Why maths should be a prerequisite for ALL university classes

(Disclaimer: I know that this complaint does, itself, conform to a certain stereotype, and that you've all heard it before. But I still can't help but marvel. If students themselves weren't such stereotypes, we wouldn't have to be them either.)

So the first major assignment for my course was due on Monday. Eighty students. Approximately 10 pages each. They will each take me 20 minutes to mark, minimum.

Forty-eight hours later I got my first enquiry as to whether I had marked the assignments yet. Would I be returning them today?

Representative student/lecturer email exchange

Hi,

I'm really confused about the assignment. Can I come by your office tomorrow to talk about it?

Stud. Ent.


Hi Stud Ent,

That's fine. I can be in my office at a time between 10--12 and probably from 2--4 as well. Let me know when you want to meet.

Teach. Er.


Hi,

Thanks so much. That will be really helpful. I think I've worked some stuff out, but I'd still like to talk to you. See you tomorrow.

Stud Ent.


Why don't they ever READ the bit where I ask them to specify a time? And then if I'm not in my office when they do drop by, they interpret that as, "I made an appointment and she wasn't even there!" and I get skewered on the evaluation forms where it asks, "Was the lecturer available for questions and discussion outside class hours?"

Gah!

(And today's one didn't show at all, even though I was in my office for the whole of the suggested time windows.)

The student confessed

My cheater, that is.

But you know what? Apparently it's my fault. She told me she had been on holiday, and then I insisted that she sit the quiz anyway. Without preparation. She therefore had no choice but to copy someone. And she didn't really copy, anyway. She did rewrite some of the answers into her own words. Which is practically the same as writing her own answers. Because, it's not, like, plagiarism.

If I had wanted her not to copy, I would have given her an extra week to prepare.

I'm beautiful but irrelevant

Because I am innovative or stupid, or maybe just in an insidious attempt to make my students think I care about them, I gave mid-semester evaluations today. Most people in my department, and probably my university, only give end-of-semester evaluations. But I figured that if the students are hating something I am doing, I'd rather know about it now while there is still time to change than get my arse kicked on the evals that matter and be able to do nothing about it.

There were a few multiple choice questions (Are we covering material too fast, too slow, just right, and how is your porridge?) and some short answers (How many hours per week are you spending on this class? Don't lie, God and your mother are watching you.) Then there was a space for them to add any further comments.

Weirdest comment:
I don't get what the point of this class is. I mean, I'm an English teacher, but I don't see how knowing what a pronoun is, how verb agreement works, or how to diagram a sentence is going to help me with my job, let alone my real life. Is this just meant to be some sort of geeky fun, or is there a practical application that I don't know about?

I can see how your average arts student might find linguistics a little irrelevant to his or her life, but for an English teacher, I would have thought the benefits would be clear. Also, what sort of "real life" application is s/he expecting? Would s/he ask the same question of a chemistry class? (Excuse me, I can't see how this formula will help me with my cooking!) Or of English literature? (Will being able to quote Shakespeare help me get rich quick?)

Favourite comment:
I like your class very much. I like that everything is on the website. And you are the most beautiful teacher I have ever seen.

Mostly, though, the comments were very helpful.

For example, I have been putting all my examples and terminology on overheads during class, and then uploading them to WebCT directly afterwards, so that students can download their own copies. Almost without exception, students said they would prefer paper copies in class so that they can write notes directly onto the examples. Which is fair enough. I was avoiding it because (a) it kills trees, (b) I worry that students don't really listen if they feel they don't need to take notes and (c) I have a copy limit of 1000 pages, and 80 students x 2 pages x 26 lectures goes four times over that. But I'll find a way to make it happen.

I also asked if they want a tutorial on how to write essays, and was expecting that most of them would. Instead, they mostly noted that they have had these already in many other classes, and would just like a handout or short briefing on how expectations for linguistics essays differ from other arts subjects. I can do that.

Overall, I think the evaluations were extremely useful, and I'll not hesitate to do them again. Especially if it means anonymous people tell me I'm beautiful.

Hee hee

Email question from a student: "Is it okay if I write the assignment on double-sided paper?"

I'm thinking of telling her to do it on a Moebius strip instead.

My students crack me up

Yesterday I spent some time explaining to the students how to identify an infinitive. "Beware!" I told them. "They don't always come with a to in front of them. To go, to eat, to play: all of those are easy to spot. But sometimes the to is omitted. And then you have to look for other clues to see if your verb is an infinitive or a finite form."

I explained what these other clues were, then gave them a quick test. "In the sentence I must go now, is go a finite form or an infinitive?"

"An infinitive!" One of the students answered immediately.

"Excellent," I praised her. "And how do you know?"

She beamed proudly. "Because there is an omitted to."

Someone cheated on the quiz

and (Quick! Everyone pretend to look surprised!) it's this student.

The evidence isn't rock solid, but I'm certain enough. (Two pieces of terminology used wrongly and weirdly and one made-up term that doesn't even exist. Both identical to the mistakes of the girl who was sitting next to her. None of these particular mistakes appeared in any of the other 88 students' quizzes.)

