Currently trying to use ZipGrade for army school tests but I have one snag I can’t seem to correct. How do you change your answer and avoid “multiple marks”? If a student uses pen or fills in too darkly with pencil, the scanned copy will show them as having multiple answers for one question. Is there a way around this?

Between lectures, research, and the usual mountain of files, I always look for better ways to stay organized. Lately, I have been experimenting with Evernote, Notion, and AI Notebook to keep everything from PDFs to lecture notes in one place. It’s been a relief to have things less scattered!

Would love to hear what tools or strategies have worked for you, especially during the hectic parts of the semester!

Every semester we give 3 A&P practical exams. During the first practical exam, a student took the practical after supposedly being in a car accident and was “too traumatized to remember anything” so my new colleague offered him a retake. Now, I have a student requesting a retake because she was feeling sick during the exam and couldn’t focus. I am inclined to refuse to give this student a retake opportunity. She never mentioned she was ill before/during the exam and stayed for a considerable amount of time taking the exam. She has been struggling in class as well so her grade of 10% was not unexpected. I am all for compassion, however, this seems ridiculous. I fear my chair, who has said requiring medical documentation of an illness is a “barrier,” may force my hand. What should or can I do?

(Apologies in advance for this lengthy post, but I am at my wits end.)

I teach in the arts at a very small, rural public school. Many of my students come from underserved communities and had very little in terms of academic rigor (and arts exposure.)

Our program is small and we're very tight knit. One of the degree classes I teach, which most of the majors are in, is at 9:30AM. The degree students are consistently late - from 9:32 AM to sometimes 9:45 AM. It is not uncommon for me to arrive 10 to 5 minutes before class with only 2 out of the 9 or so students present. Lately, I have become a bit quick in my comments, becoming increasingly more aggressive.

Today, a student (the third out of nine) arrived right at 9:30 a.m. I mentioned that we would wait two minutes for others to show up. She then got up and left the room to go to the bathroom and grab a drink. I was stunned.

Then tonight after a group project I was leading, I got into a somewhat heated conversation about them being late and why. They repeated the same reasons: I lack motivation, I have ADHD, and it's hard, etc. But then, they talked about how they are trying and just want "to exist" and just be OK with them being late. How in 20 years it won't matter if they're late to my literature class. They said it wouldn't bother them if they were late and that I needed to cope. One even said that I cannot know everyone and cannot assume everyone to be on time cause you don't know what is going on their lives.

I tried to explain all the main reasons why: respect and how time is money and how in the real world people don't like their money wasted, specially in the creative industries. I tried to explain that being late is the determining factor between them getting the job and someone else getting them (who might be less qualfied but they're on time.) They just rolled their eyes and proclaimed how they were trying and that they needed grace. I asked their goals and what they are doing to hit them, which they could not answer. I tried to relate to them and explain my own experiences of being late and getting chewed out. They just did not seem to care.

These kids are part of a tiny podunk school where given how we all work with nothing and few people, mediocrity is passable. Employers don't know this school. We are not well-known in the arts either. They have high ambitions for graduate school and big professional work. I try to tell them that they need to work harder, faster, better, and stronger, but they just don't seem to care - or they use their mental health as reasons. When I offer to get them connected to services, they say that they don't need that.

I have talked to fellow departmental faculty, and they, too, are struggling this semester. There just seems to be this infectious apathy.

I teach in an online graduate program (helping professions.) I need a weekly assignment to help students learn material and assess knowledge of the major concepts. I use quizzes now which are completely pointless with AI. They can just get the answer with generative AI. Apart from discussion boards, what are some weekly assignments you use in online learning? I am considering trying concept maps. Has anyone tried this and how did it go?

After getting tired of grading AI generated assignments and essays, I decided to try something different. I conducted a debate in class on a very straightforward topic, thinking it would be a low pressure way to engage students naturally. Every single student showed up with the same arguments and counter arguments. They all simply entered the debate topic on ChatGPT and spit out what it said.

I'm exhausted!

"What do I have to do to get an A in this class?"

"I know I finished with a 67, but is there a way you could round me up to 70? I need a C to keep my scholarship."

"I was not happy with the results of our recent exam. Is there any bonus or extra credit work I could do to bring my grade up?"

