Grade Panic Attack

We are at the end of the semester and students are pulling every trick in the book to get an 'A' without doing 'A' work. I had many students to plagiarize on an annotated bibliography assignment, so for those that acknowledged the feedback, I gave an alternate assignment of writing a 3 page paper on plagiarism. However, the rule was, the highest score they could make was a 70%. I explained if I averaged the 0% and the new grade for the plagiarism paper that the highest they could get was 50%. Only a couple denied the fact that they copied the material from the sources but one of the one's that did deny told me it took him 7.5 hrs to do the assignment...NOTE: The Turnitin report returned as 100% plagiarized...LOL.

This same student has been sending emails to Dr. Benson and Dr. Rice to see what he could do to improve his grade. He even sent me a class email marked as emergency and sent an email to Dr. Benson within the same 20-30 mins stating he couldn't get a hold of me. However, when I called him about 30mins after he sent me the email, guess what....he wouldn't answer the phone and his voice mailbox wasn't setup for me to leave a message. So, I called 2 more times and finally reached him on the 3rd try. All he wanted was to see what he could do to get a B out of the class, (but stated he hoped for an A). I clearly told him that his work ethic was not satisfactory and I knew he had the ability to do a better job. It was obvious that he didn't take the class seriously even after I did the assignments step by step during class for everyone to follow along during class.

Another funny....I even had about 3 of my students that plagiarized (to group together--I guess as group pressure on the instructor) to tell me that they were going to pray for me in hopes that I would give them a higher grade than 70% so they could get an 'A+' in the class (notice not just an 'A'). It is so hard to not laugh during class at their comments.

Who cares about understanding....let's just get it done!

Tried something new in class. I wanted to get a feel for how helpful the students felt the tutorials are in each module for CAT100. I decided to actually show one tutorial in class so I could generate some discussion. From my observation, at least 80% of them were occupied typing instead of watching the tutorial, yet asked the questions that were covered in the tutorial.

After the tutorial, I asked how helpful the other tutorials had been for the previous assignments. The response that I got, by show of hands, was that absolutely none of them had watched any of the previous tutorial. I have been stressing all semester that the tutorials would assist them with understanding how to complete their assignments, yet they don't take advantage of the available help. Several of them have told me that they just want to get the assignment done and I stress the importance of understanding what they are doing in each lesson instead of just going through the motions.

Why is society so driven to just "get it done" instead of "get it done with understanding"? Where are we failing in the education system to promote real learning? Hmmm...

Prank or Prioritization Issues

Got to LOL at this one!

One of my students (female) came into class early so I asked her if another student (male) was going to make it since the two of them always sit like 2 peas in a pod during each class (might I add and giggle together). Well, just so happens that she was speaking with him on the phone at that moment and relayed the message. The male student apparently told her to tell me that he was going to be on time, but the LOL starts here. He also tells her to tell me, "I'm going to bring you some food from Milo's." I quickly declined several times with a 'Thank You' and reminded them that food was not allowed in the labs. Well, the male student decides to still bring me some fries to class and again I declined to take them. The kicker here is that he tosses them in the garbage after that, so it makes me wonder WHAT had been done to the fries to make him not just keep them for himself....hmmm. He is definitely one of my class slackers that have managed to get a "D" thus far in an easy "A" class. Can we all say "Priorities in the wrong place"....REALLY!

Test the Instructor's strength....

There will usually be ONE student that tries to see how far they can go to get you to either do the homework or check the homework before they submit it. The issue I have with a student is that he specifically asked me if I would "look at" his work and let him know what he did wrong...this was during the first class meeting. I clearly told him and the rest of the class that I would answer specific questions pertaining to assignments. The funny thing is that this same student emails me and tells me that he really needed to meet with me, but didn't state what the meeting agenda would be about. I responded and asked for his specific questions/issues that he was having and would provide him with guidance. He sends his ONE question and I responded with guidance to his issues (this same answer was available to him within the eLearning module, so it appears that he did not read). However, this student goes over the edge and starts makes accusations that I would not meet with him or help him. Luckily, Dr. Lewis requested to see the communications between this student and I, which made the student really nervous because he knew his acquisitions were not true. Documentation is key!!!

