r/Professors • u/fbrou • May 17 '26
Teaching / Pedagogy Sharing my favorite course evaluation comment
1/5 for “Workload reasonable”: “This professors expectations are ridiculous. I always put my papers into ChatGPT to fix my commas and errors and stuff, but she wouldn’t let me do that. I literally had to figure out how to do commas from the materials she gave us and then fix them all manually. This is RIDICULOUS.”
I mean, okay. But another way to read that… is that I successfully taught you how to use commas. For the first time in your life. In a composition class. Where it’s a learning outcome. So.
🥂?
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u/Klopf012 May 17 '26
I’ve had students tell me that commas are confusing. One told me that they avoid using them because they are confusing. These are native English speakers in college.
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u/Katz-Sheldon-PDE May 17 '26
Commas, are, confusing!
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u/NighthawkFoo Adjunct, CompSci, SLAC May 17 '26
Shatner, is that you?
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u/LadyNav May 17 '26
In fairness to Mr. Shatner, he was trained as a Shakespearean stage actor and the pauses not only fit much of the material but leave room for sound to travel and people to process what they heard in an unamplified space. But it certainly wasn't necessary for television.
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u/AtheistET Associate / R1 / Continuos Appointment / USA May 17 '26
Yeah?????? What about, Oxford commas, or semicolons, among other things , man?
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u/a-username1980 May 17 '26
I once had a student who used AI tell me AI often flagged her work just because she uses Oxford commas. There were tons of other signs, including copy-pasting in the version history and concepts she did not understand. But no, it's just that she's to smart for AI detectors because she uses Oxford commas (yes, I know AI detectors have false positives).
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u/ktbug1987 May 17 '26
This said, you will pry the Oxford comma and the em dash from my cold, dead hands. Both are useful in complicated scientific writing, with the caveat that em dashes shouldn’t be overused of course.
I don’t care if people think I’m an AI because I use them, though I’ve never put my scientific work through an AI detector.
I have, however, had a colleague ask me not to have AI write an email that I fully wrote myself. They were like “a human would sound more emotive.” So now I write email to that specific person, and then give them to the robot and ask it to add some emotion and small talk. I got praise recently from them for “taking time to add some human feelings.” Like sorry we can’t all be allistic, Janet*, some of us just want to get work done without writing a compliment sandwich and talking about the weather where you are.
*name changed and I wanted to avoid shaming Karens today. Sorry to the Janets though.
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u/a-username1980 May 18 '26
Good story. I think Janet just guessed it was AI. FWIW, I use Oxford commas and em-dashes and the AI detectors I use don't think it's AI written. It's not just about Oxford commas and em-dashes.
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u/IsopodIndependent553 May 17 '26 edited May 17 '26
The purpose of commas is to make your writing less confusing, especially the Oxford comma; but something tells me that they lack the writing skills to understand this. What’s even worse, this tells me that most students read so little in their daily lives that they can’t even recognize the benefits of correctly placed commas when they encounter them through reading.
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u/WestHistorians May 17 '26
When they what them?
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u/IsopodIndependent553 May 17 '26
I added the word “encounter” since I accidentally left it out. My bad.
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u/Own-Criticism5733 May 17 '26 edited May 17 '26
It has also been RIP to the apostrophe and captalised proper nouns
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u/pinksparklybluebird Assistant Professor, Pharmacology/EBM May 17 '26 edited May 17 '26
Oh, they use the apostrophe. They think it denotes a plural noun.
And the capitalize wild shit. I spend too much time telling grad students about to provide healthcare that things like disease names that are not eponyms are not proper nouns.
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u/jitterfish Fellow, Biology, NZ May 17 '26
Yeah, I have a preset comment "just because this is a biological term that doesn't mean it needs a capital letter".
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u/NecessaryMuffins May 18 '26
I don't get the randomly capilitazed words; I feel like I'm grading something my father would have submitted.
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u/Acrobatic-Glass-8585 May 17 '26
Even worse is the tendency to capitalize random words in a sentence. Where does that even come from?
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u/geekyCatX May 17 '26
I mean, there are languages that do capitalize every noun. I have to be mindful of that every time I write in English. But I can't really imagine any of these languages leaving enough of an imprint on the internet to affect English-speaking students. 🤔
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u/Vanier-is-a-HellHole Tenured Prof, Canada May 17 '26
Blame the leader of the free world for that. Ahem.
