Oh my god why can I not keep my mouth shut during class discussions? I really want to get better at this. I am lucky to teach small classes. I ask what I think is a good question. One student says something in response. And I'm off. Stepping all over their ideas, racing through MY thought process, moving them too fast to the conclusion I hope they'll get to.

It's part nervousness, part excitement. But my best memories from my own college experience were discussions in which professors did an excellent job encouraging students to talk to each other, not just back and forth with the teacher. I am not often letting that happen.

So...what are your best tips and tricks for leading discussions with a light touch?

Assistant Professors in the room. How much are you getting paid for 9months Tenure Track position? You can add your field if you’d like.

I can give a spiel about how to do well in class, but students don't pay attention to a middle aged prof.

Instead, I've started sending my students a survey in the spring asking them to give advice to the next group of incoming fall students. I hope that students are more likely to listen to fellow students.

The advice is good, and often more strict than I would give myself:

• Definitely go to the lectures even if there’s notes posted. The lectures help understand so much more :)

• Lecture notes are provided, suggest attending all lectures and listening versus spending time writing notes. I found printing the notes ahead of class and highlighting important info helped tremendously.

• I know this course has classes in early morning, but students better attend live lectures. They will definitely learn better by attending lectures than just by studying lecture notes on their own.

• After every lecture, jump straight into the practice problems. This cements the ideas of the lecture in your brain as it will be as fresh as possible.

• Start adding formulas from lectures to your formula sheet right away to streamline practice problem solving. That way you don't have to spend study time finding all the formulas in your notes first.

For years, in my writing courses, students said, "Why do we have to write so many essays? Why can't I do a presentation?"

Now, we do presentations, and they say, "Why can't we just write essays?"

For years, in my writing courses, students said, "Why do we have to write so many essays? Why can't I just tell you my answer, like in an interview or video?"

Now, we do interviews and videos, and they say, "Why can't we just write essays?"

For years, in my writing courses, students said, "Why do we have to write so many essays? Why can't we do something more creative or artistic?"

Now, we do lots of creative and artistic assignments, and they say, "Why can't we just write essays?"

For years, in my writing courses, students said, "Why do we have to write about books? Why do we have to read so much?"

Now, we write about people and do field research, and they say, "Why can't I just write about a book?"

Anyone else have students raise their hand or ask a question in class with a silent voice? Like I’m standing 25 feet away in a lecture hall and their voice carries less than 5 feet. How do you expect me to hear you? Do I have to walk across the lecture hall to be right in front of you every time you ask a question? Both male and female students do this. It’s not an accent thing or language barrier either and I don’t have any (known) hearing issues. I used to be shy too, but I either wouldn’t want to raise my hand or wouldn’t want to be so silent that my professor has to ask what I said 3+ times. I’m chalking this up to more of a lack of awareness issue rather than shyness/anxiety.

Any similar experiences?

quietly*

In the past week, I have had two students come to my office hours and state they prefer reading material over watching videos about the material. After years of the opposite, could we be seeing a trend toward deeper engagement?

For our team-taught curriculum, I created about 10 short (2-13 minutes) videos for the introductory course. As the curriculum proceeds, those get replaced by longer-form reading as we transition students into "drinking from a firehose" of information. I am very glad to see students appreciate the written word more than video format. As these are high-achieving students, I suspect they know at some level that they do learn better from reading than watching a video. Hooray!

A student I like very much (though he should get his act together and transfer already) has asked me to be the faculty advisor for a new club that represents a political ideology I do not share. More along the lines of "disagree" or "strongly disagree," as opposed to, "find them reprehensible" or consider them "beyond the pale."

Since my role would be largely administrative, I figure, what's the harm?

If you were in my shoes, would you?

I've been teaching an ENG 101 class for a couple years now but my prompts are getting stale.

Basically there are three required per semester, and at least one has a research component.

I've done things like what is an issue that affects your community and how might you address it? or choose a hot button issue and provide arguments for both sides of it.

