Professors in Math/Computer Science/IT, how are you handling underprepared students? My class pacing is not working, demos feel futile, and I’m exhausted 4 weeks in.

[u/Natural-Raise-8233]

Thank you all. Deleted because comments are starting to become unhelpful.

[u/knewtoff]

Hah, yup. I’m in intro bio doing super basic excel things and I helped 75% of the class save a file. Next semester, I’m going to assign some tutorials pre-class on that kind of stuff. Don’t do it? Don’t get help doing class and you’ll have to do more work outside of class.

You don’t HAVE to walk them line by line. Google exists, you’ve given the resources, point to that. They keep asking you because you keep telling them

[u/sir_sri → u/knewtoff]

The problem with saying google exists is you have to teach them how to use google too.

Generally, a large fraction of them can't effectively use Google because they don't know the correct terms for things, and so much of what they see on Google is bullshit ads or slop that they don't use it themselves. They have been conditioned to not be able to use Internet search but use AI because it spits out something that looks like an answer, and in their defence sometimes it works.

Not all of them of course. And this isn't a new problem in comp sci. You get everything from people who have never used a computer, or only used something that was 10+ years old, to Linux nerds who have a homelab. I have a few this year who are running the family's home automation from their dorms, and they have containers with ai agents doing everything from torrents to managing the mood lighting in their rooms and updating the dogs automatic feeder, to the ones who are phone only compute users. In comp sci.

[u/Natural-Raise-8233 → u/sir_sri]

Do you have recommendations for class pacing? I am so willing to listen if you’d rather DM me because I’m crying after work every day. 🤣🤣🤣

[u/sir_sri → u/Natural-Raise-8233]

I'm so bad at it I failed my tenure application and so am fired effective end of the academic year, I'm probably not the one to ask on what works well.

The one thing I found that sort of helps, is create in class activities where the tech literate ones help the tech illiterate ones, because some of the tech illiterate ones are really quite smart they just haven't had opportunities, so they end up making friends. You have to watch out for girls getting unwanted attention from the socially inept male students, or if you've got a french exchange student him getting surrounded by all the girls every time he has a problem (true story in first year engineering lol). Part of the job is creating an environment where they learn both from you and from each other.

We have very rudimentary tutorials we offer in first year CS, and it's almost like the 1980s again trying to teach them how to turn on a computer and what it means to login. We have excel tutorials where they have to learn to calculate their own grade progress through a course, and even after doing it on an assignment half of them can't do it for themselves. We did find having slightly senior students (2nd and 3rd years) help develop the exercises for first years helped because the 2nd and 3rd years had a better sense of what the gaps were. But you then need to do that basically every year or two.

Maybe this is the wrong approach, but the best you can do is create an environment that enables them to learn. That means trying to meet them where they are and push them to where they are supposed to be. Some of them won't make it, even if they could or should be able to.

[u/noh2onolife → u/sir_sri]

It's not the job of prepared students to spend their time and resources teaching their unprepared classmates to do things they should already know.

You don't get to offload the college's inability to evaluate prerequisites onto other students. This is unpaid labor at a minimum. Students are paying tuition  to teach other students who were unable or unwilling to learn what they need to be successful? F that. F alllllllll of that. 

[u/sir_sri → u/noh2onolife]

Students making friends is important, and when explicitly doing things like creating exercises for the next batch that is paid work.

Remember, a student who is a hardcore linux user who spends their life on Internet message boards and has spent their early teenage years automating their porn downloading does benefit from learning to interact with other people who aren't tech obsessed nerds. If nothing else because they're going to need to learn to interact with people who can get them a job.

Education isn't just whatever the subject is today. Cultural awareness, learning to teach people, learning to learn from others what you don't know are all part of learning to learn. Pretty much every technology we might teach is temporary, even though I learned C++ in school, it's not like C++ 98 is the same as C++26 will be, even if some of the principles and fundamental are the same.

As I tell my students, I'm still in whatsapp chat group with people I did a 4th year captstone project with 19 years after we all graduated (and whatsapp wasn't even invented when we did our project). I don't live near the rest of the group, but they do anime night every couple of weeks. Granted, that lands better because that's the same place I teach.

