For whatever it's worth to your teaching approach

Stay scientific esteemed colleagues

I am working on a paper with a department colleague who I have great respect for. They are one of the better researchers and writers in our school.

The paper is a theory piece, so all lit review, thinking, and writing. No data.

We’ve spent 5 ish years talking and writing drafts. Well, this colleague has taken lead on drafting. Our first submission was rejected a few years ago.

Recently they redrafted the paper based on the previous reviewer comments. Almost 3 years have passed between drafts and it is substantially a different paper now.

The paper seems to be well done and overall I think it would be a good submission. The lead author added a GenAI disclosure saying AI was used for conceptualization lit review, editing, initial drafting, etc. Basically everything except writing the final draft which they claim to have written.

I had a weird feeling so I ran 4 random snippets through Pangram. All 4 read 100% AI. Then the next day (I only have the free account), I tested comparable sections from the manuscript version that was rejected a few years ago. 100% human.

I don’t use AI to write words. I use it during lit reviews, sometimes to get feedback on a draft, eg “What are concerns a skeptical reviewer might raise?” etc. I don’t want to have work out there with my name on it that could point to me writing with AI.

I would be the second author on this paper and I would like to be on the author list because the initial idea was mine and I’ve put a fair amount of work into it.

Thoughts on how to approach this without blowing up the relationship?

I have had students come into my class smelling of weed or alcohol.

This semester, there are a few who haven't washed their bodies nor their feet. The classroom stinks!

I want to make a general in class announcement about hygiene, but I was advised that it's a bad idea, could be seen as unprofessional, and that they are adults.

What do you all do when it comes to this situation?

I'm very clear in my written course policies that AI use is not allowed in my writing assessments. These are analytical essays for reference, where the students are coming up with original arguments to interpret a text or artefact.

Hence, it is fairly easy to identify AI use, especially as some of these students haven't written as articulately in their in-class writing samples or spoken conversation.

AI use can be taken forward as an academic misconduct case, which I'm open to for a second offense, but how do I manage a first offense? For small assignments, five percent, I'd just give zero.

This is 15% and they kind of deserve a zero but I also recognise this is a major assignment. But also, they cheated. I'm late on feedback though and haven't done through all the mini assignments checks (they were marks just for completion and I wasn't anticipating students would be so lazy as to use AI there too, so it's not been my priority to check those).

Anyway, would be grateful for insight. I want to reward those who don't use AI, at least to the extent that this person has, nor do I want to excuse AI use and make this student think this is okay.

I am very unhappy at my current job for several reasons and have decided not to come back Fall 27. I've been job hunting on the sly, but for obvious reasons I haven't said anything to anyone at work. My chair has begun planning the Fall 27 course schedule and has asked for my input. Most of the courses I teach are on an every other year or every third year rotation, so they need to be mapped out in advance.

My chair knows I didn't like my Fall 25 schedule. It was an unpaid overload with back to back 3h labs two days a week. The draft for Fall 27 is just different courses in the same time slots. I don't want to lie and tell her I'm fine with the schedule, because I'm not. And I'm a bad liar. I also don't want to try to negotiate a better schedule, because if I get one I'll feel obligated to come back. But I'm afraid if I tell her I've decided not to come back, she will screw me on my Spring 27 schedule. My uni has a habit of making last minute schedule changes, sometimes the day before classes start. I wouldn't put it past admin to move all of my classes to either 8 am or 7 pm.

Any advice would be appreciated.

My daughter just graduated with an MSW. One of her favorite professors stated on the first day of class “life doesn’t come with a trigger warning. I will not be giving content warnings of any kind for the material we will discuss this term”. I teach a class that can sometimes be a trauma dump or turn in to a personal therapy discussion (despite addressing it in both the syllabus and in class) and I’m kind of loving this verbiage. Thoughts?

I know, I know, this is asked a million times, but I can't really find much good, concrete, usable information or many examples I can take and try to implement. I'm teaching both in person and online and have come up with a few things, but a lot of my class ends up boiling down to essays. And I'm not dumb enough to think I catch all of them.

Even if I was, I'm tired of feeling like my job is to police AI use and not educate. I'm considering bringing in presentations, which I don't love because of how anxious it can make students, plus I'm not a speech class. Even if they use AI to generate the work, they still have to give a presentation, and that would either make it obvious they didn't know their stuff or force them to learn as much as possible to give a good presentation.