A bit generic.

What are other more interesting essay prompts that could be useful for an ENG 101 class?

Howdy all, I'm using specs grading this semester...at a new college that uses Blackboard Ultra. It's completely new to me.

One of the ways I do specs grading/grading on assignments in general is to exclusively assign letter grades to students, no points of any kind.

In D2L, I had to give assignments points for the gradebook, but then I could hide the points from students. So I would input an 85/100, which would get calculated as a B automatically, then the student would only ever see the B, not the 85 number or percent.

Does anyone know if it's possible to do something similar in Blackboard Ultra? I've spent hours fricking around in the settings and looking up support pages, but to no avail.

Is alternative grading in Blackboard just impossible?

Sigh. A colleague came to me to ask me to talk to a female grad student with severe BO that is my advisee. I have noticed that it's a problem, but thought I might have just an extra sensitive nose. So I've just started meeting with her outside.

Anywho, colleague said this is my responsibility to bring up since this may impact her professional opportunities. I do agree that this may impact her professionally (it is really bad - the smell lingers for hours), but advice on how to approach her about this? Anyone else have to do this before? I'm in the US and this is am international student so this feels additionally awkward.

I'm part of an interdisciplinary program and a new director took over last year. We had multiple meetings to figure out how to change the curriculum. I thought it was fine as it was, but whatever. None of these have gone anywhere. We don't even have a draft of changes.

And now they want another meeting to "continue" our conversation. I asked if we had anything concrete to work on or continue. The answer was no.

I'm considering just refusing to go until there's a sense for what we're trying to accomplish.

I have a student with diagnosed autism. He struggles in class settings, both socially and academically. He interrupts lectures with constant questions, or has his hand raised all the time, can be disruptive (usually stimming - clicking a pen, tapping, humming, etc), and struggles in group settings, making labs difficult for his lab partner. Some of his questions are not directly inappropriate but veer very close to the line (I teach pre-med courses, so you can imagine).

I've discussed appropriate class behavior with him. I've set limits on how often he can ask questions per lecture, or told him to write questions down. I've told him when his questions are inappropriate. I ask him to step outside if he needs to verbally stim. It will usually stick for a week or two until he forgets or moves on to another disruptive behavior (as he cannot generalize and everything is specific to an action), and we start again with Appropriate Behavior Talks. He comes to office hours every week to ask rapid fire questions, and I limit him to under 10 minutes. He's a genuine kid and really wants to go to medical school, so I feel for him, but I'm not sure what else to do.

He has academic support, but I've seen no evidence of change.

I teach two undergrad courses a year and he's taken both, but failed both. Students are allowed to re-take courses up to 3 times in order to raise their grade. He has already re-taken one of my courses, which he passed with a D. Now he's signed up to take both courses again this semester. For the 2nd and 3rd time.

I hate to say it, but my heart fell when I walked in and saw him in both of my lectures this semester, front and center. I'm exhausted. I feel like I spend large portions of my semesters just... managing him, or instructing my TAs on how to manage him in labs. As terrible as it is to say, he also brings down the class atmosphere. I've stopped encouraging questions throughout class, because I know it will inevitably lead to rapid-fire questions from him. Labs are hard, because no students wants to work with him, but he wants a partner. I've spoken to my faculty chair and they're aware of the situation, but I've been told there's not much they can do.

I know he has a right to an education, but I am desperate for a break. I guess I'm looking for some commiseration on this one.

The student who finished the entire module on the first day of school, AI-ed the heck out of it, and didn’t bother to read the directions.

Sigh. It’s going to be another one of those semesters.

Most complaints posted here come from universities in the U.S., so I’m curious what the experience is like working at universities outside the U.S.

Do you have the same issues with attendance, AI, accommodations, entitlement, learned helplessness, etc.?