99% of the time, requests like this have to do with scholarships in some way. Students need to maintain a certain GPA to keep their scholarship, so the class experience becomes "how do I get a good grade?" Instead of, "what should I be learning here?"

I wish I didn't even have to give grades. If the only thing that matters to them is their grade, I should just give them all A's automatically so they won't be stressed about it. Maybe they could actually learn instead of "studying for the test."

(NOTE: I am in the humanities. I'm not advocating that future doctors or engineers shouldn't be given a grade based on merit.)

First part is a rant, and the second is Hope. It’s been a rough career and past several years. My university culture is toxic, I am juggling what used to be THREE separate job positions in addition to teaching, and I’m burnt out. Yesterday the absolute asshole male soccer coach and AD sent an email to all deans and administrators that I’m denying his failing players tutors. They lied and never requested or booked, and it’s easy to prove, but it’s a place where any accusation is as bad as actual guilt. My dean has decided to penalize professors with high DFW percentages (drop, fail, withdraw), and I’m stressed because my freshman comp class has just started pulling the usual bullshit like not turning in work or even opening the directions before jisy going for it, thus failing despite so many in class workshops. Out of the hundreds of tutors I’ve employed and mentored and even more students I’ve helped, ONE complained about me to HR because I let her go for repeated failure to complete her tutoring logs, and I got a PIP!!!!

But my one literature class is helping me to survive. Imagine your ideal Socratic lecture where almost all of the students have actually done the reading, show up every class, participate, bring up insightful ideas with specific passages highlighted… They are a dream, and they have been consistently like this all semester! This is a required world it class, and no one is an English major. I am truly enjoying every minute of it, and so many have asked me to teach an upper level since they are required to take one. I swear my freshmen think I am abusing them and resent me for having them write in a writing class, but this lit class has really helped me find my love of teaching again.

What’s helping you survive?

I was absolutely fuming today after an interaction with a student today. And even more so when I realized I didn’t do what I should have in response.

I told the class to get into their groups to share their work with each other (we do this often) and most of them do. One is still at their desk, so I ask him to get in a group. He does, no problem.

Another student was texting and sitting at her seat. I walk up after a minute and asked her (very nicely) to join a group and share her work. She looks up at me and says, in a very snotty voice, “I’m texting my MOM!”

I paused for a moment because….what??? And just say “okay,” with a flat expression and walk away. I did that because in the moment, I wanted to scream at her.

Excuse me?? Is my class getting in the way of your conversation?

Then, after the group work, it’s time to review work for the whole class to see. I’m going through projects, and once we finish with one project, the same student raises her hand. She asked if her project was next, and I said no. She then said she was going to go get food, and just walked out.

Lord I wanted to scream. Again, I didn’t have an immediate response. But I’m kicking myself for not just telling her to leave the class. I’ve just never had this happen. I’ve been disrespected before, just not so blatantly to my face.

My plan is to write her an email tomorrow telling her that what she did was unacceptable and disrespectful, and that if it happens again, she will be asked to leave.

Happy Halloween, I guess.

Easy discussion post this week for my online class, where they had to connect the author's life story to their decision about a major issue (and then plug in their own). Something along the lines of the author's son was murdered and she forgave the murderer--would you do the same?

I had one student submit a post that is entirely an AI hallucination. Decides that the mother is actually a guy, and murdered people and is very pro death penalty as a result (which like....doesn't even make sense?). Like it could not be FURTHER from the truth.

This reading is 3 pages long, btw. Not exactly onerous.

Additionally, this class has been such a nightmare that I have had to set the Discussion posts to manually approve each post (because a student was going around and replying hateful and insulting stuff to other students, just absolutely bananas stuff I've never seen before in my 20+ years of teaching).

So....most of the other students have at least read enough of the essay to get the gist. Now if I approve this post, every other student is going to look at Student X and know that they didn't do the reading and are doing supreme levels of bullshitting and cringe.

If I don't approve the post, it's very likely the students won't know that Student X didn't get a post approved--students decide to skip Discussions, etc). The class is big enough that they literally wouldn't notice Student X's absence.

The student isn't getting credit for it anyway.

