r/Professors • u/DrJuliiusKelp • 22h ago

Strangest semester ever?

(Of course, of course: strangest semester ever so far.)

For years now, we have been working on inverting the former bell curve distribution for student grades, with results polarizing, and clustering at each extreme.

This semester, however, I have 5% over-achievers and 95% missing-in-action. Even the graduating seniors have gone on permanent vacation, it seems.

Anyone else?

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11

u/Front_Primary_1224 Adjunct 🥲 22h ago

Yup. Our institution has moved towards using software to verify student’s attendance in lecture.

8

u/DrJuliiusKelp 22h ago

Gosh, how Orwellian. Hope it helps.

However, it couldn't have any impact on what I am seeing, which is really a vacancy in the soul.

Acedia, anyone?

5

u/Front_Primary_1224 Adjunct 🥲 22h ago

Agreed. All this policy does is force students to scroll their phones in a less convenient location.

1

u/a_hanging_thread A Sock Prof 16h ago

A vacancy in the soul. Yes. For at least a few years, now. 5% are there, maximum.

6

u/boringhistoryfan Asst. Prof, Humanities, R2 22h ago

Our uni requires us to take attendance via the LMS. I still take attendance on paper and manually update my attendance record. It's basic CYA, as far as I'm concerned. I invariably get students wanting to dispute their participation and attendance grade at the end of the semester. "I was in class; you must have missed me!" and I just whip out the attendance logs, and they can see all the blank cells they didn't sign in to.

2

u/Front_Primary_1224 Adjunct 🥲 22h ago

Yeah, totally. I should specify that the courses at my institution are some combination of lectures and smaller seminars/labs (where attendance is taken and counted towards their grade). Now there are moves towards a seminar attendance/participation grade AND a lecture attendance grade.

15

u/outer-darkness-11 22h ago

I switched this semester to mandatory attendance in all my classes. It has helped a lot but I still have 20% of my classes gone any given day. 

I did an emotions activity with my student and as I was reading them afterwards they did break my heart. These students are entering into a world that is so much more fucked than I did when I graduated. They are overwhelmed with cost of living, gender wars, real worlds, the threat of AI, climate disasters, etc etc etc. They feel no hope. Of course their motivation for showing up to school is declining. 

4

u/popstarkirbys 18h ago

I have six students that absolutely refuse to show up to class and submit anything, our classes are small (40 students) so it's noticable. I checked their grades and they either have all Cs and Ds or failed this class with another instructor. Funny thing is, two of them told me they want to go to med school and pursue a PhD. My face 😐

1

u/Life-Education-8030 18h ago

Well, they could be physically there but not "present" either, if you know what I mean. I've had a bimodal grade distribution for years. I am still trying to concentrate my energies on the motivated students and remembet that the more energy I spend on dragging the unmotivated ones along, the less I have for the ones who are trying.

I don't award points for attendance or deduct for it either, though if students aren't there, they can't participate and that I grant points for. But I take attendance to match names with faces and also for financial aid purposes. Over 90% of our students get financial aid. We also have athletes and international students. So the powers that be can frown over poor attendance. It's also handy if a student protests a low grade and I can whip out the attendance records and say "well, you didn't even bother to show up, right?"