Not flattery

Here's an excerpt from an e-mail sent by a former student who has moved to another school...

"I have yet to have an instructor as good as you. It's not flattery, but the honest truth. I miss a good lecture like from you or Mr. Other Biology Instructor."

It's nice to hear stuff like that. I'm not trying to brag here, but I am trying to show that I notice and appreciate the good things students have to say just as much as the bad stuff annoys me. I by no means think I am some great instructor and I am continuously trying to better myself as a lecturer, although sometimes it is rather difficult. I mean a lot of times I feel like I should put the same amount of effort into lecturing as my students do into learning. If I let that feeling win out all of the time, I would be a horrible instructor. I just hope it never gets that way.

A new definition of web registration?

I desire to enroll in BIOL XXXX. I will be out of town for late registration. May I enroll via email.

I'm curious why you didn't register for the class during the 6 weeks of open registration before the fall term ended. Unfortunately, no, you may not register for this class via e-mail.

Not enough time

Here is a portion of an e-mail I received last week...

"I am writing to you to express my concern with the lecture final. I understood to have two hours to complete the lecture final. It was 50 minutes into the exam that I was told I only had one hour to complete it. I answered questions to meet the time constraint versus having adequate time to think the questions through. As you know, thought was required to answer questions and 24 seconds is not sufficient to answer 150 questions. It is one thing to turn in an exam because it’s all you can do and another because of time limitations which was incorrect."

I'm upset about this for a few reasons:

1. She completed both exams in their entirety.
2. The questions were multiple choice. If you knew the material, then 24 seconds is plenty of time to answer each question.
3. There really wasn't a time limit, but if she was told by my lab assistant that time was up she never mentioned it to me before she left campus that day. She came to my office immediately after finishing up the exam and not one word was said about not having enough time. Her justification for this is that she was so overwhelmed that she didn't think to ask about it. I really do not see how she could forget to ask about something as important as this, especially since it has now been the topic of several e-mails between us over the past 2 weeks.
4. She came to review the final exam, after she found out the grade and after she had expressed some concern about not having enough time. In my office, however, she mentioned the topic, but really didn't act like it was a big deal.
5. When given the option to take another final exam (not the same questions, but the same question type), she declined. If I was in the same situation and I was sure that I had been cheated out of enough time to complete the exam and if I knew I would do better if I were given more time, then I would definitely take this offer.

So, I guess I'm not really sure what she wants me to do. Does she just want me to give her the 2 points that will get her to a B? I can't do that, and luckily my boss backs me on it. I hope this ordeal is overwith, but for some reason I don't think it is.

Thank You

I came into my cubicle this morning to find two thank you cards from students. I guess they were thanking me because they passed. Just as I don't want students to blame me for them not passing the course, I also don't want the students to thank me for passing the course. I hope students realize that their passing or not passing is completely their doing, not mine.

The thank you cards are nice, though. I like them a better than e-mails like these...

"I just checked my final grade in this course. I was surprised to see I did so poorly on both final exams. I studyed really hard for both of them. I felt some of the questions on the test..expecially the lab final was not what I expected. It seems that I have had continous problems with your exams, and I am not quit sure why. Are you planning to curve our grades any?..I have a 67% right now."

or this one...

"So maybe I should just bomb on the test to get the F for the failing grade and not just a semi passing grade. To look on the bright side atleast I haven't been diagnosed with a terminal illness or lost one of my children. "

End of quarter statistics...who made the cut?

"...Lastly, out of curisosity was there a large percent of people in the class needing to re-take this course?"

Well, I started with 62 students.

2 withdrew
6 withdrew/pass
2 withdrew/fail

5 A's
11 B's
23 C's
12 D's
1 F

Let's break that down into percentages:

16% of the class did not finish the class
63% of the class passed with a grade of C or higher
21% of the class did not pass with a grade of C or higher

If you count the one's that did not finish and the ones that did not pass with a grade of C or higher, then 37% of the class will have to retake the class.

If you compare that with the evening class, which is taught by another instructor:

He started off with 30 students

3 withdrew
2 withdrew/pass
1 withdrew/fail

3 A's
6 B's
8 C's
7 D's

20% did not finish the class
57% passed with a grade of C or higher
23% did not pass with a grade of C or higher

43% will have to retake the class.

Pretty similar results, I think.

And so it begins...

Maybe I should not have named this blog student e-mails. Maybe I should name it something else.

The complaints have started. Grades are due on Thursday and students have begun lining up to beg for points. As shitty as this already is, it is a little bit shittier for me since I am the head of my particular department. So not only do I get my own students, but if the poor little snowflakes don't get their way with another of the instructors that I am over then I get to hear their complaints. Today I had two, I think, it may have been more.

The first one was actually a retro-complaint, or something like that. I received an e-mail from my boss who had gotten a call from a student that is in one of my instructor's classes (I'll call him Mr. J.). It's difficult to explain, but I will try my best.

This is the first term that we have used the Classroom Performance System and there have been some problems. I'm not going to explain this particular problem, but it was not Mr. J's fault. The students took an exam last Thursday and the results got screwed up because of this "issue". Well Mr. J and I talked aobut what to do and he came up with a pretty good solution. At the next class meeting he let the students take the exam again, the same exam. Not a different exam, the same exam that they already took. Apparently there were a few individuals in the class that did not like this idea and flat out refused to take the exam. I'm assuming the unknown student caller was one of these students. Luckily my boss agreed with me and the case is closed for now, I guess.

