The Academics Thread

[Cancer]

Ancient perspective ... pretty sure this first appeared in about 1982.

[Old Man]

21 minutes ago, Cancer said:

Ancient perspective ... pretty sure this first appeared in about 1982.

 

That's like fifty thousand dollars worth of books nowadays.

[Ternaugh]

I seem to remember a thin volume called Compiler Construction that cost me a few hundred dollars back around 1990 or so. I'm pretty sure that I paid more for books that semester than I did for tuition.

[Pariah]

The experience that really stands out to me is Biochem. I loved it so much I took it twice.

 

In the fall, it was offered by the chemistry department. $130 used book, pretty much par for the course. When it became obvious I was going to have to take it again, I looked at what was available the following semester. In the spring, it was offered by the biology department. Which meant I had to sell that book back for the $20 or $25 the bookstore would give me for it, and buy a completely different $130 used book. And, of course, I ended up selling that one back for $20 or $25 in time.

 

But the worst part ... a couple of years later I was in a local thrift store and saw one of those two books—for $3.

 

Strangely enough, my graduate school experience was a lot less traumatic in this regard. Most of the professors had OpenStax or similar books that they used. The only book I remember being particularly expensive was for my climate science class. I still have that book. I wasn't stellar in that class, but I found it intensely interesting.

[Old Man]

1 hour ago, Ternaugh said:

I seem to remember a thin volume called Compiler Construction that cost me a few hundred dollars back around 1990 or so. I'm pretty sure that I paid more for books that semester than I did for tuition.

 

I also noticed that in freshman year, the books are huge and expensive, and as you progress to senior year they get smaller and even more expensive.  I think I paid over a dollar a page for my particle physics booklet.  (Which I still have, I mean, it's not like it takes up space.)

[Cancer]

Our department has moved to the OpenStax books for both 1000-level physics series.  In particular Pearson's pricing and the vicious strongarm tactics in their online homework systems for those series is unconscionable.  There are now multiple on-line homework systems that are much less expensive and generally just as good, and not having to grade homework sets is worth an immense amount to me.

 

That said, I am still using a Pearson product for my Solar Systems course, simply because there's nothing comparable on the market for that course, and the subject is evolving rapidly.  I hate $90 for a paperback textbook used in no other course, but the other available titles are a significant step down and are no cheaper.

 

Boas's Mathematical Methods in the Physical Sciences (for the only other non-lab course I've taught since the pandemic) is even more expensive, and it ought not be that pricey, since Mary Boas died in 2010.  OTOH, old editions are available for cheap, used, and that material is not evolving at a ferocious pace the way Solar System and exoplanet astronomy is.

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

My father was approached about writing a textbook years ago. He kept putting it off and never did get it written. I think it's because he hated the system and didn't want to be a part of it. 

[Pariah]

The book I'm using for the CE Astronomy course I'm teaching next year—which is to say, the book the local community college uses—is a Pearson product. $119 for a paperback book of about 550 pages. The college got the publisher to send me one gratis, but it's not the Teacher's edition.

[Cancer]

THINGS THAT SUCK

 

Grading papers.

 

(added later)

 

Stunningly stupid students.

Edited May 26, 2023 by Cancer

[Cancer]

23 hours ago, Logan D. Hurricanes said:

My father was approached about writing a textbook years ago. He kept putting it off and never did get it written. I think it's because he hated the system and didn't want to be a part of it. 

 

I think there's multiple outfits now hitting up college instructors asking them if they wanna write a textbook.  After a conversation with one of them, I decided they were legit operations, but it's not something I'm looking to do.  There are subjects where new books are needed, but I'm not qualified to write in those.

[Cancer]

At times you have to drop the silk and show the gun.

Quote

I understand your purpose in your first paragraph, and what you have there is largely correct.  Understanding the formation of the accretion disk is much simpler than the subsequent planet formation process, however, and I've never found it necessary to give an assignment to ensure that students understand this part.  Planet formation is more complicated, and frankly only by the brutal coercion of a focused, iterated writing assignment have I been able to get students to pay adequate attention to this problem.  That's why the prompt explicitly directs you not to address the formation of the accretion disk itself, rather to focus exclusively on planet formation.