So what says the collective? Do I let this student look like a fool with their AI-hallucination post or do I try to save them from that embarrassment?

Just a thought… Someone (much more tech savvy than me) should create an app like GoodReads but for academic articles. Complete with field specific genres and all. It could be fun to track what we read, set goals, etc.

"You didn't spoon feed us the answers to the test."

It seems students expect my lectures to provide the exact answers to the exams and nothing else. The worst part is that they are training to become fucking nurses, yet they still throw a fit if they have to study or if we cover something in class that's not on the exam. If all you care about is weaseling your way into an A by asking for more hints of what will be on the exam, you probably shouldn't enter a field where you'll hold people's lives in your hands.

Most of the students showed up. The ones that didn’t were legitimately sick and let me know ahead of time. The weakest one was kind of trying to sing the right notes, and I have a backup for her. This is the first time since the hurricane that I didn’t think about canceling the whole thing. This is first day in a few weeks that I didn’t cry on the commute home. Keep your fingers crossed!

I have ventured into online tuition for some time now. It's not comfortable whenever I start, whatever noise was there amplifies cars and motorbikes revving louder and more, kids playing and screaming, loud conversation becomes louder. I don't have earphones. I just feel like I need privacy away from home.

Basically what it says on the tin. I like to put on educational YouTube videos while I do chores or other repetitive and/or mindless activities so I don't get bored. Right now, they're mostly related to my hobbies and current hyperfixations, but I'd like to branch out by adding some professionally useful content in the rotation.

I'm open to anything that aims to help the audience be better educators, but there's only so much I can get out of resources specifically designed to help K-12 teachers when I'm working with young adults.

Extra credit if you've got any that are geared towards history or the social sciences since I teach anthropology/archaeology classes.

Thank y'all for your time!

Has anyone noticed an uptick in students who clearly used AI instead confessing to other forms of cheating? The last two obvious AI cases I've confronted, both denied using AI but instead confessed to having worked with another person on the assignment or outright having another person do it for them. In neither case does the student seem to understand that having someone else do the work for them is also academic dishonesty. In one case, I'm left unsure whether the student outsourced the assignment and the friend they recruited used AI, or if the student just plain used AI and this "friend" is just as fabricated as the sources they cited.

Regardless, I find this particularly egregious as these are online courses where I have no way of verifying whether the student is doing the work themselves. I can't even shift to in-class writing, so I have no means of knowing whether past or future essays were done by the person enrolled in my course + our Academic Dishonesty policy gives first-time offenders nothing more than a warning. I personally requested the student be removed from the class considering the nature of it being a web course, but was essentially told "nope, have fun."

My department is discussing our faculty-focused programming—faculty meetings, colloquia + speaker talks, workshops, social events, everything like that. We have some sense of our energy level, but we don't really have much sense of what would be normal or especially creative. So I'm curious:

• How many times a semester does your department (or at least a good chunk of it) come together for a planned event? We're a humanities department in a small / mid-sized R2, so I'm particularly, but not only, interested in departments like ours.
• Are there any particularly successful bits of programming your department has done? I don't want to create programming for programming's sake, but if there are things that actually help bond people together or create the context for the developed of esprit d'corps, I'm interested in that!

Thanks!

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I know there is a lot of frustration and demoralization. But I'd love to hear strategies people have used to make improvements. Maybe you cut down on your grading time, shifted your perspective, set boundaries...What was it specifically and why did it help?

I primarily teach doctoral students, and my program is very practitioner focused. Invariably, a few students around this time of the year, when they are nearing the end of coursework and about to work on their dissertations in earnest, suddenly decide they want to pursue faculty positions. Again, the program is focused on practitioners, by design and status, and we do a damn good job of it. But having to tell folks who have no teaching experience, no research experience (we do not currently require research prior to the dissertation), and next to no awareness of the job market, that it's going to be a tough row to hoe if they plan on pursuing a full time teaching position.

I tell everyone the strengths and limitations of our program prior to accepting them into the program, again at orientation (I run our orientation very early so they still have time to pivot), in their first semester as doc students, and whenever I'm asked, that we are not a faculty preparation program, but still I get the "I just thought you'd believe in me" takes more often that I like.