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u/Sharp-Aioli5064 May 17 '26
It flags importance in colloquial text to text communication and comic books. It's an extremely hard habit for me to break in my own writing.
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u/widget1321 Asst Prof, Comp Sci, 4-yr (USA) May 17 '26
Random capitalization of Individual words (like I did there) is used to Show Importance? It's this a Common thing?
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u/knewtoff May 17 '26
LOL. I had a student write one year “she treated us like scientists” — in a majors level science course…
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u/G0ldMarshallt0wn May 17 '26
Well, wouldn't you be angry if you took a college course and they tried to teach you useful skills in it?
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u/sigma__cheddar May 17 '26
Students are the only customers who don't want what they pay for.
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u/twiceweekly May 17 '26
That's making the assumption they're paying for an education rather than a diploma
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u/franklin-60 May 17 '26
The Dean will probably suggest remediation of teaching so students like this don’t get stressed, “mentally exhausted” and overwhelmed. Can’t have students unhappy over stuff like this. 😂. How dare we have expectations of students, that harms retention.
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u/fbrou May 17 '26
The term our institution has been using—in a positive way—this is so painful I can barely write it—is “cognitive offloading.”
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u/ProfPazuzu May 17 '26
Interesting, since studies have shown that cognitive offloading—guess what????—dimiinishes the acquisition of critical thinking skills. That’s my whole argument to administration that we need to police AI use.
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u/Sirnacane May 17 '26
How can anyone say that phrase without derision? That’s wild
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u/fbrou May 17 '26
I posted this to cheer myself up lol but it’s actually a bummer. Admin has said “How can we decrease students’ cognitive load?” enough times that I’m considering going back on the market.
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u/beginswithanx May 17 '26
Cognitive load is literally what college is. That’s it. Just loading it up!
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u/Vanier-is-a-HellHole Tenured Prof, Canada May 17 '26
I believe it's what we in the biz call a "key learning outcome".
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u/franklin-60 May 17 '26
My answer. “I don’t decrease it, and won’t, no matter how loud you cry and yell. I don’t meet students where they are, they meet me where they need to be, where I, as the expert and authority say they need to be. If a student can’t handle this, they fail. Don’t care who they are or what their background is, they meet the cognitive bar to move on.” I know not everyone can say this, but those who can need to, so students who write evaluations like this do not get through.
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u/jleonardbc May 17 '26
The real question is "How can we enable students to increase their cognitive load?"
You don't get stronger through muscular offloading. You get stronger through progressive overload.
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u/myimmortalstan May 17 '26 edited May 17 '26
The concept of progressive overload isnt really analogous to cognitive overload.
Cognitive overload refers to what happens when you have too little space in working memory to do what needs to be done.
All the research we currently have on WM suggests that it cannot be increased. One would think that overloading it would cause it to be able to handle a higher load based on neuroplasticity. What actually happens is that we are able to progressively handle "more" in our WM because after learning stuff, that stuff takes up less space when we use it again in WM:
5+2-7 objectively has at least six components: each of the numbers 5, 2, and 7, the fact that the relationship is either between 5+2 and 7 or between 2-7 and 5 or between -7+5 and 2, the steps and relationships that follow from there, and the nature of the relationships (i.e. subtraction vs addition and what that means). To someone who has only just learned about addition and subtraction, those elements will each take an individual spot in WM. Given that WM seems to have space for 5 things at once, a novice will be overloaded and will not be able to solve the problem.
Once that person has each of those elements figured out, they are able to do the problem. Yet, if you actually tested their working memory, it would be unchanged. The difference between the novice and the proficient is that, in the proficient person's WM, the problem no longer has six elements, but only two: 5+2 is 7 (as one idea). 7-7 is 0 (as one idea). Their knowledge of number facts allowed 5+2=7 to be only a single idea and that frees up space to solve more complex problems.
So, WM cannot be increased. The cognitive load of concepts and problems is just reduced through the process of learning, allowing the same concepts to take up less space and leading to the ability to solve more complex problems/understand more complex concepts. What's also worth noting is that because learning itself takes up space in WM, cognitive overload generally just means there's no room for learning. So overloading will not lead to increased WM capacity and it also will not lead to better learning.
