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I apologize in advance for my frankness.
What can we do in this situation, in which I strongly suspect that this student went to the bathroom to look up a definition on his phone, so that he could answer the question correctly?
Nothing.
have we missed our chance by not asking for him to leave his phone in the room?
You missed it, but it doesn't ...
answered Oct 19 '17 at 20:54
272
Perhaps you could make an announcement that just before erasing the board, you will pause for a moment to allow pictures to be taken, while you stand out of the way so as not to obstruct the shot. You can ask photographers to wait until that time, and to please compose their shots to exclude you if necessary.
267
One really wants to say that the vice-chair is an idiot, but I will refrain. The policy is idiotic in any case. I've taught at places in which nearly every student excels on every measure I could devise. Why would I want to pit one student against another for the purpose of an artificial "average"? They weren't average.
If you have the twenty best people (...
262
Call him in. Ask him how he solved it.
Don't imply that he cheated. Just ask how he solved it with genuine curiosity and interest.
If he asks why you're asking, tell him he was the only student in the entire class who solved it and you'd love to get an insight into his problem solving process.
Either you have a genuine genius on your hands or you have a ...
208
I guess I'm going to be the contrary opinion here. I don't think your professor's request is reasonable at all. Class time is scheduled the way it is so that people can plan the rest of their lives around the schedule. In this case, nobody but you seems to have anything from 12:50 on, but that shouldn't encourage the prof to monopolize that time.
Some may ...
192
There are professional/ethical rules at many universities relating to dating between students and staff, but these do not extend to imposing a permanent moratorium on dating between people who have previously attended that institution. Essentially you are asking if there are any professional or ethical issues in dating another adult who has no connection ...
answered Oct 24 '18 at 4:08
Ben - Reinstate Monica
20.3k4 gold badges47 silver badges85 bronze badges
186
I have responsibility for students with alternate needs within a Computer Science department and thus have professional experience of the situation you describe. It is not uncommon in our subject.
Our experience is that computing attracts a higher proportion of students on the Autistic Spectrum than do other disciplines. We are operating with about (my ...
answered Feb 24 '16 at 11:44
Brian Tompsett - 汤莱恩
11.2k4 gold badges35 silver badges55 bronze badges
177
You seem to have the grading scheme mis-targeted.
When you make peer review part of your grading scheme you grade the review not the paper reviewed. Failure to do the review should be reflected in the reviewer's grade not in the author's grade.
The criteria I use for grading reviews are along the lines of
Does the review correctly identify strengths and ...
answered Oct 26 '16 at 3:02
dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten
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176
How to deal with this?
Dear [student],
Thank you for pointing this out.
[1 or 2 more sentences of explanation]
Sincerely, [your name].
What troubles me is the attitude, which I found it kind of offensive (but I might be wrong).
Maybe the email is offensive, or maybe the student just wrote an email from their phone. Maybe they are actively trying to ...
175
If the assignment deadline was not shown correctly to the students, then it is your error and they cannot be penalized for being late.
Claiming it is correct in one area while incorrect in another does not absolve you, you caused the confusion so you have to accept late submissions, as long as they arrived on Saturday...
Any submissions on Sunday will, of ...
174
I got angry, but. . how should I handle similar situations?
Got angry? No good!
You're not necessarily paid to answer his question but you are paid to help advance knowledge and learning.
Unfortunately, the tone of your answer doesn't let us know exactly how "silly" the question was (was it silly because it was personal question that had no bearing on ...
169
Use placeholders
You can use
a sign or an indication that you would never use in any other circumstances (red cross, three question marks, etc.),
a short sentence ("No Answer Given", "I'm sure you knew it!", "You should have tried!"),
a sign that occupy the whole space (as suggested by Elizabeth Henning in the first place): slashes, X, Z,...
Don't try to ...
164
In dubio pro reo (in a case where nothing happened anyway)
Mistakes happen. Like you writing the wrong day for a certain date. Happened once, the "damage" is that students may have a reason to hand in one day later. That's it. And that's basically nothing.
Students are humans too. Most probably he/she really did not pay too much attention, did not look it ...
163
I have done this so perhaps can answer your question. I was a tenured full professor of physics at a state university but currently teach high school.