 

I.e., lay off the irrelevant easy crap and do the g------ed assignment as given.

[Cancer]

Another draft that is purely about the subject which is explicitly declared to be the Wrong Thing in the assignment PDF.

 

There ain't no such grade as F-plus, dearie.

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

There needs to be an F minus. 

[Pariah]

I call it the Fluoride grade. 

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

[Pariah]

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

[Bazza]

The maths alone make this extraordinary. 

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

[Pariah]

I just wrapped up the final Zoom meeting of the year for my online class. I will miss it as I would a migraine.

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

[Cancer]

55 minutes ago, Pariah said:

I just wrapped up the final Zoom meeting of the year for my online class. I will miss it as I would a migraine.

 

For a zoom meeting, that's really good.  Most zoom meetings are like a toothache that happens at dinner on Friday evening and you can't see a dentist until Monday morning.

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

Apparently, this is a new study motivation technique. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Pariah]

Rant warning: Adventures in End-of-year Grade-mongering, Part LXXVIII

 

(Spoilered for verbosity.)

Spoiler

In my menagerie of Third-period Underachievers, I have two students we'll call JR and JC. Neither one of them has come to class on time all quarter, arriving consistently 10 minutes late when they bother to come at all. Both of them are upper-middle class white kids with entitlement issues and 504 plans. (For the unfamiliar, a 504 plan is kind of like an IEP, except that it doesn't require a medical diagnosis.) Both have missed lots of class time, and both tend to see deadlines as 'suggestions'. 

 

We use Canvas as our main online platform, with a home page for each class or subject. At the top of the page for the 3PUs, there is a bold, highlighted message that reads: 

 

*** The last day to turn in anything for 4th Quarter is Wednesday, May 24th! No excuses, no exceptions! ***

 

It's literally the first thing you see when you log on to the page. If you bother to log on to the page, I guess I should say.

 

So yesterday (Thursday the 25th), I printed signs for my door and above my desk. They're on red paper, and they read: NO. I am no longer accepting late work or make-up work. The deadline was Wednesday. I've had a handful of students comment on them, all from other, less egregious classes. 

 

I opened Canvas first thing when I got to school Thursday morning, and found a message from JR from the following evening. It read as follows:  I was just told that everything is due today and I’m at work all day. I need to turn my moon observation book in and was wondering if I could do that tomorrow in class.

 

My response:  If you knew you were going to be at work all day, why didn't you turn it in Tuesday?

 

Which was stupid on my part. What did I think I was going to accomplish by trying to hold this kid accountable? Excuse trigger activated!

 

He comes back with: I wasn’t aware everything was due Wednesday. I thought it was Friday for some reason.

 

To which I responded:  The observation journal was actually due last Friday (as shown on Canvas and announced numerous times in class). Similarly, the last day to turn in late work and makeup work was yesterday (again, announced on Canvas and in class numerous times). So no, you will not be able to turn it in. It will go in as a no score—you won't earn those points, but it won't count against you.

 

He seemed surprised that I wasn't going to let him turn it in. I know that’s my fault. So it will show on my grade as a zero but won’t bring it down, correct?

 

Okay, maybe this is over now, I think to myself (in vain, as it turns out):  It will not show as a zero. It will show as nothing. It will be as if it never happened.

 

Now, because it takes me a little too long to grade things sometimes, JR actually has a handful of assignments with No Score grades. I figure that if I haven't graded it before the final week, it's not fair to make the student make it up on short notice. So JR is actually getting a pass on more than one assignment that he never did. It's not ideal, but I can live with it.

 

Now we cut to lunch on Thursday, which happens immediately after 3rd period (i.e., when the 3PUs are supposed to be in my classroom). The students have left and I'm entering something on my computer. JR and JC walk in, observation journals in hand. Because of course they do. Please note that JR and JC weren't actually in class (again), but walked in 30 seconds after the bell. So it's not like they weren't in the building.