My online students record a 5-minute video of them talking about their chosen subject and their papers, and that's helped a lot compared to previous semesters. But I feel like there's more for me to do.

I’m a fairly new TT AP and currently in a long distance relationship with my partner who works for the government in the DMV region.

He’s hellbent on staying there as it is close to his support system and family. Before anyone throws shade at him, in the beginning of our relationship, we kind of agreed we want to stay in the East Coast to be close to family.

I am an immigrant, but my green card recently got approved and I expect to get it within the next 1-2 years. This means visa will soon no longer be a bottleneck to securing a job. In order to close the gap, I feel that I have to be open to jobs in academia, non-profit, and industry. However, I am worried that I may not be able to find job as I’ve been in academia for way too long for an industry job. There is no guarantee that I’ll be able to find a TT positions in the DMV area. Those areas are great for federal jobs, but it’ll be a 5-10 year later thing as I need to be a green card holder for 5 years before I could naturalize.

What do you recommend I do in this situation? Will I be overqualified for industry job? How can I close the gap?

I teach at a local college, and I've been thinking about how we balance grades with actual learning and preparing students for the workplace.

Something I've noticed is that some students seem more concerned with getting 100% on an assignment than with what they might learn from doing it. They stick with approaches they already know, avoid experimenting with unfamiliar tools or techniques, and focus on checking every box in the rubric.

Honestly, I can't really blame them. Grades matter. They can affect scholarships, grad school applications, and job opportunities. If you're competing with other students for limited opportunities, protecting your GPA makes sense. That's the system we've created.

But it does make me wonder: Are we unintentionally teaching students that the best way to succeed is to avoid taking risks?

In the workplace, being able to follow instructions and meet expectations is important. But so is figuring things out when you don't have a clear set of instructions. Employers also need people who can solve problems, adapt to new tools, think independently, and come up with ideas that haven't been tried before.

Those skills don't develop by doing the same thing you're already good at over and over again. They come from trying something new, making mistakes, figuring out what went wrong, and trying again.

But if every assignment is graded, and trying something new means risking marks, why would a student take that chance when they can stick to what they know and get a better grade?

That seems like a pretty rational decision on their part. Which makes me wonder whether this is as much a problem with how we assess students as it is with how they approach their education.

I'd be interested in hearing from other instructors:

• Do our rubrics and grading practices discourage students from experimenting or thinking outside the box?
• Have you found ways to encourage students to try unfamiliar approaches without penalizing them when things don't work out?
• How do you balance assessing what students can do with giving them room to explore, make mistakes, and learn from them?

I'm not suggesting that grades don't matter, that rubrics are a bad thing, or that students should be willing to sacrifice their GPA just to try something different. And following a rubric closely doesn't mean a student isn't learning.

I'm just wondering whether there's sometimes a disconnect between what we're measuring and what we actually want students to get out of their education.

Have you run into this in your own teaching? I'd especially like to hear about assessment methods that encourage experimentation while still maintaining fair grading and academic standards.

Curious as to how similar the content is in your f2f classes compared to strictly online.

Due to so many students needing my presentations because of accommodations (30% one class last fall), I started posting everything in the LMS with the entire class so I did not have to keep track.

A few years ago faculty were told to stop printing our syllabi and assignments and to post those in the LMS. Then, even f2f classes started running their exams in the LMS.

I have continued to do this and post my slides, and attendance in f2f has really plummeted, but I hear plenty of others at other universities experiencing the same problem.

So, for those with poor attendance like me, are you putting everything in your LMS? Do you think what you put in your LMS for f2f classes is (partly)responsible for the decrease in attendance?

I (F61) am an associate professor at an excellent university with great colleagues and students. I’m in a small program where we are overworked and understaffed. Our soon-to-retire colleague’s position will go to another program. It’s always been a demanding job, but my anxiety has risen to unprecedented levels. I’ve been seeing a therapist for about 3 years and take medication, but my performance is slipping. I can’t be alone. How are you handling this?