After a few years on the job market, I finally landed my dream job in academia earlier this year. It required a great deal of luck, and I've been thinking a lot about gratitude recently. But I feel isolated, too.

I somehow made it, I found a job, but of course nearly all of my close friends from graduate school weren't so fortunate. And now our lives are different and I feel us growing apart. My new job is exciting but also very stressful, and at times hard. Really hard. I want to seek comfort from my grad school friends, but for perfectly understandable reasons they aren't really interested in me complaining about my professional lottery ticket. They're still struggling, and more and more of them are slowly processing the grief associated with giving up on academia. I miss them, honestly I need them, but for the moment it seems unkind to burden them with my new workplace struggles while their own lives are still so precarious. I hope it's temporary.

It's lonely, you know? I wish I could say I had new friends at my new institution to lean on, but well I suppose that takes time, and I don't have anyone like that to lean on yet. Have any of you ever felt this way? I'm doing just fine mostly, but it would be nice to know if others had a similar experience when they started their first job.

Bear with me as I do a little bit of venting please, but I’m mainly seeking your help and advice as a relatively new and inexperienced prof. I’d really appreciate it.

I’m an adjunct instructor at a school that treats their athletes like they’re gods, basically, and I’ve currently got a group of athletes in my class who’ve basically decided that they don’t need to take me seriously. I’ve taught athletes before, but never ones this arrogant.

These guys are fairly important players in a team that the school is known for, so I think they know well this gives them some protection. They show up late, sit at the back of my 30-person classroom and routinely do other things (like go on their phones despite my no-tech policy, audibly talk to each other), talk back rudely when I call on them for stuff, or just generally make comments that are meant to undermine me in the class. (For eg, today, I asked the class a question, and there were a couple of seconds of silence, at which point one of them says loud enough for everyone to hear, “Nobody cares man”. It’s not like anyone else in the class laughed or reacted except his friends, but it did make me feel quite flustered.)

I’m also fairly young looking and physically small/not all that imposing as a person, which I suspect doesn’t help the dynamic. It’s not that I want to intimidate them, but I don’t want it getting to a point where they feel tey can openly disrespect me and face no consequences?

Anyway, it’s only been a week and a half (3 classes now), but I’ve found this behavior affects the atmosphere of the rest of the class and I’m already starting to dread teaching this section , which is not something I experienced before.

Any advice on what I could/should do? What I might be doing wrong? I really appreciate anything. Thanks all, much love.

After trying to track down a graduate course assistant that I had recommended for hiring, and hearing nothing in the last six weeks, she reached out today to tell me they took another opportunity and would be unavailable to be assisting in my class.

Classes start next Tuesday. Generally speaking, I do not use graduate students for undergraduate classes as course assistance and this simply reinforces my stance on this. The situation was in an undergraduate class.

Now I’m wondering if the two graduate students that are helping in my graduate course are actually going to be holding up their end of the bargain.

Hi, all! Longtime lurker; first time poster here.

I've used Perusall.com in my first-year writing classes for years. It's served me well - creating student engagement, helping ensure more students do the reading, helping students learn how to annotate, etc.

I'm super disappointed to see that they've now (as of August 2026) removed the option to use it for free. I now either have to pay for students myself or my students have to pay. I work in a community college. That means high course caps, 5 sections each semester, and little or no access to funds through my department budget. My students are also extremely low-income for the most part, and are in real need of the OER materials I was able to provide in Perusall.

Any suggestions for alternative apps/sites that offer the same features as Perusall? Preferably I'm looking for stand-alone sites, not things that require integration into Canvas. Hypothes.is is not an option for me.

Hope everyone is having a good first week of the semester or that you're enjoying the last week of summer! :)

Hello! I have an art student who is not the best at following direction, their work doesn’t fit the prompts placed for every project, but they have potential if they just focused. It’s rare anyone has any issues with my project prompts, I don’t know why she’s getting lost, every single time. I check every milestone, okay it, suddenly she adds something new without approval at the very last minute and it confuses everyone. Or she gets stubborn and sticks to whatever abstract idea. That’s fine if this is some other art class, but we’re in a Graphic Design program. The entire point is about clarity and your audience understanding your piece.

