Tell me about your CF students...

[GameOldBirdz]

Me and a few colleagues last night were exchanging war stories of unbelievable and/of CF students.

Sadly these cases seem to be increasing with the marketisation of HE and there's lots of underlying misogyny but there's humour to be found in there somewhere...

One of my colleagues told us about her first lecture at a new university when she mentioned to the students that she'd just started. At the end of the lecture, a student handed her an evaluation of her performance

Mine would be when a student showed up at my office at 9:45am nearly in tears begging me to let her use my office computer to print her essay (due in at 10am) as her printer had just broken and the computer room was full. I took pity on her. She sat down, plugged in her USB, opened Chrome and went to Facebook . When I challenged her she said he had "plenty of time" as the essay submission was only down the corridor. I threw her out without her printed essay. She filed a formal complaint about me

Every year I get comments in my module evaluations about my hair. I do have funky hair and I do change it often but still...

[christinarossetti]

Good for you Bella, and I wish that HE authorities would take this issue seriously, step up and ban the bloody things from lectures and seminars. Why not make it a universal policy? Sure, people would moan but they'd adjust soon enough and it would become the norm.

[weetabix07]

No doubt banning them would apparently ruin the 'student experience'....

But of course they should be banned, its rude, and the student is there to listen not look at their phone etc.

[christinarossetti]

Yes, and they're paying a fortune for the priviledge....

[CrispsForTea]

When I was a fresher, a girl in my lecture was on her phone. The lecturer noticed this and asked her an extremely easy question (one that a good GCSE student would have been able to answer). When she said she didn't know, the lecturer responded with "well maybe if you were listening to the lecture instead of being on your phone, you'd be able to answer". It was one of the greatest moments of my time at uni.

[kscience]

New to HE so am rather unimpressed with the attitude of some of my students e.g. emailling me with a question that they should be googling i.e. Hi Kscience, I dont know what xxxx is ... my response "if you Google xxxx you will find relevant information". I am a bit shocked as I would NEVER have dreamed of doing this as an undergrad (OK it was 20yrs ago and we had 250+ in a lecture whereas this is a much smaller cohort, but still).

Reading this thread has made me feel better this is normalish student behaviour, but also rather sad that this is normalish student behaviour.

[eggsandchips]

Many students have little initiative unfortunately.

Once I had an email asking when the break was. It's all quite obviously on the website...

[Cliveybaby]

@kscience send them a link from "let me google that for you":
lmgtfy.com/

[knottybeams]

I've been in lectures many times where photographing slides on camera phones was encouraged.

[stayathomegardener]

Dad started uni in September, she is so shocked at how little interest the students have in the subject and how infrequently they turn up to lectures.
Her course is one of about six specialist courses in the country so you would think students would be engaged but DD thinks out of the 26 only 4 have a real interest (two of those are mature students).
Not what she hoped for at all.

[stayathomegardener]

And the lecturers make such an effort for everyone.

[Inthedeepdarkwinter]

If I see anyone on a phone in my lecture, or talking at the back, I just quietly stand there and look at them, that usually makes them quickly put it away. I have even said 'put your phone away please'. I'm not standing at the front waving my arms about like an idiot for nothing!

[Inthedeepdarkwinter]

stayathome that's disappointing. I usually reckon about a third of my class are truly engaged and love the subject, another third are intermittent attenders and doing it for the degree and the other thirds are very infrequent attenders and I have no idea where they are most of the time! It can be depressing for students who are keen, but I would encourage her then to take up the offer of office hours, go to any extra lectures or talks that are signposted and just make the most of it. I have interesting conversations and like keen students, hearing about their work experience or volunteering as well. There's no shame in being a keen bean at all at uni!

[SmileyJackey]

My third year students submitted their assessments for my module last week. One student emailed me and said she'd misread the brief (that would be the brief they've had since October) and could she please submit a different version of the assessment.

I didn't answer straight away because I was busy. She rocked up at my office three hours later with a hard copy of her new assignment.

I told her she couldn't submit a new version, electronically or in hard copy.

This morning she met with the head of department and lodged a complaint about my unclear assessment brief and then my terrible attitude towards her.

[eggsandchips]

@SmileyJackey I hope your HOD was supportive of you.

[WobblyLondoner]

Newish to teaching - my current favourite was the student who emailed the afternoon before an essay was due saying he was competing at a sporting event (won't say what, but think lacrosse or similar) and had done much better than he thought, hooray. Which meant he'd be back later than expected, and so would have less time to finish his essay - so could he have an extension please...

[QueenRefusenik]

The students who emailed to say he'd accidentally gone on holiday to the South of France with his parents and there was no WiFi at the gite so could he have an extension? Once I'd stopped laughing and womanfully resisted the urge to quote Withnail & I at length I emailed back to ask how he'd managed to send the email and perhaps if he was going to go on goliday he should pull his finger out and get his wprk done in advance? Never got a response, and he managed to submit on time in the end!

[SmileyJackey]

I hope your HOD was supportive of you

Mostly supportive but when he emailed the student basically to say she had no grounds for a complaint, he did say "Sorry you've had a negative experience". I was fuming but NSS innit

[nakedscientist]

This happened to me, honestly, though you may struggle to believe it.

I work in biosciences and the students are warned to let us know if they are pregnant so that they don't handle any potentially dangerous chemicals.

One student took this a bit further...
In order to be sure she wasn't pregnant without knowing, she emailed me a list of the dates on which she would be menstruating over the rest of the year and asked that I reorganise the lab sessions, for the whole cohort, to coincide with these dates........err no!

[eggsandchips]

Goodness!

The student focus is ramping up at our place now as the good uni benchmarks just came out. I imagine we will soon get some more CF examples with exam season etc almost upon us!!!

[WobblyLondoner]

@nakedscientist - that is hilarious! Er no indeed.

[EliseC1965]

I used to lecture in HE and then for another 9 years in FE. Finally escaped this year :) Hated phone out culture.
However, I’m doing an MSc part time (1 unit per semester) and some of the attitudes of the other students are ridiculous. We have a practical exam tomorrow so you’d think they’d all come in on time last week for the final lecture. One girl rocked up 30 mins before the end and then wanted a summary. Ahahaha! So glad my lovely lecturer ( who is also a VP) didn’t oblige.
In our lectures though it is expected that we use tech to take notes. Most have laptops and I have my iPad. Never stray onto fb though as I’m too busy adding notes to the slides provided by lecturer on Canva

[nakedscientist]

OK another one:

In my subject area, lab practical attendance is mandatory.

A student who said it was their religion not to be out after dark on any day and so the gave me a list of times when they would have to leave Uni, getting gradually earlier and earlier to the end of the year. By the time Dec came, no afternoon sessions were possible!

[Cliveybaby]

@nakedscientist haha what religion was that then?

[sushisuperstar]

Well, I got an email asking about getting help with an assignment ASAP...

Yesterday sigh

Seems like CF territory in general has been low though - no updates here for ages!

[damekindness]

I got an ASAP request to read a students draft work just before midnight Christmas Eve. Despite emailing them all wishing them happy Christmas, explaining my availability over the holiday period. (Though I WILL be working over the holiday period catching up on the reading and writing I need to do that all the student facing activities last term have squeezed out)