 

I have to diverge for a moment here and tell you JC's story. She came to me in class at the end of 3rd quarter needing me to reopen a whole bunch of assignments that she never did so that she could pass the course for Q3. I told her to send me a Canvas Inbox message specifically listing all the assignments she needed reopened. Admittedly this was partly a south-end-of-a-northbound-horse move on my part, because I wanted her to feel a bit of the inconvenience she was about to drop in my lap. But it was also a CYA move on my part, because now I have documentation of the issue. JC sent me the list of assignments, and I reopened them. I then sent her a message telling her they were reopened, also telling her that this was a one-time offer that would not be repeated in the future. 

 

Sure enough, a day or two later I got an e-mail from JC's righteous mother, reminding me of JC's tenuous health and admonishing me to abide by every provision of the 504 plan filed in her name. I waited a day or so and sent her a return mail detailing how I had done so. It's worth mentioning here that in addition to extra time on assignments, her 504 calls for a reduced workload—in other words, she has to be able to earn the same grades as her classmates without having to complete all of the assignments. Fine, whatever. I have 150 other kids to worry about. (Yes, my class load was comparatively light his year. Not the case next year, I'm afraid. But that's a story for another day.)

 

So, back to lunch yesterday. JR (with whom I've already had the aforementioned conversation) and JC announce that they're here to turn in their journals. I don't even look up from what I'm doing; I just point at the sign. 

 

"But ... we have 504 plans."

 

I'd had it, and responded—with remarkable self-control, I might add—"So what?"

 

Now, this is technically the wrong answer. They both have provisions for extra time on assignments. My interpretation of this provision, as I have explained to students, is that if they're struggling to meet a deadline, they initiate a conversation with me before the deadline and we put together a plan to get them the time they need to finish it. But it never, ever works that way, not once in my experience. It always works like the current incident.

 

They looked like they didn't know what to say, so I continued. "Look, the final deadline has been posted since the first of April. I've made numerous announcements in class and sent out multiple reminders on Canvas, and you've ignored them all. I finished grading all the journals this morning. Graduation is next week, and I have to get grades finalized. What am I supposed to do with this?"

 

It was as if they had never been told "No" before. 

 

They asked what was going to happen, so I told them they could leave the journals with me if they wanted, but I wasn't going to grade them. I would enter them as no scores. They weren't going to get those points, but the assignment wouldn't count against them, either. And I closed with "And now it's time for my lunch, so have a good afternoon." They reluctantly left my room.

 

I've been dreading a nasty e-mail from JC's Mom, which so far hasn't come. That sounds like a good thing, except that it means I'll get it next week when there will be less time to deal with it. 

 

As for JR, he sent me another Canvas message this afternoon (just before I started typing this, in fact): Did you ever look into the 504 plan for my journal. Not a fan of question marks, I guess.

 

Me: Yes. Your accommodation is that you will receive a no score instead of a zero.

 

I already know this isn't going to fly. Because JR currently has a 92% in my class ... which is an A-. He's going to argue that if I'm keeping him from an A because I won't give him points for the journal. I'm going to counterargue that if he insists on having me grade this missing assignment, I will insist of grading all his missing assignments. And because math amuses me sometimes, I've already calculated the outcome: a D+ for JR. 

 

And as for JC and her Mom? She will insist that I grade the journal. I will point out that JC has missed seven other assignments this quarter, and that I have given her no-scores instead of zeroes in the interest of honoring the "reduced workload" provision of her 504 plan. I will recommend that she encourage JC to take the B she currently has and call it a win. She probably won't go for it, but when I point out that JC should technically be failing my class (50.53%), maybe she'll see my point.

 

Stay tuned.

 

[Cancer]

Dealing with similar stuff on a collegiate level.  The pandemic seems to have spawned an attitude that rules and policies are write-only memory, irrelevant, or applicable only to, well, who knows.  Last labs were this week, etc, and last classes are Monday June 5.