How is your term going?

[Pancakedayisthebest]

I'm feeling a bit broken! I lost my mojo for teaching in COVID and now feel like I go through the motions. Students are quite challenging, some great participation, others just stare at phones. I'm planning on a device free week at some point to see if they start interacting a bit more.

Because of course the students all have advanced qualifications in teaching and learning.

That's ridiculous. If they want to assess and improve teaching performance, they need to get experts in to do that. Students idea of good teaching frequently means easy and preferably entertaining.

The mean girls vibe is spot on as is the 'omg so cringe' glances/smirking between them whenever I try and engage them/end up talking to myself - it's like what do you want me to do?? I'm just trying to do my job. It's like they can't see we're humans and have feelings. Honestly, it's such a relief to hear shared experiences as I was feeling like I was just terrible at teaching (which I might be, of course!! 😂)

And it's not just the gender gap in evaluations, but the ethnicity penalty too - some of my colleagues from abroad have had it really bad in terms of students questioning their academic abilities.

I really do wonder if there is festering resentment because they think we're pocketing all their fees and laughing all the way to the bank (obviously not the case, but I get the impression some are not clued up on how badly are actually paid/treated within academia).

I've stopped doing our student evaluations, even the ones where I tweaked the template to couch the entire thing in terms of evaluating their own preparation for each seminar. Yes indeedy to the gendered criticisms. I still remember my first set (back when they were still handed out on paper in the final lecture of a module) in my first academic job, when it was a very large lecture group, and there were some incredibly unpleasant remarks about my dress and appearance by people who knew I couldn't trace them.

Ours are sent centrally so we can't stop doing them. I just don't allocate class time for them to complete them (their recommendation) or remind them to complete them. I then ignore the reminders asking us to increase our response rate.

I don't know of any male colleague who has even had a comment on his clothing or appearance but all of the women have at various points. And it's not that my male colleagues are splendid example of sartorial elegance...

Ben Schmidt's visualizations of American ratemyprofessor comments is telling. Search 'dress' or 'clever' and see who comes out top on your subject. https://benschmidt.org/profGender/#%7B%22database%22%3A%22RMP%22%2C%22plotType%22%3A%22pointchart%22%2C%22method%22%3A%22return_json%22%2C%22search_limits%22%3A%7B%22word%22%3A%5B%22his%20kids%22%2C%22her%20kids%22%5D%2C%22department__id%22%3A%7B%22%24lte%22%3A25%7D%7D%2C%22aesthetic%22%3A%7B%22x%22%3A%22WordsPerMillion%22%2C%22y%22%3A%22department%22%2C%22color%22%3A%22gender%22%7D%2C%22counttype%22%3A%5B%22WordCount%22%2C%22TotalWords%22%5D%2C%22groups%22%3A%5B%22unigram%22%5D%2C%22testGroup%22%3A%22C%22%7D

Plus the remarking requests - like with teaching, I'm finding so many more students think they know better than us. The remarking process where I am requires you to meet students to discuss their feedback but it usually feels like a hostile stand-off or negotiation😂

I only do it with first years, but I'm tempted to make them all mock-mark papers in class so they can the difference between a good essay and one that is just random words thrown on a page!! I had a finalist complaining about their mark who told me that they had been advised by another academic that they didn't need to engage with the literature - they just needed to mention a name here and there (obvs not true/not what my colleague said). Surely by final year, they should know how to use academics sources properly?!!

We're having to get students to do mid module evaluations as well as end of module evaluations.

I'm still working out how to simultaneously have more as well as less contact time, how to make assignments easier and finish early as well as on time.

We only do mid-semester evaluations now. How they are supposed to have any sort of coherent idea of the module in week 5?

I have way too much detail on my slides at the same time as having way too little detail on them.

We have the thing where students comment on both the whole module and individual lecturers. Individual lecturer feedback is enabled for anyone who's registered on the Blackboard site so even for guest lecturers who just do one session and then fuck off.

The individual data is then collated and made open via Blackboard so everyone teaching on the module can see each others individual scores/feedback.

