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.

I did wonder!!!😀

I ploughed through my terrible cohort's assignments, and they were, predictably, terrible. One of the requirements was that they had to quote from one of a short list of assigned secondary readings on the topic to support their discussion, and at least half of them didn't even do that, and most of those that did chose the most banal quotations - completely descriptive, irrelevant stuff, very little actual argument or conceptual material. So. Much. AI. I could conceivably have failed a good proportion of them. As it stands, they are graded extremely generously, and the class average is C+. Most of them above that grade don't deserve it though, tbh. Am contemplating going back in and unilaterally reducing everyone by at least a grade point.

And then, to depress myself even further, I looked at the engagement statistics on the VLE. I know that isn't always a reliable metric, but the class average is around 15% of course materials accessed, even among the stronger students. Do they know we can see those statistics? I am really tempted to tell them in class on Thursday, along with some other home truths. Has anyone done this - just ripped a class a new one? It would tank the feedback, but I suspect that will be bad anyway.

I would never mark generously in that situation. I’m not an ungenerous marker, but I save my generosity for when I can discern some effort that can be rewarded, and it doesn’t sound like that is the case here? And, yes, to giving them blunt feedback. It’s infuriating that one has to bend over backwards to respond to module evaluations written by students who increasingly do not engage with the module at all.

This is it! I did not go to the training on our new feedback system, but I have a feeling that we can actually write a response, and if that is the case I am going to let loose a bit - I'm not sure who sees that, the students or just the university, and I no longer care tbh.

I am too angry to go back to the grades now, so I'm going to give it a few days to cool off (I can see the grades getting lower and lower as I progress down the submissions, so I'm no longer in the right frame of mind for it). They are first years and there are some legacy issues from the first semester with their group, so I was trying to be conscious of that, but the statistics did it for me.

Term is over but I still have so much to do... We have a public engagement event in the school holidays which needs prep... So much prep...
On a very random note, is your office tidy?
Mine is almost as bad as the emeritus professors but not quite.
I am tidier than I was at home (I've been forcing myself to do a tidy at night instead of one more episode) but I can always think of one more analysis that must be done so... Not in the office. I do tidy my table when I have a meeting. I'm lucky enough to be on an older campus with big offices though.

My office is generally tidy as it gets used by a postdoc on my research day, so it can’t be a total tip. I do tend to have all my texts and folders for each module I’m teaching on the desk, but that’s relatively easy to organise in piles and push to the side. At the end of term, I go through all the notes and handouts, and keep what I can to avoid printing more next semester. Then everything gets filed away until September. I rarely use my office over summer though.

Most of us have our own offices, which we are very lucky to have given the size of our department. Some people do share, and we all give up our offices for postdocs/visiting scholars on research days. Our uni hasn’t come to colonise offices as a general practice yet, though I expect it’s coming.

I am really tempted to tell them in class on Thursday, along with some other home truths. Has anyone done this - just ripped a class a new one? It would tank the feedback, but I suspect that will be bad anyway.

I've done it mid semester a few times - usually off the back of a disastrous class test (maths subject so not much room for generous marking). That's a typically very motivated, high achieving bunch so the combination of a crap mark and Teacher Not Being Pleased for the first time ever has given them the boot up the backside they needed. Feedback was generally great by the end.

Did it with a weak cohort about tutorial engagement once. They either stopped coming or engaged even less. Feeback so so, but that's all it was ever going to be.

A colleague did it in the lecture for the same cohort, gave them the home truths that needed. It did tank her feedback which she really took to heart, but there was other stuff going on there too.

Personally, I think that if they aren't meeting your expectations they should be told that, especially with these covid cohorts who often seem confused about what the expectations actually are. But I'm not up for promotion so can take the risk with the evaluations.

Promotion also not a concern for me, but aside from the evaluation issues - I will have a continuing relationship with this cohort throughout their programme, so maybe I don't really want to completely sour that. But they do need a kick up the proverbial. I think I will make a general point that the standard was lower than expected on the assignment, and that it was clear from the submission and from the VLE statistics that very few people are even accessing, nevermind engaging with, the material. I will also mention the AI use. I really hope that this is just a bad cohort. The same module last year went really well, and I have had positive comments about it from those students as recently as last week, and the module itself hasn't changed much at all - just some case studies swapped out! Depressing.

We go on! Only three teaching weeks left for me.