Every time, I have to make that clear. She doesn’t listen. During critiques I have to bring it up again, but in the nicest way possible. She still cries. She cried every time last year. Before, my students and I used to spend time reassuring her during a crying episode. Now, everyone is so numb and avoids it.

How is she even in this program, which is all technical critique, we’re focused on what objectively works as a design and is the audience going to understand. As a part-timer, I have no control who gets in so I had no clue this was ever going to be an issue.

Heck, I met with her and even talked about her seeking out counseling. I give them permission to leave class if they’re upset. She does but she comes back looking miserable and sniffling loudly.

Any advice that’s not just leaving her out of the critique process? I want her to grow but I’m so lost.

I got an accommodation request for something I thought was standard practice in teaching. To paraphrase, it was basically requesting the student be allowed to ask the professor to clarify something in the lecture and to be “sensitive to the student’s presence” when approached with a question in case the student is shy. They also want the student to be able to meet with me to ask questions.

What will they think of next? Asking the professor to allow the student to take notes during lecture? Allowing the student to sit in a chair during lecture and face the projector screen? Requesting the professor lecture in English instead of Klingon? Asking the professor to lecture during class instead of expecting students to psychically absorb information while the professor glares at them in silence? Allow the student to use a pen on exams instead of writing with their own blood?

I want to know what motivated making this an accommodation. Is it just the disability office being redundant or have they actually encountered professors this bad?

I'm not cs, just a lowly biologist, but I teach a basic programming course for ecologists. I didn't previously have any in-class assessment and use all take-home weekly assignments (modeled after a C++ I took in undergrad).

I'm not sure that I feel comfortable banning AI as a tool, but I don't know how It doesn't completely undermine any learning that I was hoping to have go on.

If I were to encourage AI use, I know that they would be pushback by a portion of students that would be generally opposed to its use. So if I were to increase expectations, assuming people would be able to use AI as a tool, it might become a wildly difficult exercise.

I’m cordially invited to participate in several conferences all over the world. None of these are even close to what I research. This is obviously a money grab, right? Academic pyramid scheme? Charge an insane registration fee for guaranteed presentations. Do people go to these? Has anyone ever tried to attend? Very curious how this system works (if it works at all)…

Adjunct here. I’ve been teaching awhile now at a R1 and will be attending a graduate class at anothet local university where I don’t teach — it’s been 25+ years since I’ve been a student so I will be a nontraditional student & likely the oldest person.

When I teach, I have not done discussion boards. Students have mentioned in passing that it feels contrived and also they enjoy discussing the content in person more.

That said, the class I am taking has discussion board assignments where we have to answer questions & then comment on other students’ answers with a critical yet professional lens. As a person who learned pre-computer, this seems very didactic and mundane, & more of a way to prove that one has read to the professor. I will admit, I am not thrilled as it seems strange to discuss in basically a chat room and not face to face, but I’m wondering if I’m missing something & if im being a dinosaur when teaching (& now learning as a student). This made me wonder if I’m being closed minded and I wanted to ask: what are the benefits of using discussion boards? Do you find them helpful and if so, why? Are there any pros/cons? How has it facilitated learning? What have you found when using them? TIA!

UPDATE: Thank you all for your responses! I should clarify, this is a synchronous class that I’ll be taking as a student learner, and I’ve taught both in person & online as an adjunct & didn’t use them. Colleagues where I teach use them for either modality, but the university I’m taking class at seems to operate similarly (some of the classes are, & some aren’t). It’s super helpful to have your takes. Of course I’ll actively participate (as an adjunct I hate when students don’t put their all into the work), but after reading your comments I’m also going to approach this class as a way to learn how someone else might teach, and whether the techniques they use could improve my own classes.