I'm not sure what I'll do if she doesn't confess, though. Even if I could prove that the two quizzes are too similar for it to be coincidence, it could have been that the other student copied from this one rather than vice versa. Considering the circumstances, I don't think that's likely, but I can't prove it isn't so. And I can't penalise both students for something that one of them was probably unaware of.

A bedtime story

I was feeling good about my teaching.

And then I had a craptacular day.

So I was feeling bad about my teaching.

And then I had some beer.

And I was feeling good about my teaching everything.

And then an acquaintance complained to me about how his wife has to put up with being taught by a tutor turned last-minute lecturer who doesn't know what he is doing. And all the problems he describes are exactly the ones that I had on my craptacular day. And even when I tried to explain how these things come about, he said they are unforgivable, considering how much students pay for their classes.

And I felt bad about my teaching again.

The end.

Any questions?

"So before I hand out the quiz, does anyone have any last-minute questions?"

Girl at the back waves her hand frantically.

"Yes?"

"What quiz?"

"The one I reminded you all about in the last lecture. Remember?"

"I haven't been to any of the lectures yet. I was on holiday in Europe."

"Well, it is stated on the syllabus that there was a quiz scheduled for the fourth week of classes."

"Where can I get a syllabus?"

"It's on WebCT. Anyway. As long as you've done the readings, you'll probably be okay. There's a couple of questions on things that weren't in the readings but only discussed in the lectures, but you'll still be able to pass."

"What readings?"

An Evaluation of...Evaluations

I just got my student evals from last semester, and I have to say that they were...interesting. There was a lot more variety than usual, but even so, I have spotted some general trends in evaluations over the past few semesters. For me they seem to fall into one of four categories:

#1 Student complaints that one does not take seriously.*
"We're only frosh, we shouldn't be expected to [insert assignment here]."
"You assigned too many readings."
"You grade too hard. It is history class, not English, so lighten up a little."

#2 Student suggestions that merit consideration.
"Need more tests, as odd as that sounds." (I did away with tests the last two semesters and only assigned weekly reading quizzes and papers. This may need to be rethought.)

#3 Praise for the instructor and/or course.
"WOOT!"
"I very much enjoyed X assignment and would recommend it be assigned again."
"I didn't know history could be so interesting! Thanks!"

AND, FINALLY... (drumroll please)

#4 The truly outrageous rant.
"X assignment was stupid...DON'T EVER DO THAT AGAIN. You're too young to be such a bitch."

I think that last student forgot that they were supposed to provide constructive criticism and concrete suggestions for improvement. Ah, well.
*These tend to come from students that are not yet fully aware of what college-level work *truly* is. At least that is my theory, since this was a 100-level course with primarily freshman, but one section of it did have quite a few non-traditional students because it met in the early evening. No one in that section made any comments similar to these. I'd like to think that's because they are older and wiser, and thus know and understand what is expected of them as students, whereas freshman are new and haven't been around the block, so to speak.

Questions that make me so happy I could cry

At today's lecture I unexpectedly got to experience one of the greatest rewards that teaching brings. Something that never fails to leave me buzzing with happiness for the rest of the day:

Of a queue of five students lying in wait for me after the lecture, only one wanted to ask about some administrative matter. The other four had questions like:

"Since last week's lecture, I've been thinking a lot about [concept], and was wondering, how would you apply it to [some more difficult data]?"

or

"I was reading [optional recommended text], and I couldn't stop thinking about [concept]. So what do you think about how [concept] relates to [something discussed in today's lecture]?"

or

"What you said today about [theory] was really interesting. I was trying to work out how it applies to [other language]. I think I can see how to make it fit, so if I explain, can you tell me if I'm on the right track?"


And the best thing is that the final student waited 15 minutes for me to finish with the other students, just so that she could ask this sort of in-depth question. It's not something she will need to know for the exam. It's not anything urgent that she has to deal with today. But she was interested enough in the subject matter to wait a quarter of an hour to get to discuss it with me some more.


I love my students.

And I must be doing something right.

The swings and roundabouts of outrageous students

Or perhaps that should read, "of outrageous policies for passing students who should have failed."

I have been reacquainting myself with a bunch of students who I failed a couple of years back. Students who turned up to one class in eight. Who completed almost none of the assessment. Who handed in scrappy torn paper with a few penciled and misspelled notes on it for the assessment they did complete. Who pled all sorts of excuses, and who someone must have taken pity on. Because they are still here and now taking my upper level classes.

I don't really understand how that works.

************

Then there's the opposite case. My wonderful hardworking failure from two years ago. She spent 20+ hours on some of the assignments that other students finished in two. She came to every office hour. She did all the extra practice exercises I recommended, and asked for more. She worked her way up from a 16% in the first assignment, to a 28% in the second, and a 54% in the final exam. That particular class had a policy for cases like that that if the final exam was a passing mark, and the student had shown diligence and progressive improvement, the final exam replaced the total that would have come from the aggregate mark. So she passed.

And now she is back, in my upper level class. Still a little confused (she accidentally enrolled for the wrong course and didn't realise until the third week). Still a little uncertain about some of the material. But full of really smart, thoughtful questions. The first to respond to anything I ask of the class. Doing all the reading, both required and optional, and looking likely to get some very good marks.

It's students like her that make it all worthwhile.