So, if anyone out there has a similar role, care to commiserate? Any recommendations other than pulling the bottle out from the desk drawer and toasting to at least not being dishonest about it?

Anyone else have students who routinely come to class 5-10 minutes late, throw their things down, leave to go to the bathroom, and then reappear 15, 20, or 25 minutes later?

I’ve been marking them tardy and giving them 50% credit for attendance, which is an actually generous if they’re only present for 15 of the 50 scheduled minutes.

I have multiple students who do this nearly everyday, but one just realized it’s affecting his grade and is protesting. He said, “The syllabus says we’re only marked tardy if we’re more than 10 minutes late! I’m here almost everyday!”

I replied, “Your things are, but you’re not.”

“But I have to use the bathroom in the morning!”

“If that’s an issue you’re struggling to deal with on your own, I would advise you to see Health Services and perhaps be evaluated for an accommodation. But right now, I don’t have you down as needing one.”

He stormed off mad.

Apparently, my class time is when everyone needs to take their morning 💩

🤦🏼‍♂️

Just curious about how you present evals to students. Do you give any guidance on how they should evaluate you, or do you just let them go and hope for the best?

At my university, students are asked to 1) rank their improvement on a set of 15 objectives (and instructors preemptively choose 3-5 “essential” ones for their course); 2) rate the extent to which the instructor was excellent; 3) rate the extent to which the course was excellent; 4) comment on things they would like to see continue; and 5) comment on areas for improvement.

2 and 3 are required to go straight into my tenure dossier. Left to their own devices, students will certainly interpret “excellence” based on “was I entertained?” and “did I get an A (regardless of my effort)?” Is this just a fate we live with, or do any of you provide a definition of “excellence” to students hat involves (for example) learning, quality of materials, real world applications, etc.?

What was the jump in rank/prestige (e.g., T100 R1 to a T20 R1) and pay? Why do you regret it? Were there any red flags early on?

I hate teaching with the new generation as much as anyone on here. Not to mention toxic workplace culture that runs rampant in academia. BUT there have been so many posts like this that this entire subreddit has been reduced to it. My question is: Are there any elements of your job that you still genuinely enjoy? I’ll start. I’m sitting on my couch eating pizza on my off day, two of which I get during the week. Holiday breaks are nice. And if I’m ever struggling financially, I have the option of picking up an extra class. Lastly, I have some students who are ACTUALLY likable and are happy that I am their teacher. What about you guys? What gives you a glimmer of hope?

Edit: I also have A LOT of flexibility with my schedule. I choose my semester schedule and also I’m an artist so if I ever have a show out of state, I can cancel or switch the mode of instruction as needed.

Hola Amigos in Academia -

In an interesting pickle. I (assoc. prof./tenure) work for a b-level biz school, and for years have been haunted (happy halloween), by a petty faculty member who (while benefiting from publications we shared - love the pre-tenure serfdom) has prevented me (spreading gossip, negative assertions) from moving into a full position or get any kind of raise. It is real, you all have prob seen this. So frankly, it has been shitty. I have emails describing the issue to every subsequent chair as she was in control of courses, and I was given whatever was left over, no collaboration. 

Fast forward to the pandemic...I come from a family of drinkers, and like soo many, was swept out by alcoholism in my personal life, but did not let it interfere with teaching, or my research. In 2021, I sat on a post tenure committee to see what I could expect (this actually was my second, but I figured it was time to tighten up - never had any problems. 

In the first meeting, a new faculty member asked an older one (who had been working closely with the above), and the senior one responded: (I am paraphrasing) "it usually is, but there's a professor that's such a drunk he hasn't been teaching his classes. Present company excluded. We are going to make life hard for him”. The response Dr.X gave was frightening as it violates ADA paragraph (a)(2)(iii) provides that a person who is erroneously regarded as engaging in current illegal use of drugs, but who is not engaging in such use, is protected. See below, this includes those who are perceived as alcoholics as well. 

