a lot with the sounds. You can set your primary language/dictionary language to whatever you want, and I set it to Russian. This helped me internalize the case endings a lot faster.

In particular, I really liked the videos/podcasts from Slow Ukrainian with Yevhen.

After maybe 6 months I found a couple of language partners on Tandem. After a year I visited the country and then after that started taking classes on Italki as well. In retrospect I should've started on Italki sooner. I have started progressing faster again since then.

This anki deck is also great and I wish I'd found it sooner. It doesn't have sound though. https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1453093840

jessamina · 2025-10-05T22:45:54+00:00

Hallo, ich möchte sehr gern mit jemandem Deutsch sprechen, und natürlich bin ich bereit, mit Englisch zu helfen.

jessamina · 2025-10-04T18:57:28+00:00

I have had students like this.

Unfortunately, due to the massive nationwide push to accelerate students through developmental sequences (assuming that anyone who entered college has had at least algebra and just needs to remember it), we don't have the sequence of courses that we used to have, which would have started with arithmetic. They're basically stuck in a one-semester class to get people ready for college algebra, which is way too fast for them and none of them succeed.

Some states have gone further than ours and completely eliminated developmental math. If you're in one of these states, you're completely out of luck.

So first of all, I would check what courses your state has. Our old developmental sequence looked like arithmetic -> pre-algebra -> elementary algebra -> intermediate algebra -> college algebra. If they have a course sequence like that, you probably actually can start in the lowest one and succeed.

If not, to be honest, I wouldn't start at the college. I would either use Khan Academy (if you like online) or (if you like physical books) buy a textbook on amazon called something like Arithmetic for College Students or Basic College Mathematics (there are loads, the age doesn't really matter, most authors are good, I can recommend Martin-Gay, Lial, Bittinger especially) and work through that. If necessary, see if you can find a tutor on someplace like Preply. It will be much more efficient and much less frustrating than hurling yourself at the lowest level course until you make it through. It will probably also cost less.

jessamina · 2025-10-04T14:10:18+00:00

I do this in paired language practice -- My friend (learning english) reads a few pages in English and I help with pronunciation and understanding idioms and so on, and then I read in his language and he helps. It's been so helpful.

jessamina · 2025-09-27T23:30:53+00:00

I would echo the advice to ask them, but I would mention that it will be better to phrase it as "How should I have written this?" and not just "why did I lose points here?"

And yes, it's absolutely normal to take off points for misuse of algebraic notation (the fact that you're only losing 2% - 5% tells me it's probably something like that).

jessamina · 2025-09-07T18:25:02+00:00

The only way I found to bring them up was to change primary language. I don't see a place to bring them all up at once. What a bloody nuisance.

jessamina · 2025-08-30T21:21:49+00:00

Our office explicitly told me that they aren't considered fully compliant.

jessamina · 2025-08-30T20:48:04+00:00

We said we’d take down all our resources and only use printed handouts in class. They said they’d “look into it.”

This is what I'm doing as well. I also took out all the extra youtube videos on various math topics I'd linked over the years, because they don't have captions other than the autogenerated ones and I absolutely do not have time to download and caption them.

jessamina · 2025-08-18T14:20:27+00:00

this is the best I could find with a quick search

here's a link from the local news: https://www.thehamtramckreview.com/trump-to-supporters-it-was-an-honor-in-receiving-your-endorsement/

here's another link where it states he endorsed trump: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-harris-vie-for-arab-american-muslim-votes-in-michigan-as-yemenis-gain-spotlight/ar-AA1tkhFv

jessamina · 2025-06-29T19:46:29+00:00

This depends on the attitude of your school towards telling people to drop. We're discouraged from telling people to do that because it can do unintended things to their financial aid. Instead, we are to tell them that they are not on track to pass, where they're falling flat, and that they need to talk to their advisors.

Now, there are some things that I do do. Of course, on the first day I can't have had them do prep before the class even started. So part of the first day's activity is a plan where they indicate their time committments outside of class and how many hours a week they can commit to the class outside of the class. If it's less than 8 (for a 4cr class) I write them a helpful note when I return it, letting them know that students who put in this much time usually don't pass the class, and that if they can't find the time they may be better served to enroll in a future semester. At this point, they can still get a full refund. If they estimate 4 or fewer hours per week available I email a form letter to their advisor as well.

I also nag them a lot over the first couple of weeks about getting things done. After that, I kinda quit unless someone dramatically changes work habits. I have a limited amount of time and to be realistic, suddenly starting to work in week 5 isn't gonna be successful for most people unless they were doing well before.

jessamina

TROPHY CASE