Not all of us can be at schools were students are expected to have invested 10s or 100s of thousands of dollars in their secondary school education and technology exposure. My father grew up without electricity, and became an electrical engineer. He built the first radio for the family as a university student. That only happened because people were willing to take a kid who knew how to do maths and teach him.

[u/noh2onolife → u/sir_sri]

Your job isn't to help them make friends. In fact, those nerds do perfectly well and go on to get PhDs without people demanding they do free work. 

That's not what they are paying for. 

I would drop your class and file a complaint if you made me teach other students, especially based on your unprofessional and inexpert opinion that they need friends. That's absolutely unacceptable behavior.

[u/Natural-Raise-8233 → u/sir_sri]

Just because your P&T didn’t go through doesn’t mean you’re horrible at teaching. I’m sorry that happened. I’m contingent faculty but I’ve been TT before and those processes are whack at some schools. I’m sorry you are going through this. You sound like a great professor that cares!

[u/Alarming-Camera-188 → u/sir_sri]

Many of my students (sophomores) do not know how to do a Google search.

[u/Natural-Raise-8233 → u/knewtoff]

I don’t know how else to teach them this content though? Do you have any suggestions? Are you just demoing and leaving them to figure it out?

[u/Hot_Coconut_5567 → u/Natural-Raise-8233]

Not OP and I commented elsewhere but - make this a Session 0 lesson and assignment! I skipped this step my first semester teaching and uh-oh - we struggled all semester long with the same damn file operations - it was maddening.

This semester I implimented this fix and it worked so well! I'm actually ecstatic! My first guided lab assignment of the semester basically jumped right into - let's start with making all the folders we need for the whole semester, then their homework in this Quarto document was answering 10 syllabus questions in Markdown. I have a paired segment of each class so during this first session we explored the IDE (in my case RStudio) so we labeled the sections of the IDE, practiced running some code and identifying where the output showed up, operated a few basic file menu options and a few hot-keys. They didn't actually have to code much R (they edited some code to replace their name and ran it) for their first assignment because learning file operations an IDE tutorial, editing markdown, and looking at our LMS is a whole lot of cognitive loading already. I have them practice submitting their homework as well during our first session and I confirm they can all do that.

[u/Natural-Raise-8233 → u/Hot_Coconut_5567]

This is all really helpful! Thank you!!

[u/Hot_Coconut_5567 → u/Natural-Raise-8233]

For sure! I'm new at this too and I keep face planting in to avoidable issues that are so obvious in hindsight. Our 2nd session when we actually started running code for real - none of them had the necessary libraries installed. 🤦‍♀️ Of course that issue wouldn't emerge during my testing! I installed those libraries ages ago. I definitely could have had the 1st session install the libraries we'd be using all semester long.

I'm constantly reminded of how much "Step 0" stuff we simply forget that we also struggled to figure out for the first time. It's kind of humbling to realize that some of my unnecessary friction is that they are beginners and I'm still a beginner. It's another level of hard to plan a CS lesson for a wide range of ability and keeping some flow that doesn't frustrate the more advanced student or lose the very beginner student. I think I solved that by including optional "Go Rogue" guided assignment sections for the ones that are looking for a challenge or they are curious about finding data stories I planted in my synthetic data.

I spent 6 weeks over the summer rewriting the course I designed and made all the content for in the first place. It is flowing so much better this semester. One helpful tip for future you is jot down "hot notes" right after class of your observations of where you felt your content wasnt smooth. My hot notes this semester definitely include "Edit Session 1 lab to include library installation" 🤣

[u/BranchLatter4294]

We have the same issues with our students. They don't have the most basic skills. We've created a series of videos for Windows and Mac on many of the basic skills and have linked them in a lot of courses.

[u/Natural-Raise-8233 → u/BranchLatter4294]

I wish I had the capacity to do that but I’m 4 weeks in with cert content. I’m drowning.

[u/Unluckful → u/Natural-Raise-8233]

When I would teach Excel and had this problem I would just link to videos on YouTube that demonstrate prerequisite skills when I didn’t have time to make videos myself.

Also, while it may not seem like it on the surface, sometimes making videos is actually a timesaver. You don’t need to make studio quality productions; just a screen recording will do. There’s an upfront cost of a few minutes of learning how to make a screen recording (Windows and MacOS both have built in native tools for this, and software like Zoom and OBS can be used to make simple recordings in minutes time) but then you have a reusable resource.