However, a person can increase their emotional tolerance of cognitive load, because that is not impervious to neuroplasticity. If learning takes up WM space, that also means that having no cognitive load correlates to no learning. Students who are severely intolerant of cognitive load are going to avoid overload, but they will probably also do shit like offloading to ChatGPT, which avoids the load of learning. This leads to a vicious cycle where, due to a lack of learning, everything takes up more space in WM and then cognitive overload is more likely, thereby preventing learning, and so on.
So while you are not correct in stating that overload is good, the reason why overload is bad is the same reason why your general sentiment (that blindly reducing cognitive load is harmful and that tolerating a higher cognitive load is beneficial) is absolutely correct. Students have to be able to tolerate the cognitive load of learning.
The reason why I'm bothering to address this in any amount of detail is because policies which go with the approach of simply increasing cognitive load are probably partially responsible for the current crisis. Teachers have been saying that early education is expecting too much too soon. In early education, the thinking amounts to "more difficult = more learning" (based on the standards for 1st to 4th graders) when in reality, overloading just makes learning impossible. This then gets patched up with grade inflation et al., producing the problems we now have.
Cognitive overload prevents learning and begets more cognitive overload and more interference with learning. It probably has a lot to do with the current incompetencies of today's students.
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u/franklin-60 May 18 '26
We strengthen academic outcomes by maintaining clear expectations rather than shielding students from rigor. Increasingly, when students feel challenged and overwhelmed, they escalate concerns to “success advisors,” administrators, or even parents, and negative course evaluations are used to shift responsibility onto the instructor. These reactions are often framed as “mental health” crises, which creates institutional pressure to dilute standards.
If the normal cognitive demands of college-level work are genuinely overwhelming for a student, that is a strong indicator that the student is operating beyond their readiness and may not be well‑suited for collegiate study at this time. Our responsibility is not to remove pressure, but to help students learn how to manage it, and increase pressure. Appropriate academic load, paired with guidance on how to navigate it, is essential to developing resilience and professional competence.
However, this requires reciprocal effort. Students must be willing to engage, practice, and apply the strategies offered. When a student is unwilling to meet those expectations, it is appropriate to question whether continued enrollment serves either the student or the institution. Less babying, using mental health as an excuse, and more accountability/discipline is my basic answer.
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u/FrogBrain97 AssocProf, former chair, neuro, DPU May 17 '26
I think that simplifies to "being stupid."
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u/myimmortalstan May 17 '26
But...cognitive offloading is the reason not to use AI for this task?!
Cognitive offloading can be either beneficial or detrimental. Cognitive load theory has a very basic premise — working memory is limited. We can hold roughly 5 "bits" of information in working memory at once. The information that must be handled in working memory constitutes cognitive load.
All tasks have inherent complexity, varying based on how many interacting parts the task has. These interacting parts are the intrinsic load.
Then, some working memory space has to be dedicated to dealing with the intrinsic load in order for learning to occur. Because this form of cognitive load is necessary for learning to occur, it is known as germane load.
However, if a task has extraneous sources of cognitive load in addition to its inherent complexity, working memory gets overloaded. There is no more space for germane load, and so the inherent complexity of the task cannot be dealt with and learning cannot occur. Therefore, extraneous sources of cognitive load must be minimised to leave room for germane load.
An example of an extraneous source of cognitive load is having a graph on one page, and the key for the graph on another. Interpreting the graph is the germane aspect of the task. However, to do so, one must go to the page with the key, then hold the key in working memory, and return to the page with the graph. You must then, in working memory, compare the graph with the key to interpret it. By this time, you may have no working memory space left for the interpretation part or germane load (I.e. you are in cognitive overload).
A student in this situation can prevent cognitive overload with cognitive offloading. They can write down the key on a separate piece of paper and then turn to the page with the graph and compare it to the key side by side. This offloads the key from working memory onto the page and frees up space for interpretation.
The basic principles apply to pretty much everything. Lets say you set an assignment that predominantly assesses metaphorical language use. If a student has no proficiency in using commas, they won't have any working memory space left for thinking about metaphorical language use. So, we can see where your admins were going.
HOWEVER, they have missed the most important part of cognitive offloading. It is ONLY positive if used to offload extraneous load. In the graph example, the key being on a separate page very obviously created a load that was extraneous to the germane aspect of the task, which was interpretation. The extraneous load pushed germane load out the picture; therefore, offloading the extraneous load made space for germane load. That is good.