I went and picked up something for lunch today, only to come back to a crying student sitting on the bench outside my office. She said that she was failing the class (her third time taking the class, she took it twice with me already) because her instructor (let's call her Ms. A) wouldn't let her make up some points for an assignment that she missed because she had to go to her father's funeral. I don't particularly like having one side of a story, and there's more to this story that I won't bore you with, but I took her to talk with Ms. A, or actually I went to see what Ms. A had to say. The first thing I asked was how many points the student has without the assignment...660-something out of 1000. The maximum amount of points that the assignment was worth was 35. The 35 points still wouldn't get her out of D range. She got up without a word and walked out.

I did have one student brighten my day. Actually it was a former student who is on a [NATIONAL GOLD MEDAL] Quiz Bowl team I advise. She brought me fudge (yummy, yummy homeade fudge) and a candle. There are a few of these good students, and I don't mean good because they bring me fudge. They are students who try hard, students who have to work for what they have, and students that excel at what they do. These are the students that I do this for, even if they are few and far between.

Averages and Prayers

"...was just looking at my current ghrade after the take home test was calculated into it. It says I have a 79% right now which is what I had before the take home exam. I scored a B on that exam, so I do not understand why my grade did not go up. It seems to me that since that grade was higher then a 79 it should have gone up at least a point...maybe I am wrong, that is just what I have observed..."

Well, it's quite simple, really. It just involves a little thing called math, which unfortunately seems to be a foreign concept to most students these days. Let me see if I can attempt to explain this clearly enough:

Before the takehome exam there were a total of 450 maximum points that you have attempted. You achieved 355.4 of those 450 points. If you divide 355.4 by 450, you get 0.7997. If you multiply that by 100 then you get 79.97%. I usually do my rounding at the end of the term, so let's not even discuss that right now.

After the takehome exam there were a total of 500 maximum points that you have attempted. You made a 42 on that takehome exam, which brought your achieved points up to 397.4. If you divide 397.4 by 500, you get 0.7948. If you multiply that by 100 and round then you get 79.48%.

So, technically, your grade is actually lower now. Ain't math wonderful?

"At this point, is there anything else you might recommend that I do. I am nervous for the finals."

Ok, I got this e-mail after I left work on Friday. The lab final is on Tuesday and the lecture final is on Wednesday. The only thing I can suggest at this point, besides studying (which really you should've been doing all term) is to pray.

Irritating survey responses

Ok, this isn't an e-mail either, but some responses I pulled from a survey I gave concerning the Classroom Response System that we started using this term. I expected survey results to be negative, actually I expected them to be a lot more negative than they are. However, some of the negative responses are so off the mark that it just makes me feel...defeated. Yes, there were a lot of issues to begin with. Issues with the book store and issues with just me having to learn how to use the fucking thing. There were a few negative remarks about these things, but surprisingly the students were rather understanding about these issues.

Here are some remarks that just piss me off...

"it did not help me whatsoever. I do better with using scantrons on a test so i can see that i marked D 4 times in a row etc...plus paper and pencil is what a lot of people prefer rather than using the "clicker" because a lot of the time the clicker did not record our answer and it said we left it blank..."

My response to you, you dumbass...first of all why is it important that you are able to see that you marked D 4 times in a row? What the fuck purpose does that serve? Secondly, I gave you all the option to write down your answers on separate piece of paper that you could turn in to me if there was any doubt in your little fucking brain that the CPS wasn't recording your so-called answers.

Here's another that really pisses me off...

"Aside from not delivering the benefits promised (ie. instantaneous access to grades and correct and incorrect answers entered on the exams,) I had two big problems with this system. First is that it wasn't reliable. Nobody has any faith in the thing! You take your exam and hope that everything goes okay. The instructor assures us that the grades in her database are correct, but the ones we see online are not. We have no way to verify for it ourselves. Second, we can't go back and review our answers. This last point is very important I think. Just as the instructor gauges our strengths and weaknesses by the exams, so do we. We need to be able to sit down with the entire exam, answers and all, and see what we did wrong"

Oh, you stupid, stupid person. Yes, you had instantaneous access to your fucking grades. They were entered into the online gradebook within 30 minutes of the end of class, except for that one time that I had to go to a meeting 4 hours away. Those you had to wait until 5:30 p.m. to get on the same fucking day you took the exam. I guess that wasn't instantaneous enough for you. As for nobody having faith in the thing. If that is the case then why don't more students write their answers on a separate piece of paper (see response to the previous idiot)? You have no way to verify it for yourself? How about asking me to see your responses? How about e-mailing me and asking me what you missed? You say you can't go back and review your answers? You are always welcome to make an appointment to come review your exam or you could e-mail me and I would e-mail you a summary of your responses. I guess that's not good enough for you, you spoiled little millennial brat.

I feel better now. Still feel a little defeated, but I feel better.

Thanksgiving is a Holiday?

This was originally posted somewhere else and it actually is not an e-mail, but a conversation I had with a student that interrupted me in another class.

Student: "Can I get the paperwork from last Thursday because I didn't come to Thursday's lab"

Me: "Last Thursday was a holiday, we didn't have lab"

Student: "Yeah, I know, but I wasn't in lab and I need to get any handouts we had"

Me: "Last Thursday was a holiday, we didn't have lab, so there weren't any handouts"

Student: "I know, but I'm in the online class and I didn't come to lab last Thursday and I need to get the assignments"

Ok, it pretty much goes back and forth like this for a while, but you get the picture.