42 U.S.C. 12114(b). See Ackridge v. Dept of Human Servs., City of Philadelphia, 3 AD Cases (BNA) 575, 576 (E.D. Pa. 1994), in which the plaintiff claimed that she was discriminated against because she was incorrectly regarded as an alcoholic and/or a substance abuser. In dicta, the court noted that if the plaintiff was in fact regarded as a drug abuser (and if she was not using drugs), or if she was regarded as an alcoholic, she might have a valid ADA claim. Id. at 576. See also EEOC Technical Assistance Manual on the ADA, which states that tests for illegal use of drugs also may reveal the presence of lawfully-used drugs. If a person is excluded from a job because the employer erroneously regarded him/her to be an addict currently using drugs illegally when a drug test revealed the presence of a lawfully prescribed drug, the employer would be liable under the ADA. Ibid. at 8.9.

In this circumstance, I believed he was speaking about me, though my assessment was a year away. This led to a great deal of stress, anxiety and depression in my case, as in previous conversations he had alluded that I owed him something as he served on my tenure committee. As you can imagine, this was a horrifying statement, as I know with the “present company excluded” he was referring to me. With what evidence? He made the statement, not me - I never drank on the day I taught, or even before (for fear of being hungover).

It was a hard time, I drank more, but thank god found my way to rehab (sober more than 2 years - not shabby). Since this person was referring to we, and the fact that he and the other faculty were on my committee, it was worse than terrible, accusing me of not having published (the chair in the actual meeting shared I had 6 publications over the time period, and that I was a drag to the AACSB accreditation. I was too weak at the time to defend myself, but am back. I have years of emails asking for someone to do something about this (Chairs, Deans, Provost, Union) and either they don’t respond, or tell me to go for full again (sure, why not work 4 times as hard as everyone else for far less). I literally complained about the 2 to my current chair (not a formal charge of bias, but something to consider since literally the same 2 people served on the committee).

Me thinks it time to lawyer up, but have no experience in these domains. I appreciate you making it this far - and there’s so much more - this has happened to other faculty as well, who inappropriately reached out to me - but my main questions for my esteemed colleagues are:

1. What is the appropriate legal approach to take?
2. Have you experienced something like this - what did you do?
3. Do you know any good academic lawyers - this feels like not only coordinated discrimination, but an active plan to shaft my 5 year eval (and last year was the first year I wasn’t given a sabbatical - they seem connected, but I could be wrong as we all struggle with budgets. 
4. Any and all other thoughts, ideas, insights, support or perspectives you have, please let me know.

Many thanks,

Screenshot of Apple's advert concerning Apple Intelligence being \"everywhere words matter.\" Source: https://www.apple.com/apple-intelligence/

I gave a Moodle-based exam today that included a few essay questions. More than 75% of my students use Macs. I can see the writing on the wall here with the new AI that Apple has introduced. They say that it will be available "virtually everywhere you write." I'm not about to police that nonsense once students upgrade to the new MacOS. Paper-based testing is the way.

I'll keep it brief. This is my first year as a professor. I am teaching a course that started late August, and will finish the start of December. I have a student who has never been to class, has not turned in any assignments, and has missed the first two exams. They emailed me today saying they have not in the right place mentally, and is ready to take the class seriously. They want to redo all assignments, but the keys are already released, and I don't feel it is fair to my other students. Normally I would suggest dropping the class, but the drop date passed earlier this week. How would some of you veterans handle this situation?

Dear faculty.

I am an NTT STEM faculty member, and I have an NSF-funded research project. This project was the result of 6-8 years of continued effort on proposals. I am now in the third year of this project, with roughly two more years to go and I find I want to quit it. The amount of work I put into this is incompatible with my family life, with little to no value added to my career. In addition, I have grown entirely disinterested in and now do not care sufficiently about the research questions.

Has anyone been in such a situation? Should I slug it out with significant unhappiness for the next two years, or should I just quit? I am looking for advice or POVs I have not considered.

Edit: This is a collaborative, cross-national grant. I am the co-PI and focused on the numerics/computation side of things, while the project PI is at another institution and is focused on the experimental side of things.

So far today, I’ve had:

1. a graduate student ask me if they can re-do an exam,
2. a student with a very specific accommodation refuse to follow my directions about said accommodation and then refuse to take my exam,
3. IT’s latest firmware update for my computer now means the scrollbar only works in half my programs (it’s not my peripherals, I checked),

And, the pièce de résistance:

4. a student ask me if I post grades anywhere for their class.

sigh

I need a good stiff drink.