There are several reasons I chose to do this.
Most importantly, I love teaching and am great at it, while I dislike the constant drudgery of research and will not be winning any Nobel Prizes. I never have ...
160
I scan my student's assignments. There is a big printer with scanning function in our department where you can just put in the papers and it scans all of them at once.
Moreover, I do warn them beforehand that I will scan the papers and check if one makes a complaint. This has the advantage that the students will not cheat (in this way) and saves me the time ...
158
You wrote:
Students need the presentations to review
Back when I was your age (of course I have no idea of your age but I am guessing you are a traditional undergraduate student), we had to take notes using these two antique tools called pen and paper.
I don't think even one of my professors gave me anything, other than pausing so I had time to write ...
158
As an instructor, when I find myself in this situation, I invite the student to make an appointment to speak with me privately in my office.
During that private meeting, I will discuss his/her current performance in the class, and point out the likely consequences if he/she does not submit the required work. I will advise the student as to what he/she must ...
152
I don't think a flat "no" would go over very well. Covering classes is something that colleagues are expected to do for one another, within reason. Yes, everyone has their own projects that this takes time away from. But it's really the only way that faculty are able to travel during the school term, which most find essential to keeping an active research ...
145
In my opinion, yes it is unreasonable.
Disclaimer: I am a student in the Netherlands, different universities and countries might work differently.
In all the courses I've followed I can't remember a single one that expected me to prepare for the first class. Usually the first half of the first lecture of a course is dedicated to explaining how the course ...
142
You give a lot more information about the student than seems relevant to the question. That the student is applying to MIT for instance is neither here nor there.
That your student is in high school may be slightly relevant. It feels awkward to have a high school student in a college/university course when they are not doing well, because usually ...
141
Do you think it's me being unreasonable?
Sadly, yes. I see two problems here:
You said in a comment that the policy of "the quiz can happen at any time" was not articulated at all. You gave the quiz near the end of the class a couple of times, and the students naturally assumed that that's when you'll always have it. Now you are trying to argue ...
136
My advice is to just use the pirated software and not rock the boat, just like Drunken Code Monkey, for example, mentioned.
This issue isn't something that you're likely to solve yourself. Instead, you're most likely going to spend large amount of time and energy on nothing and produce no results. The fact that your teacher just expects you to get cracked ...
131
An arrogant sounding email does not mean that the person is arrogant. It is well-known that language and even the assumed personality in online communication differ from the real ones, sometimes very significantly (see e.g. internet troll and internet hero). There may be a bunch of other reasons why a person uses an offensive language without realising it, e....
131
As a student, you are paying for the tuition (teaching). Teaching is an activity designed to help you learn and acquire new skills.
Teaching materials (books, slides, video lectures) can be good, bad or ugly, but they are only a (smaller) part of the whole picture. They are not an activity. Arguably, they matter less.
What matters more, in my opinion, is ...
answered Oct 24 '17 at 19:58
Dmitry Savostyanov
36.8k12 gold badges83 silver badges138 bronze badges
130
The existing answers seem to me extreme. I don't think some sort of draconian blanket "leaving-the-room policy" is needed here. I would suggest the following:
For students leaving occasionally: Ignore it. They are adults and sometimes things in their lives may take higher priority than your class (e.g. going to the bathroom, feeling unwell, family ...
129
Don't assume anything about your students' schedules. Set your deadlines so everyone can manage their time based on their own needs.
You are concerned about encouraging your students to do work on the weekends. Consider that many students have customer service jobs that require them to work on the weekends (retail, restaurants, etc). They might work nights ...
127
Some short-ish advice:
First: Realize that you can't save everyone. I'm on the other end of this, teaching at the community college, which is something like an academic M.A.S.H. unit. Some people you have to realize are, most unfortunately, unsaveable ("black-flagged" in medic parlance). The weakest students are, oddly, the ones most resistant to ...
126
Some specific suggestions:
You likely know what material the students have been having issues with, based on questions from lecture, office hours, previous homework sets, or whatever. Mention those topics and review them.
Instead of asking for broad-based questions, go over the syllabus lecture by lecture, calling out specific topics by name and asking ...
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