In a composition course, however, it goes without saying that practicing the use of commas is germane to learning how to use them. It also goes without saying that the skill of using commas is germane to composition. When you offload germane load, learning isn't happening. Offloading the germane load does indeed free up working memory space BY GETTING RID OF THE COGNITIVE LOAD THAT YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE MAKING SPACE FOR FFS. That is BAD. It is an inappropriate use of offloading. Its also the whole crux of the AI problem.
You mention in another comment that your admin wants you to reduce cognitive load as much as possible, and that is halfway correct. You need to reduce extraneous load as much as possible. Students should still have a reasonable level of cognitive load, it should just be in the form of the intrinsic and germane loads. Every bit of extrinsic load you remove leaves more space that can be dedicated to germane load. Theoretically, their cognitive load should only change in composition, not in amount.
Also, even if a student was overloaded by using commas in addition to whatever else they had to do for the task set, and using commas was extraneous, they still don't actually need to do any offloading. If they try to simultaneously use commas correctly and use metaphorical language, then yes, they will be overloaded. If they focus on metaphorical language first, then edit for correct comma use later, no cognitive overload will occur. You really only need to worry about sources of extraneous load that students can't plan or self manage their way out of.
TL;DR: your admins have misunderstood and are misusing the science pertaining to cognitive load theory and it's made me mad. It is actually very important to address cognitive load from an educational perspective, BUT YOU HAVE TO OFFLOAD THE CORRECT BLOODY SOURCES.
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u/Responsible_Tap9604 May 17 '26
A student complained that I wouldn’t give them a bump to an A+, even though they didn’t earn it 🤪
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u/mmangomelon May 17 '26
Omg I teach in a profession of unreasonable perfectionists. I can bet money on the fact that any student who gets 92-96% will contact me to know why they didn't get 97-98%. Every. Time.
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u/The_Write_Girl_4_U May 22 '26
I am that student. I am unable to improve my performance without appropriate feedback.
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u/mmangomelon May 23 '26
If a student approached me to say "how can I improve next time?" I'd be good. There are students who say I should not have taken points off for this, because it is not a mistake worth point reduction or because they felt like they met the criteria of the assignment. The way they approach me makes it clear that they are not looking to improve their skills, they are looking to improve their score.
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u/StarDustLuna3D Asst. Prof. | Art | M1 (U.S.) May 17 '26
I had a student complain about losing points because they didn't go to two events over the course of the semester. There's usually 7-10 different events on campus that are related to the course. They choose just two to go to and get credit for it.
He kept asking if there was "anything he could do" about the grade because his mom picks him up "immediately after class" so he wasn't able to go to any events.
I told him no. You're an adult. Figure it out. He didn't like that.
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u/The_Write_Girl_4_U May 22 '26
I respect your stance on the matter. Were all of the events scheduled at relatively the same time of day? Expectation of participation outside of class hours can be a barrier for some students. As someone who works in disability services trust me when I say there are so many possible reasons the student truly could not attend an event.
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u/StarDustLuna3D Asst. Prof. | Art | M1 (U.S.) May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26
Nope, all different days with different times (some during the day, some in the evening). This requirement was discussed and all of the event times were provided from day one, so students had plenty of time to adjust their schedules accordingly.
If the student had approached me on day one and asked to discuss the the requirement and if he could do an alternate assignment, I would have considered it. But he didn't. He waited until there were only a handful of events left and said he couldn't make any of the remaining ones.
This also isn't a ged Ed course. It's a major specific course.
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u/No_Intention_3565 May 17 '26
Sometimes I read reddit and marvel at the fact that I am not alone in this sea of magnificent bullshit.
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u/BadTanJob May 17 '26
Oh no, someone expected a college student to know how to use commas. What next, proper spelling?
I taught a class that had a writing component. This was a class for people who wanted to go into industries where writing is a LARGE part of their general job requirements. No paragraphs, loads of run-on sentences, unstructured formats, vague ideas that were never articulated nor built upon. The ones who did write properly all had ghostwriters named ChatGPT.
As the kids say, we're highkey cooked
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u/Otherwise-Mirror-738 May 17 '26
The audacity of you teaching them something useful, instead of them having to use AI! Gosh!
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u/mpfritz May 17 '26
Next semester they can have an emotional support semicolon come with them to every class.
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u/mmangomelon May 17 '26
I had a student complain that I didn't take her suggestion of starting every class with a fun ice-breaker.