Just last night, this same student asked me again if I would review one of his assignments and tell him if it is correct. Of course, I made it clear that if he had questions that I would guide him, but would not provide answers. Let's see what his strategy will be to make it seem like the instructor will not help him this go-around or maybe he will finally realize that I will not sway to his demands.

eLearning Grading Form

I'm not sure if this goes for the CAT 100 courses, but the assignments for my course did not come with rubrics.  I thought maybe I could do without them, but as soon as the first assignments started rolling in, I struggled with how many points to count off for this or that (especially since I didn't choose the total point value for the assignments).  For the next assignment, I decided that I definitely wanted a rubric to not only help me, but to help them see what I was looking for.  Although I could have built one using online tools such as Rubistar, I decided to try out eLearning's built in Grading Form.  You build it just as you would a rubric, and when grading student's assignments, you pull it up from the Assignment drop box, just go down the list and click the appropriate button and it calculates the final score for them and adds it to the specified column in the grade book.  The students also have access to this rubric from the assignment page so they know exactly what is expected of them.  The grades were much better than the first one and it made the assignments much easier for me to grade.  When I returned the graded assignments back to the students, they were able to see exactly what I counted off for.  If you haven't tried it yet, I highly recommend it for assignments...I know that I will be using it from now on :)

Importance of Documentation

Some students get angry when you [the instructor] will not do their assignments for them and in return claim that you will not meet with them or assist them. I make good use of the eLearning email for possible situations as mentioned above. I've found that being able to redirect the students to the email communication reinforces the classroom policies of the instructor and also reminds them that you have proof of communications with them in case further issues arise. eLearning is a great tool that allows for all sorts of instructor to student communication with the students so don't let its capabilities go unused:-)

Student Story: Digital Written Communication

Another form of content that I want to include on this blog is "student stories" from teaching CAT classes. Student interaction, whether in person or online, usually yields frustrating, humorous, and insightful stories about working with undergraduates.

Today's story: Poor Digital Written Communication Skills

I communicate daily with students through email. Throughout the past year, I have noticed the quality of writing that appears in email messages is poor. I received another such message the other day and feel compelled to share:

hey i m sorry i keep having to rescheduele but i have a grandma that jus got out the hospital wit a broken hip so im headed home for the weekend and is it mandatory tat i meet u? jus curious cause if not ill jus see u nxt class session. or monday between my other classes

The message above has not been edited for grammar, spelling, punctuation, or capitalization. I copied and pasted directly from the email. I did not include the student's name, well, because they didn't sign their email (one of the important criteria described below). Obviously, you can identify several errors in the message and I won't take your time to edit it and show what you I expected to read. However, this email concerns me and I began asking myself the following questions:

• How will this student digitally communicate in future jobs?
• Should I include a lesson in this course about grammar, spelling, punctuation, and capitalization?
• Should I bring in a Language Arts teacher for special digital writing lesson?
• Is this a result of poor grammar training or a side effect of text messaging?
  

When reading about this topic, I found the following link provided by ISTE. In this webpage, Peter Weddle overviews the "7 Habits of Good Online Communication".

http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/CareerCenter/Resources/The_7_Habits_of_Good_Online_Communicatio.htm

After reading through these, you will notice that my student who sent the message above might need to edit future emails and digital communication with Weddle's criteria close by.

Have has anyone received similar email messages? Feel free to paste them as a comment.

Attendance Grade

This post combines the reflections discussed in the previous two posts. I also require students to earn points for class attendance, representing almost 10% of their final grade. However, I decided to try a different approach this year. In previous semesters, I simply recorded attendance grades (20 points for each class) based on a student's physical presence in the classroom. However, I noticed several problems:

• Students arrive as late as 20-30 minutes.
• Students leave class early.
• Students simply don't attend class.
  
• Students are distracted by the computer (Facebook chatting, web-surfing, clothes shopping) evidenced by busy fingers typing on the keyboard during discussions when the computer is not needed
• Students emailing me in the weeks after a class asking how to do something or needing clarification on something that was purposely and clearly explained in class.

Therefore, I changed my attendance policy to hopefully alleviate some of this problems. Students still earn 20 points per class for attendance. However, the points depend on the following three conditions:

1. A student's physical presence in the classroom for the full duration of our class.
2. A student's active participation in the lecture/discussion/demonstration (I keep a roster handy to note any students who seem to be distracted by the computer).
3. A student's completion and submission of an in-class assignment (Assignment is emailed to the instructor during the last 5 minutes of class).