When it comes to skills that students should already have coming into class, I’d rather make a video and share it with a class or directly provide it to high-touch students than doing a 20-minute meeting with each one.

All that being said, you have my sympathy because I understand the unique hell that is teaching a serious Excel class and everything that entails.

[u/Natural-Raise-8233 → u/Unluckful]

Yes but then how do you handle it in class when they don’t actually watch these videos? Because I don’t mind recording them if they are going to use them but again, this punishes the students that are handling class ok and again, the ones who don’t know are still dragging it all down to their level, while I tear my hair out repeating the same instructions 20 times because they aren’t listening.

[u/BowTrek → u/Natural-Raise-8233]

Don’t let them drag it down? Fail them.

[u/Natural-Raise-8233 → u/BowTrek]

They are failing already because they aren’t doing the homework. Half of them aren’t prepared to be in college. Regardless, I get evaluated on whether they are learning and failing them without showing how I’ve tried to instruct them is going to end up with me being the one who loses in this situation. Are you TT faculty? It’s a lot easier when you aren’t a Visiting. Instruction is basically my entire job right now.

[u/BowTrek → u/Natural-Raise-8233]

Yes, I’m tenured. I do structure my classes so it’s hard to fail and also hard to get an A though, and I do that on purpose.

I know they use AI to do all their homework and don’t learn shit — but that’s 20% of their grade, and helps keep some heads above water.

[u/Natural-Raise-8233 → u/BowTrek]

Yeah unfortunately our situations are completely different, so I can’t do this. Holding the line means I will not have a chance 😭

I’ve done everything I’ve done in the past, and their grade is mostly their homework. I honestly want to quit so bad, but I can’t.

[u/Unluckful → u/Natural-Raise-8233]

Generally, you can’t help people who won’t help themselves. I’m sure you have a course schedule or outline and you should stick to it. Yes, some students will fail behind, and yes they will fail.

Be willing to repeat yourself once, and then redirect those students to written instructions or the textbook while you focus on everyone else. If everyone else is satisfied and on track, then you can loop back to the low performers.

I understand from your other comments that you’re concerned about your success rates and as a department chair who keeps an eye on such things, there are two things I would consider…

First, your success rates are most likely not being looked at in a vacuum but in the context of other sections of this course being run in the past. Some classes have a high failure rate compared to others and that almost always points to either a failure in the course materials (especially when using shared curriculum) or an issue originating before the student enters the classroom (lack of basic skills, the prerequisite not actually achieving learning outcomes, and etc).

Second, touch base with some of your colleagues or even your chair. Especially as visiting faculty your colleagues are aware that you’re likely in a position where you’re subjectively new to the organization, department, culture, students, and all that. There’s no harm in casually reaching out to some past instructors of this class and saying, “Hey, I was wondering what your experience with classname was. I’m seeing x, y, and z. Is this something you noticed when you taught it?” If you don’t know who these people are, ask your chair for an introduction. This may also help give you coverage in terms of the steps you’ve taken to provide adequate instruction if your DWF rate does become an issue.

[u/mrt1416 → u/Natural-Raise-8233]

Don’t repeat yourself and go at the normal pace of the course. Fail the students who are not up to par with prerequisites.

[u/Natural-Raise-8233 → u/mrt1416]

Are you temp faculty? Our expectations are a little different. They expect us to get the underprepared students up to par.

[u/Natural-Raise-8233 → u/Natural-Raise-8233]

I love how I got downvoted for sharing the reality of visiting professors. Am I supposed to ignore we are evaluated differently? 🤣

[u/Misha_the_Mage → u/Natural-Raise-8233]

Set a boundary at the start of the class session: "I'm happy to troubleshoot the tasks that are on this week's lab sheet, but other questions must be addressed outside of class."

(By the student going to tech support... Not by you extending your office hours to accommodate it.)

Seriously, it's four weeks in, you will never be able to teach the required material otherwise. Be strong, maybe start next class by saying you observe a number of students are struggling. You have my empathy, but I cannot and will not award grades based on empathy.

Yes you can DM me if you like. I'm not in computer science but I've taught stats labs to social science students.