A couple of years ago I had an ECR teaching on my module who got absolutely slated in the MEQs. She was so stressed that everyone on the module could see her score/comments that she came to my office in tears about it. Absolutely bollocks.

I've also pushed back on MEQ questions that ask students "Was you're assessment feedback received in a timely manner?" FUCK OFF. We can see through Blackboard whether or not feedback was returned to students within the set time frame, this isn't a subjective question that students should be asked!

It's been up and down here. We have mock exams on, and a lot of the students are having melt downs 🤦‍♀️ So tired 😴

That is appalling. Surely that breaches data protection legislation? They would certainly be nervous of doing that here in case it contravenes GDPR. Are you in a union? Ours aren't great but they would definitely be up in arms about that.

Presumably the feedback one is just another stick to beat you with. Yes, you got the feedback to them in the agreed time but they weren't happy so we're now requiring you to have it back even quicker.

Mock exams? What fresh hell is this? You presumably also have to correct them and give feedback?

I have had a mainly great term with my first year labs - I hurt my foot so couldn't walk around so I made them all sit in groups near me and I can talk to every group "you, that group with the Minecraft water bottle, what answer did you get?" And they HAVE to speak. Highly recommend (apart from the injury bit).

Then I had the third year guest lecture who staged a mass walkout due to my wrong think. Colleague I was teaching for was so embarrassed for her department. I think the ones who stayed and learned were too.

And to think those bunnies will be in the workforce next year. Though honestly who will employ some of them. They will be funded by Bank of Mum and Dad or trying to crowdfund on Twitter.

@Plating There is well documented evidence about bias in student evaluations. I know someone who's writing it up, and we are trying to move away from using them.

@OchonAgusOchonOh oh yes my handouts were in the wrong format. I mean, grow up.

I've been taken aback by the increasing aggressiveness of students - not only do they slate us in the evaluations for ridiculous things, but if they don't feel that they've been sufficiently 'heard', they will try and escalate matters by going directly to staff-student meetings/HOD to complain further about individuals... Of course, we can't criticise them or highlight the role that they play in making seminars 'not fun' (i.e. if they don't talk/do the reading) because they might get upset/complain, so it's a weird cycle...

I think I’m incredibly lucky with my students. While I only get about 50% attendance, those who do turn up are engaged, do the work and talk in class. I’ve only had students challenge their grades 3 or 4 times in 20 years. Students rarely criticise their lecturers in the way that’s been spoken about here. I’m in Scotland. Not sure if that makes a difference.

@worstofbothworlds To be honest, I'm quite impressed that you instigated a mass walk-out #CareerGoals 😅Have you had any comeback on that from HoD etc?

@OchonAgusOchonOh Sorry, I wasn't sure if your comment about GDPR was in response to mine? If so, I hadn't thought about it from that perspective. If I'm honest, I'm not all that fussed who sees my MEQs/feedback but its awful for ECRs to feel so visible when feedback is negative. This particular ECR was applying for a permanent job in our Department at the time and two other people who saw her MEQs/feedback were on the recruitment panel - she was really panicking about it. I felt so bad for her.

Yesterday I gave a lecture on a module with 65 registered students. Six showed up, and the lecture capture technology recorded my audio but not the slides.

So, a great day, eh?

Roll of fucking Easter.

Yes. I thought I had quoted your post. Sorry.

Looking on Blackboard to see which students have actually accessed the feedback on an assignment, rather than just looking at their grade without clicking into the feedback, is illuminating in a depressing way. I checked in a previous job and less than one third of students on a big module had read my painstaking feedback. Ironically, this was the year the externs specifically singled out my feedback because of its high quality!

That is depressing.

I've started doing general feedback rather than individual wherever possible. My first years usually all make very similar mistakes so that works well for them.

I work in the office in learning support so not the teacher. But deal with a lot of the welfare issues

Are you in a school? This is the academics support board ie university.

I work in a college, but just realised this isn't the staff room board. Aww well....