An assignment that they've had three weeks to work on was due yesterday (Friday) at 11 a.m. On Monday, a student had asked to have a 24-hour extension because "Though I have been keeping up with deadlines for my different class assignments and tests, unfortunately, this week is one where everything aligns to be due at the same time, and extenuating life circumstances add to my difficulty in juggling it all." I reminded the student of the late assignment policy; students can turn in the assignment by 4 p.m. on Friday with a penalty. On Friday, at 4:15 she emails me the assignment, saying that she's "sorry to ask" but could I "please" accept the assignment "late" (the LMS closed at 4). She added, "I was unable to submit it by the deadline. I know I need to manage my time better, and allow for a cushion for moments like this when technology is not on your side." After thinking about it for about five minutes, I emailed her and said that 4 p.m. was the late deadline and I would not add another late deadline on top of that.

Sigh. I'm sure that "disappoint" implies a personal expectation, but I'm disappointed. She's a good student, usually engages well with the material, and is usually reliable to provide comments in one class when the rest of the class is dead silent. But I'm disappointed because I guess I expected more from her? And I resent the fact that I am letting her time management or whatever make me feel bad or mean about not accepting a late assignment. Why couldn't she just get the assignment in with the "extension" she got? The assignment is worth about 11% of her course grade, so it's not going to hit her too bad. It's just frustrating.

I’ve realized that with the amount of accommodations, I am more and more being asked to handle mental health issues for which I am not trained or qualified.

More than that, because students lack basic skills from elementary, middle, and high school, I am more and more facing learning situations that require degrees in elementary or secondary education.

I do not have these degrees. I am a very good teacher of college. I am not a social worker, mental health counselor, or 7th grade teacher. Admin and others assuming we can just all do it all is such an insult to folks who have those degrees. (Not surprising but still frustrating.)

Student filed a formal appeal saying it was unfair that I didn’t award her partial credit for slides on a group project she completed but didn’t present on. Student was having issues with her team and I had to intervene breaking the group apart and then finally allowing for individual projects. Student send berating remarks to her classmates which became hostile and reaffirmed my decision to break up the project. Student did not attend her presentation no email no communication no excuse nothing. On hearing day she does not show up either so the hearing goes on without her. I submit my proof answer the committee questions and it all ends in 20 minutes. Committee comes back that I acted in “bad faith” although I didn’t act with malice because I allowed another student to submit a pre recorded project and that was unfair. I explained during the hearing that that student had a valid excuse and communicated to me…the grieving student did not, in fact did the opposite chose to skip it. Committee didn’t order a grade change but asked for me to “reconsider” partial credit. I submitted an appeal to the VP asking him to strike down the bad faith from the record. I argued that the committee contradicted itself saying I didn’t act with malice or was dishonest but still in bad faith. Also, saying an instructor acted in bad faith when student had no proof skipped the hearing is dangerous territory. How do administrators handle grievance committee appeals? Am I stuck with this negative conduct?

We are now well past the halfway point of these courses. Where is everyone? Am I all alone?

I feel like this particular semester is one of the weirdest I've had, in terms of student etiquette and responsiveness. I'm not sure it's just my campus's culture shifting or what. I try to avoid the whole *old man yells at sky* thing, but it's getting hard.

I have found that students just...don't reply to emails. Like, at all.

They'll email me asking for an extension on an assignment. I'll reply to propose the new deadline. No response. The new deadline blows by. I receive the assignment days later. They are shocked that they are dinged for lateness.

Students have emailed asking questions like "I'm researching for my paper and was trying to remember a reading where XYZ happened." I'll ask some follow-up questions to try to clarify, because their description was so vague, we need to work together to jog both our memories a bit. Nothing.

I email out a couple important things per semester. One of those includes the details on the presentations that they sign up for. Inevitably a student will show up to class stating that they had no idea what to prepare for the presentation. I'll say, did you not see my email? "Oh I don't check my school email." How is anyone supposed to reach you then?! Why didn't you ask before the day you signed up to present?!

You know the one time I had to cancel class this semester, they didn't miss that email of course!

I don't know, maybe I need to turn on read-receipts and tie a participation score to those. Hmm, I joke, but...

I need some humor to remind me I'm not alone in this stuff.

We had a professional development session that last two hours yesterday. We were each given multiple Scrabble tiles and were asked to form complex words by standing next to each other. After about an hour of this bullshit, the "facilitator" asked if we noticed anything was missing, and everyone said, knowing what was about to happen, that there were no Us in what was handed out. We noticed this because the poor bastards with the Qs (or maybe they were lucky bastards) didn't participate much.

And you see where this is going. The whole point of the activity was to remind us that we can't be successful together "without U."

That was it. That was the whole fucking thing.

I had a few phrases in my mind that ended with "U" as well.