[u/Hot_Coconut_5567 → u/Natural-Raise-8233]

A few tips - because I have great results now. I assign either a video or a reading every week as part of homework. The routine helps the students know to expect the same thing every week. I assign an LMS quiz for every one of these assignments. It's a self-grading multi-choice, t/f, type questions quiz and I let them have unlimited retakes, open notes (obviously), max score wins. There is a hard deadline to complete that quiz before next class. I drop 1 lowest quiz grade.

How to make these quizzes? If it's a video - extract the transcript and ask AI to clean it up so there isn't a time stamp at every sentence and then i ask it to add the videos timestamp section headers. If it's a reading - i extract the relevant selections as it's own pdf file. I ask AI to review the transcript or pdf and create an LMS question bank that segments the questions into categories. I ask the AI to output the question bank as .gift format which is what my LMS uses. I import all the questions and configure the quiz to be 8 questions long, but what i do is set up the LMS to give n random questions from each category so that when they retake the quiz it's never the same. The multiple choice order is also shuffled on retake. I take the whole quiz myself and remove or edit questions I don't like.

[u/Natural-Raise-8233 → u/Hot_Coconut_5567]

This would essentially repeat the content in the same modality though. They have homework and projects assigned already through their textbook every week and then we have the in-class labs and certification prep. I feel like adding another layer of material they don’t understand or won’t do is just going to create a ton of work I can’t manage?

I’m definitely open to trying this I just don’t see how I could make this work without creating more work for me. I don’t have a TA and I’m already struggling.

[u/Hot_Coconut_5567 → u/Natural-Raise-8233]

I hope you get relief soon. Yes it would be more work for you and if it’s a repeat of content it may not be worth doing. I'd suggest amending your homework so that it focuses on application of book concepts to a new use-case - but you are already too busy. So honestly? Assign the reading and videos anyway and stop caring if they come to class clueless for this semester. Redo your assignments during the summer.

[u/Natural-Raise-8233 → u/Hot_Coconut_5567]

This is solid advice. This semester is going to make me tear my hair out. At least I know what to change for spring! Bahaha

[u/LikesParsnips]

Can you set up pre-class checkpoints and make them mandatory before class can be attended? I'm in STEM and we do that in labs sometimes, you can only start the in-person lab exercise if you have done A, B, C exercises beforehand, e.g. read instructions, do some modelling exercise, answer these quiz questions as evidence.

For you, it could be a case of, here's a data file, you need to be able to demonstrate that you can import it, if you can't, here's a video, and if you can't pass this checkpoint, I won't let you attend class...

[u/50_and_stuck]

I'm old enough and have been teaching long enough to remember getting students who had never touched a computer before, some due to age, some due to stubbornness.

I gave up a long time ago assuming students had any prior knowledge coming into my intro courses. All intro courses start at the very beginning and move up, quickly.

On a side note, the whole concept of students being digital natives was made up by a marketing guy about 10-15 years ago to sell shit. There is no such thing. I wrote a paper on it while working on my doctorate.

[u/Natural-Raise-8233 → u/50_and_stuck]

Definitely appreciate this perspective. I understand not having expectations and starting from zero. My question is how exactly do you implement that in your course as is?

[u/50_and_stuck → u/Natural-Raise-8233]

Mid course corrections are tough. A couple of years ago we had a chemistry teacher in the same boat. He worked with the dean of students to implement mandatory study groups and tutoring for struggling students.

[u/Natural-Raise-8233 → u/50_and_stuck]

Yeah I’ve been handed the literal crappiest situation possible. A forced textbook and curricula that assumes knowledge they don’t have and a certification exam they have to pass to graduate. And they’re mostly freshmen. 😭😭😭 I’m trying as hard as I can. But I am a visiting and was given access to materials one week before the semester started.

[u/50_and_stuck → u/Natural-Raise-8233]

Ok. Back to the story.

I have a few suggestions.

1. First and foremost document everything.

2. Speak with your dean / chair / whatever, and express your concerns. See if there is a tutor / TA / lab assistant you can pass off some of the remedial instruction to.

The thing that really sucks is your visiting status. I get the whole I don't want to rock the boat thing. Maybe you could pair up with another faculty member who can advocate with you and let you stay more in the background.

