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Pariah

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I think it's a "question group" (at least when you're creating it for the first time), with as many questions as there are answers in the multiple-choice option list.  Each question in the group has a different answer selected as the correct one.  For extra confusion, allow Canvas to randomize the order of the multiple-choice options, too.

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32 minutes ago, Cancer said:

I think it's a "question group" (at least when you're creating it for the first time), with as many questions as there are answers in the multiple-choice option list.  Each question in the group has a different answer selected as the correct one.  For extra confusion, allow Canvas to randomize the order of the multiple-choice options, too.

 

I discovered that feature myself only in the last few weeks. It's glorious.

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I mentioned in passing to one of my classes yesterday that Spring Break is the most exhausting week of the year for me. I was quite surprised by their reaction: Agreement.

 

Three or four kids expressed similar sentiments, while about half of the class nodded in silent agreement. I could see the fatigue in one girl's eyes.

 

This was an unexpected outcome, so I brought it up again in a later class. the reaction was almost identical. Apparently a large number of folks are coming back from Spring Break exhausted.

 

I can't help but think that something has gone very badly wrong here.

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6 minutes ago, Pariah said:

I mentioned in passing to one of my classes yesterday that Spring Break is the most exhausting week of the year for me. I was quite surprised by their reaction: Agreement.

 

Three or four kids expressed similar sentiments, while about half of the class nodded in silent agreement. I could see the fatigue in one girl's eyes.

 

This was an unexpected outcome, so I brought it up again in a later class. the reaction was almost identical. Apparently a large number of folks are coming back from Spring Break exhausted.

 

I can't help but think that something has gone very badly wrong here.

 

 

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Man, you'd think these kids never heard of interpolation before.

 

It's been so long that I've forgotten when I picked that up.  Is it reasonable these days to expect senior undergrads in life science majors to have heard about interpolation before?  Or have the mathophobes who have taken over public school education lobotomized that out of the curriculum also?

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On 4/4/2021 at 6:41 PM, Cancer said:

So I assigned group work last term and did an after-action survey in which I asked people (among other things) to rat out who contributed nothing to the group.  I have a list of miscreants.

 

I'm giving group work again this term.  Shall I put all the slackers into their own groups?

 

I am sorely tempted, because I am also doing this trick in the first team assignment as well.

 

I detested group projects in college because of slackers who deliberately contributed nothing.

 

But in one project, we also had a computer programming major who literally couldn't write a complete sentence in English, his native language, when the project was supposed to be written in separate parts by each person (but of course graded for quality as a group).

 

The computer major ended up quitting even coming to our skull sessions. And I had to do all the research for his part of the project, write it, plus develop a distinctive writing style so the teacher wouldn't recognize that someone else in the group did his work for him.

 

Hell yes, put the slackers in their own groups. And if you need to round up one of their groups, add in the least competent person who can't actually do the classwork so some other group isn't punished by having that person on their team. 

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One of my college group projects, one of our assessments was a "reflection statement". I think it was maybe 5% of that part of the project, so overall not much, but there to encourage us to do it. It is as the name suggests, a way for us to 'reflect' on the project to date. If one person was slacking off or not contributing, well these reflection statements was the opportunity to do it. In this way, it kept everyone honest. 

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I did solicit people's opinions last term, and I got a list of people who didn't contribute.  There were people who clearly avoided saying adverse things about others; there were some people who explained why they were making the complaint it did.  So, we'll see how this works out.  The bad karma teams (my label) haven't yet made the contact with me they must make to get data they need.  But as of this morning, they were among the half of all teams that haven't.  So they have not yet become conspicuously late in getting started.

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11 hours ago, L. Marcus said:

"Tell us ansvers pls"

 

I get that a lot.

 

The other day I saw a video that made me sad. The video itself wasn't sad, but something in there was. The video was posted in 2020. A teenaged girl was told a performance was in 1965 and was asked how long ago that was. She immediately got her phone to find the answer. That's what made me sad. I'm torn between redoubling my efforts and packing it all in.

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47 minutes ago, tkdguy said:

 

I get that a lot.

 

The other day I saw a video that made me sad. The video itself wasn't sad, but something in there was. The video was posted in 2020. A teenaged girl was told a performance was in 1965 and was asked how long ago that was. She immediately got her phone to find the answer. That's what made me sad. I'm torn between redoubling my efforts and packing it all in.

 

I had an accounting teacher lo these many decades ago who told me one thing that's stuck with me.

 

He said that if you were the "numbers guy" that you needed to be able to do addition/subtraction in your head plus at least simple multiplication. It'd bewilder all the people who can't do such things and build your credibility in the workplace while dragging out a calculator makes others think "Why are we asking THIS guy? I could pull out a calculator and do it myself."

 

And if you weren't the "numbers guy" you still needed to be able to do addition/subtraction in your head because building your rep as a smart person is a really good thing and makes others more prone to listening to you.

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