Resurrecting this thread from the throes of the final weeks of teaching. Can’t come soon enough! I have booked a short holiday for mid-May and I am counting down the minutes at this stage.

My terrible cohort continue to depress. I had to meet with them individually over the last few weeks to discuss their final project, and discovered that a surprising number of them had made a fundamental mistake in choosing their topic. Surprising as I don’t change anything about this project from year to year - in fact, I import the information from last year’s VLE pretty much unchanged, except for deadlines - and normally have maybe 2 students make this mistake. So far, I’ve had 8 or so, or about 40%. After prodding the last couple, it seems that nobody is actually clicking into the guidelines for the project, and have been steaming ahead based on the scant outline given on the syllabus. I actually had a student push back at me saying that it was confusing and that they shouldn’t be expected to click into any sub folder to get information. I sent a curt email reminding them of their personal responsibility to read the information posted for them, but I just CANNOT anymore with this group. Two more classes, and we are out.

I've had exactly the same for my assignment info. I've presented it, I've spoken about the link online to all the info, I've sent it in emails. But very few have looked at it and constantly ask questions instead of clicking on the link. I'm wondering if I change it into an interpretive dance on tiktok it will get more views next year. Which dance move conveys word count?

We have term 3 starting next week, so a teaching meeting today. Of my 190 students, between 35 and 110 watched my recorded lectures from last term, and at most 130 came to the labs.

I'm getting (for the first time in over 20years) requests such as…..I don’t like this module (when it’s nearly finished) can’t I just do another next year? (No)
I’ve only done 8 of the 12 required practicals, will this matter? (Yes)
I haven’t organised my practical setting, can I do something else (No)

where did all these ideas that there are options to suit them come from? Baffled.

The reference requests have started here. "Hi miss, I need a reference can you rite 1?"

And then 30 seconds later

"Miss I need the reference now, deadline is tonight"

Well ok but it will read "according to the student data system this applicant attended 20% of seminars. However I do not know them personally. Their marks indicate they may get a 2:1 but not in my module where they failed to submit the coursework. In fact it baffles me why I was asked for a reference"

One of our department administrators has been asked multiple times to act as an academic referee. She is very nice to your students but still.

Back when there were only 2 female academics in the department, we would regularly get such requests from students we didn't teach as they knew it was "the woman lecturer" who taught that course.

My female colleague once filled in 40 references as all of the male lecturers on the programme said no.

God, this reminds me. I was once in a small department where I was one of only two female academics. I was around 30, in my first job, tallish, with long curly hair, and I lived in black and biker boots. The other woman was a professor, a couple of years off retirement, a tiny little woman just shy of 5 feet, with cropped hair and a liking for pastel mohair cardigans. Yet students regularly mistook us for one another. Why wouldn't they? We were 'the woman lecturer'.😱

I have one of those middle aged names that has multiple abbreviations (like Liz, Lizzie, Elizabeth). There used to be about 4 female lecturers with two of us with different abbreviations. All our colleagues would just call us by the other one's name, I'm guessing on the grounds that it's "one of those women's names, they are all the same". Never heard the Bill and William mixed up like that.

Oh dear - did we get dinged for venting? That’s my fault. I will share some nicer stories, from my third years. I also had consultations with them about their final projects, and they had some excellent ideas showing strong engagement with the course themes. One of them is making a miniature model of the town that one of our texts is set in, showing where each character spends the most time and mapping their routes around it (this is a key theme in the book). Really cool stuff.

Anyway, I’m having a glass of wine to celebrate my last teaching class of the semester, and I’m taking a holiday before marking season starts. Already, things seem a bit better.

I should say I’ve changed the details of the project significantly, in case anyone is concerned about tmi 👀

If one more person asks me if I've had a lovely break, and then proceeds to tell me how nice it is to be free of teaching, I might explode.

I've had no break at all.

And I still have 10 hours of lectures to deliver (and still write...) as our first years get an extra 5 weeks teaching in summer term.

Ia lso have third year dissertations to mark, and second marking, some 5k essays that were extended from Jan to now, revision lectures, MA dissertation students, and a surprisingly early 3rd year exam on top of all the endless meetings and admin jobs...

I am trying to keep week 6 empty so I can have a catchup break. I don't think I've had proper time off since this time last year (when I was between contracts so not relaxing... I'm starting to see why I've told me boss to go away and leave me alone several times this term😂).

Sympathies💐

@OchonAgusOchonOh thanks! I NEEDED that vent 😁

At least my office is tidy!