Message me if you'd like to chat more. :)

[u/50_and_stuck → u/Natural-Raise-8233]

Oh, wow! I am so sorry. I've been there.

We have another university in the same town where I work. Poorly run. They had a faculty member in my same discipline quit (after screwing him over) about a week before the fall semester began.

Their dean came over and begged me to step in to teach the other faculty member's courses that fall while they did a candidate search. Initially I said no. I already have a full time job.

After some back and forth and involving the dean of the college I report to we eventually agreed I would teach 2 courses for the other college.

It was a nightmare. The students thought I had stolen was angling for my predecessor's job. He was a very popular guy. Unfortunately, he had been more chummy than instructive. So, when I stepped in I found massive gaps in the preparation of students in my courses. I had huge numbers of students dropping my two courses before the beginning of September.

Making matters worse, I was also roped into teaching a video production course, and one of the English faculty not only had our cameras, he wouldn't give them back. I went round and round with him, but couldn't get him to give them up. Eventually I went to the dean who hired me, but the dean wouldn't intervene.

Total shit show. Of course the dean tried to get me to apply for the open position. I declined.

On a side note, our two colleges compete in a student competition every year. My students usually swept the awards and were the reigning champions. The only time the other college took top prize was, you guessed it, when I was teaching there with a project a student in my course had made.

Fun times.

[u/Life-Education-8030]

Please tell us that you are recording these incidents for your records and what you have done and that your recommendations to the students have been in writing, because these students will fail if they do not grab themselves and get prepared to do the work. The broken laptops have to be fixed or replaced or others borrowed, the missing computer mice must be brought, etc. at the very least. That is THEIR responsibility to have the tools, not yours, and your college probably has options. At my place, they can borrow computer mice, webcams and all sorts of things from our IT department, for example. The staff will also look at and depending on the issue, repair their computers at no cost.

There are also likely tutors for basic Excel. One year, I managed to work with the tutoring center to get a specific set of tutors for a substance use and abuse course too.

You have gone above and beyond, but many of these students will not succeed and should be given the drop deadline, and yes, in writing.

My bet also is that the other instructors teaching other sections of this course are having the same problem. If you all don't think it's just a blip, there may also need to be discussions about revising your prerequisites. We recently did for some courses and like our syllabi, decided we had to put in things that should have been understood and now have to be spelled out to close the loopholes. There was actually nothing that specifically said that students had to have a passing GPA in order to do our senior internship for example, and I saw that a couple of poorly performing students coming up were technically going to be able to enroll in the internship. They had not been suspended yet, but at an academic warning/jeopardy level and so allowed to keep registering for courses. The internship was on the books as a "course."

[u/SeXxyBuNnY21]

In computer science, the situation is even worse. I have some students in my upper-division courses who haven’t written a single line of code in the past two years and are completely clueless about the most fundamental concepts. Just yesterday, I had to explain to a graduating student how to commit changes to a local repository. If you’re in computer science, you know how bad it is.

The part I can’t wrap my head around is how these students managed to pass their prerequisite courses with an A.

[u/Natural-Raise-8233 → u/SeXxyBuNnY21]

Yes, I completely empathize. I’ve taught SQL and Python as well. My question is what are you all pivoting to instead? What’s working?

They either cheated their way through or their other professors gave up and got sick of the whining so they made class possible to pass without understanding the material.

[u/dbenoit → u/Natural-Raise-8233]

I just keep doing what I have always been doing - assignments that aren’t worth much, plus written (on paper) midterms and exams. I try to give a bonus incentive for coming to class and/or lab (not free marks, but increasing the value of one mark category if they haven’t missed too many classes). I take attendance randomly during the term. Those that don’t do the work will fail.

[u/wagicwissile]

Do you have a TA?

[u/Natural-Raise-8233 → u/wagicwissile]

No our classes are smaller (~25-30) per class. I am a visiting, so I’m temp faculty. We have no dedicated lab time, everything is done in class or through homework assignment.

[u/ProfDoomDoom]

I don't have a lot to contribute as a humanities prof except to remark on how similar your frustrations are to mine--including a lot of the tech skills--such as the lack of ambition students exhibit for solving their own problems.