The in-class assignment is something that students hopefully find interesting and useful in their everyday life. In my my class this past week, we overviewed the learning unit on Microsoft Word. During class, I presented them with the following scenario:

Text message from your mom: Every time I open Internet Explorer, the first webpage to open is always www.msn.com. I want the University of Alabama website to pop up instead. How do I do that?

Students complete a four-step pictorial manual for their moms in Microsoft Word using the Print Screen command. Most students are unfamiliar with it's capability. I help them understand the usefulness of this tool in later job or personal situations when a computer error pops on the screen. I explain that a screen shot of the error can be made and sent to the appropriate people. Additionally, this activity educates students on how to change the homepage of a web browser. They emailed me their manuals at the end of class.

So far so good on the new attendance requirements.

Keeping them from "Playing" on the Computers During Class

Since so much of our course is computer-based, I realize that taking them away from the computer can be counter-productive, but I know that they are tempted to "play" while I am talking.  During my first class meeting yesterday, I had them just turn off the screens while I was talking and allowed them to turn them back on when we were walking through something together.  I walked up and down the sides of the room (because it is too difficult to get up and down the aisles) and all screens were off so it seemed to work!  It was nice not hearing the keys clicking while I was talking :)

Attendance Grades

After taking attendance, I had each student to stand and give their name, major, and reason for taking CAT100. All of them stated they either needed an easy elective or they heard the class was an easy A. It was amazing to see that many of them were eager to get out of class within the first hour instead of using the allotted class time to complete a few assignments. So, after I completed my lecture I took attendance again. Those that left will receive 20/25 for attendance and those that stayed will receive 25/25. I plan to change up the way I grade attendance for the next class and maybe do a quick quiz on the topics covered during class. This is what I call the "surprise portion of class" in the first day announcement posting.

First Day of Class follow up

I decided to create an announcement after my first day of class to reiterate important information pertaining to class. My experience in previous instructor lead training that even though you are covering the material verbatim, you will have redundant questions, so one rule of thumb I follow...tell them, tell what you told them, and tell them again. With that said, I felt that since I can set the announcement box to pop-up when they log in, then that would be a great opportunity to refresh their memory. However, so will still chose to overlook the information, but at least this will be a leveraging tool if you have students that try to butter you up for extensions on due dates.

Here is draft example of the sort of information I will be adding in the announcement post:
---------------------

It was a pleasure getting to meet you all this afternoon for our first class! I really think you all will enjoy this course and benefit the rewords at the end of the semester.

A few reminders that I want to mention:

1. The scheduled class meetings that are listed on the course homepage are mandatory. Therefore, I will be giving grades for those that attend the whole class and complete the surprise portion of the class. This week, the surprise was that I took attendance at the end of my lecture and all of you that were still there will receive 25/25. So be on the look out for the next surprise on September 23rd.
2. The modules contain all of the information you need to complete your assignments. Please make sure to watch the tutorial videos for each module. If you are having issues, relax first and then review the lectures again because the answers are there.
3. We covered Modules 1 and 2 today, so you are well prepared to complete those assignments. Be sure to complete the Netiquette discussion by Aug. 26th if you did not complete it during the class session and remember to respond to at least 2 of your classmates.
4. Review the Introduction discussion board to make sure you have completed the assignment and if you have not already send the “Email Assignment”, please do so by Aug. 26th.
5. Do not click the submit button in the Assignment box until you are positive that you have completed the assignment based on the assignment rubric. I will not release submitted items once you have submitted them.

Happy Learning!

In addition to the photo class list...

Our faculty tab also has a "Detailed Class List" (You can find it in the same place you find the photo class list) that allows you to see the students' majors and classifications.  This could be especially useful for us teaching undergraduate classes to students outside of education!

Using a Photo Class List

Using a pictorial roster helps teachers get to know their students better. I print the "Photo Class List" and familiarize myself with students names and pictures prior to the first day of class. During our first class meeting, I use the pictorial roster to jot down notes about each student as they introduce themselves. I also try to identify students as they walk into the classroom.

To learn the process for accessing the pictorial roster from your "myBama" account, watch the video below:



I offer a couple notes of caution about the pictorial roster. The pictures were taken during a students' orientation prior to their arrival on campus. Therefore, some students will not always appear as they do on the roster. Haircuts, facial hair, glasses, and hats sometimes throw you for a loop. Secondly, the roster prints a student's formal name. Be sure to jot down the name they go by during introductions or when you call the class roll.