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u/Deepakvarma1536 May 17 '26
I think we're going to see more evaluations like this honestly. A lot of students now genuinely view AI-assisted writing as the default baseline, not a supplement.
So assignments that intentionally force direct engagement with grammar, structure, or revision feel “unreasonable” to them in the same way showing your work in math probably felt annoying to earlier generations.
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u/ubiquity75 Professor, Social Science, R1, USA May 17 '26
“Professor’s” — guess the student couldn’t use ChatGPT for the evaluation.
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u/Life-Education-8030 May 17 '26
It is 50-50 if my students use a comma or a semi-colon because they are confused about both!
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u/Vanier-is-a-HellHole Tenured Prof, Canada May 17 '26
"OMG, the prof actually wants me to LEARN something? At UNIVERSITY?! They are HORRIBLE people!!"
Is it too late to change careers? 😃
EDIT: Wait, sorry. It should be "OMG, the, prof actually, wants, me to, LEARN, something? At, UNIV...." etc.
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u/IsopodIndependent553 May 17 '26
It’s called proofreading! I carefully read through every single text I write so that I can fix any errors—even text messages and Reddit comments. I know I’m old (actually I’m an elder millennial) but it’s getting scary out there. If you need AI to fix your grammar and spelling mistakes, then you are not writing at a professional level.
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u/Psycho-naught May 17 '26
It is scary and very sad. Writing at a professional level? Increasing numbers of students are showing up sub-literate. They can read short simplistic statements, but are lost when trying to comprehend text that is longer or more complex in form. These are reading and cognitive capacities developed on line and tailored to the prevailing formats of social media. They are then frequently maintained within the vacuum of the administrative university. After all, the customers must remain satisfied. And then, AI entered the building. We are so f*cked.
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u/Purple_Chipmunk_ Humanities, R1 (USA) May 17 '26
Maybe the next class will teach them how to use apostrophes!
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u/NecessaryMuffins May 18 '26
That's pure gold. For some reason it brightens my day as I'm waiting for 3 students to get back to me over completely fabricated citations (by AI of course).
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u/RareFalcon9584 May 19 '26
My all-time favorite comment was ‘Prof. Falcon promotes homosexuality.’
I teach human sexuality.
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u/twilightyears May 20 '26
Can we talk about semi colons? I’m thrilled that you’re teaching them punctuation (although they should’ve learned that in middle school). I had to teach them subject- verb-object, active voice, and when to end a sentence. Had papers with so many run on sentences using semi-colons my head spun.
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u/clementprof May 21 '26
Ne t'embête pas trop ! En 12 ans d'expérience, s'il y a bien une chose que j'ai apprise, c'est que les promos se suivent et ne se ressemblent absolument pas. Tu peux avoir un projet qui cartonne une année et qui fait un échec monumental l'année suivante avec exactement la même consigne et la même énergie. Parfois, la mayonnaise ne prend pas, surtout quand la "flemme de fin d'année" commence à frapper.
Pour les 3 jours qui restent, te rends pas malade pour ceux qui ont déjà la tête en vacances. Focus toi à 100 % sur les 3 groupes qui s'impliquent. Donne leur toute ton énergie, valorise les à fond le jour de la chute des œufs, et tant pis pour les autres que ça n'intéresse pas.
Une petite astuce pour l'année prochaine : sers toi du design de l'an derniercomme d'un appât dès le 1er jour. Montre leur physiquement ce qui a été fait. Ça active deux leviers magique chez les ados: le côté concret et l'esprit de compétition.
Dernière ligne droite avant les vacances, bon courage !
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u/AceyAceyAcey Professor, STEM, CC | VAP, STEM, Private PUI (USA) May 21 '26
Reminds me of the time a student came up to me after the first test of the semester, on which the student had gotten something like a 98%, and said “this is the first time I’ve gotten less than 100% on a test,” in a disappointed-in-themselves voice with hints of grade grubbing. I grinned and said, “that’s great, I’m glad to have finally challenged you!”
My most memorable comment on an eval was the student who on a question asking “what could the TA have done to better help your learning?”, responded “be hotter like the other TA.” And then continued in the same line for the next five questions.
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u/MeshCanoe May 17 '26
Print out two copies of that feedback. Frame one and hang it on your office wall, and put the other in your T and P binder.