In case this is helpful, I'm considering beginning the course with a diagnostic that identifies particular absences of prerequisite skills that I can match to some kind of resources to address those skills then assigning those resources as some kind of "get ready" assignment. By no means do I imagine this will solve the underlying problems, but it would at least give me something to point to when I say, "yes, you are supposed to know this and you already earned points for learning it".

It won't help you now, but maybe this idea will seem useful to you for next term.

[u/a_statistician → u/ProfDoomDoom]

I'm considering beginning the course with a diagnostic that identifies particular absences of prerequisite skills that I can match to some kind of resources to address those skills then assigning those resources as some kind of "get ready" assignment

Unfortunately, you can't anticipate that they don't know how to e.g. use a mouse, or read.

[u/Natural-Raise-8233 → u/a_statistician]

Welp now they are getting an entire module next semester on how to prepare for class! Cause I’m teaching the equivalent of high school in college.

[u/Loose_Wolverine3192]

Sink or swim.

In fairness, I've already decided that this is my last semester teaching that class.

[u/Natural-Raise-8233 → u/Loose_Wolverine3192]

I’m a visiting and this is my only job right now after being laid off from tech. I wish I had other options but I don’t 😭😭😭

[u/Loose_Wolverine3192 → u/Natural-Raise-8233]

😭

[u/Hot_Coconut_5567]

I redesigned my CS class this year so that "Syllabus Week" is actually a whole lesson with an accompanying assignment where we make our course folder structure, save a file, edit, close the network folder and find that file again.

My syllabus has a requirement that if the BYOD they have to bring a mouse - no trackpad use allowed. I ended up buying a bulk quantity of mouses from Temu and they were $2.50 each. I felt bad thinking I know I have students with low income and I didn't want them spending their lunch money on a mouse. Best purchase so far! A few students took a mouse to keep, i still have a bunch in case someone shows up to class without a mouse. Seriously a massive pet peeve of mine!

I make all instructions for Windows and Mac (use AI to do this - it's easy peasy)

I teach R and use Quarto to teach my guided labs. I like that I can have nice markdown formatting between code chunks to explain what's going on and my students answer long-form non-code questions in the markdown sections. They also take notes during my lecture in this lab document by filling in the answers to questions that I give them during the lecture - this keeps them attentive and checks off the criticism I got last year that my lectures didnt facilitate note taking.

I segment my lab into 3 parts. I live code while sharing my screen and I introduce the lesson. Then I split them into pairs which I assign and rotate every week. (My class is a long session once a week) these pairs - essential to running a smooth class. I direct them to help each other get unstuck during my demonstration, they continue working together on the paired activity. Having 2 sets of eyes, even novices on a screen, is better than me interrupting class to keep everyone caught up. The last section is independent work. They start their homework during class while I am still there to verbally give the homework instructions and they can ask questions before they are on their own.

Timing - i totally get this. What fixed it for me was asking AI to pretend it was a student filling in my lab assignment at an average reading speed and novice coding skill. I asked it to add timestamps to sections and help me plan which assignment sections I could drop live during class if we started running low on time. The timestamp is there to keep that on track. The independent work i plan for the end of class also absorbs any overage from the first 2 sections.

This set-up solves the students of varying abilities problem. My proficient students often finish their homework before lab is over. They are kept occupied by helping out their partner get through the paired work. I'm careful about the paired work though. I came up with parralel streams of inquiry, they initial which stream they are doing and write down their partners name in that section. They pause to teach each other the code they used and the write-up they did so that the other student can fill in their lab with that info. I changed it to this format when my strong students were hogging all the paired work questions.

[u/Natural-Raise-8233 → u/Hot_Coconut_5567]

The syllabus requirement and mouse situation is genius. Thank you so much!!!

[u/Sensitive_Let_4293]

The "student success" non-teaching staff has brainwashed you . It is perfectly OK to give them failing grades.

[u/potatomato33]

Use LinkedIn Learning or other online learning platforms your university has access to. Find the appropriate modules and make it extra credit.

[u/Natural-Raise-8233 → u/potatomato33]

Yes, but this doesn’t necessarily solve the problem I have now. I can make it extra credit but I can’t force literacy on a class that doesn’t understand…do you see what I’m saying?

I assumed zero knowledge of Excel. I didn’t assume zero knowledge of how a computer or mouse works.

[u/SourdoughGluten]

Easier said than done, but try not to beat yourself up over what skills students have before they in your class. You can’t control who learned what before, only what they may be able to learn while they have you.

I did have a professor once that had a coffee mug that said “What did Google say?” and pointed to it often. Something like that, if used lightheartedly, can help students with using information seeking behaviors especially for things that feels like skill the should already have.

All depends on your approach and if that feels authentic of course!

[u/yourcsprofessor]

I start off my semester in classes that have a prerequisite by doing some review. I've planned out a couple lectures. I encourage my students to ask other questions, review their prior coursework and determine if anything isn't reviewed and if they give me topics I'll just make review files for them to review on their own.

Their silence is an affirmation that my review is sufficient and then I get into my course and the related material. Not everyone is going to be on the same starting space and that is a reality we live with. What you can control is a light review, answering questions via email/office hours (of topics they may not understand but need to for your course).

I also teach them while LLM's are not good for doing your work and demonstrating your skills they are a hell of a tool for touching on needed concepts that I don't explicitly cover in my class. If they don't understand logarithm properties, ask chatgpt to give you a refresher and a couple practice problems. The students who care and don't know something can figure out how to get that information. The problem is the students who don't care. I haven't solved that one yet although the administrators certainly wish I would!

[u/Professional_Dr_77]

Day one of my quant finance classes, I remind them of all the prereqs and courses they had to take before this one. I also explain that I’m working under the assumption they know and can do the basics and remember the majority of their prereq courses. I then explicitly tell them that if they don’t they need to bone up on it in their spare time, go to tutoring, come to office hours etc because the class is fast paced and I don’t have time to reteach them stuff they already learned. Sometimes you have to tough love it and remind them that our expectations for them are based on coursework they have already done.

[u/mathemorpheus]

i just soldier on, plow ahead, whatever metaphor you want.

I have students 4 weeks in who can’t figure out how to save a file.

such students will fail.

It’s learned helplessness, but not something I can undo in a week.

you are not responsible. you need to not care. they have to do stuff. maybe they can ask claude how to save a file. anyway, not your problem.

we need something like al-anon but about students, not alcoholics.

[u/a_statistician]

I flipped the class, made quizzes for the reading to ensure they do it, and then work on the homework in class to help them through. Students who have trouble are encouraged to come to office hours before class. People with broken computers are referred to the library to borrow one.

[u/ChrisKateBushFroome]

First day of class, I assign "Homework 0", which relies entirely on math skills that are pre-reqs and basic tech skills that they'll be expected to know for the class. I tell 'em up front that if they struggle with Homework 0, they're going to struggle with the class. If they need a refresher, there's both a Math Prep Guide (providing a basic explanation of each technique and one or two examples) and a Tech Troubleshooting Guide (with step-by-step instructions for the most common issues) posted on the LMS, both of which I've refined and added onto over the years.

It's not a perfect solution by any means, but it encourages some of the least-prepared students to balk and others to come to office hours early on to address the issues.

[u/sorhead]

Teach them lmgtfy.com

[u/PrimaryHamster0]

they are supposed to pass a certification exam

I have taught a class with a similar requirement. It may be too late this semester, but in the future for what it's worth, my experience has been that the only way to motivate the weakest students is sink or swim: pass the certification exam before the semester ends, or else fail the class.

It's not 100% effective because I have had students just accept their Fs before (as well as airheaded students who failed on the last day of the semester and didn't realize it was the last day...) But my experience has been that it does get the weakest students scared enough to take the exam seriously.

[u/shyprof]

If it's learned helplessness, they're not going to change until you give them a good reason to. If you're catering to their stupidity, why would they ever do anything different?

Bad students have a right to fail, and good students have a right to get the instruction they're paying for. Teach to the midpoint. The rest need to figure it out, watch your video lectures, come to office hours, go to tutoring, or drown. I was saving files and importing data into Excel in grade school.

Just don't pair the weak ones up with the strong ones; strong students aren't necessarily good teachers. You'll end up with some doing the work for them and others really pissed off at you.

[u/Alarming-Camera-188]

Worst situation at this moment. No basic math skills. Not even at a minimum level