Work colleagues

[scottsdad]

First day back at work, and I've gone full Prof. 

He and I had a meeting this morning about his block teaching. As a reminder, for his course he teaches his students for 3 full days (3 x 7 hours = 21 hours face to face time). I teach mine for 2 hours per week for 11 weeks (22 hours face to face time). He was talking about how it gave him weeks on end with no work other than setting online work for the students (I already have loads of that on my course, videos and written notes and quizzes etc).  Time to do other stuff. Time to reflect, think, work on other things. He even took a few days off last year mid-semester. That, and in his full days he sets out far more in-depth work than you can do in a short class. The problem he has is that his course is the only one to do block teaching. So our programme is all disjointed. 

The solution was simple. Someone else will have to do the same. In a moment of either epiphany or madness, I volunteered. 

So the students will show up in a room for a whole day, six times in the semester. Three times they get him, three times they get me. Next year we might get another couple of courses joining so students just have a full day each week, different class each time. 

f**k it. I'm feeling a bit worn out this year and maybe he's on to something. If it all goes wrong I can switch back in future. 

[BFTD]

2 hours ago, Buzz Killington said:

I work in an open plan office. Is it normal to sit at your desk at lunchtime and make personal phone calls?  Especially when there two empty meeting rooms they could sit in and do it.

In the last 20 mins I have overheard one colleague phoning the doctor and discussing in great detail their daughter's illness. Another one has just been phoning various companies to change their address. I recon I have heard enough to start opening bank accounts in her name. 

Arehole behaviour. 

Yesterday I spent half an hour alone in the break room with some rando who immediately phoned his missus and put it on speaker. He had absolutely nothing to say, looked miserable, and it became very obvious that he'd only called her because he was expected to during breaks. She just asked a serious of bland questions about what he'd been doing. Depressing as f**k.

[TxRover]

19 minutes ago, scottsdad said:

First day back at work, and I've gone full Prof. 

He and I had a meeting this morning about his block teaching. As a reminder, for his course he teaches his students for 3 full days (3 x 7 hours = 21 hours face to face time). I teach mine for 2 hours per week for 11 weeks (22 hours face to face time). He was talking about how it gave him weeks on end with no work other than setting online work for the students (I already have loads of that on my course, videos and written notes and quizzes etc).  Time to do other stuff. Time to reflect, think, work on other things. He even took a few days off last year mid-semester. That, and in his full days he sets out far more in-depth work than you can do in a short class. The problem he has is that his course is the only one to do block teaching. So our programme is all disjointed. 

The solution was simple. Someone else will have to do the same. In a moment of either epiphany or madness, I volunteered. 

So the students will show up in a room for a whole day, six times in the semester. Three times they get him, three times they get me. Next year we might get another couple of courses joining so students just have a full day each week, different class each time. 

f**k it. I'm feeling a bit worn out this year and maybe he's on to something. If it all goes wrong I can switch back in future. 

Seems a recipe for screwing a student who misses a single session. How is that addressed in cases where it isn’t their fault?

[scottsdad]

12 minutes ago, TxRover said:

Seems a recipe for screwing a student who misses a single session. How is that addressed in cases where it isn’t their fault?

You could say the same for a student who misses a lecture/tutorial now. 

The fact is, our attendance is 60-70% only. These folk pay thousands to come and many don't. 

It is a fair comment; hence why we have so much online also. 

[TxRover]

1 hour ago, scottsdad said:

You could say the same for a student who misses a lecture/tutorial now. 

The fact is, our attendance is 60-70% only. These folk pay thousands to come and many don't. 

It is a fair comment; hence why we have so much online also. 

Yes, but…1/3 of the class vs 1/11 of the class seems drastic.

[scottsdad]

8 minutes ago, TxRover said:

Yes, but…1/3 of the class vs 1/11 of the class seems drastic.

I get that. At the same time, if this really is a better learning experience overall, should we ignore it for the odd student who misses a class? 

[Sugar_Army]

When I was over at University of Georgia a few years ago with my mate doing research  we got to know one of the history profs quite well. 

He was old school and told how one of his students complained on Rate My Tutor (or something similar) that he hated the fact the Prof took class register and it was used a percentage of a grade mark.

Prof said he went into class one day, announced he had read it and followed it up with "The great state of Georgia sees it befitting to pay me to teach you.  If you cannot be bothered  to turn up for class in the hope you might graduate. then Waffle House have openings if you want to flip pancakes and burgers".

[BFTD]

Long time ago, I went to college over in the States for a while. You clocked in and out of classes with a card reader, and were allowed two absences per semester, per class. You logged a third absence and you were taking, and paying for, that class all over again if you wanted to graduate.

Obviously that benefitted the college more than anyone else, as it would've helped both their pass rates and bank balance, but there weren't a lot of absences in the classes I took.

[scottsdad]

I used to take a register. One year I plotted a graph of grades vs attendance. Clear straight line relationship. I still show it to students today. 

When you have a class of anything over, say, 80 students it becomes a hassle. Getting that many folk to find and sign their names on a sheet of paper takes ages. 

[TxRover]

1 hour ago, scottsdad said:

I get that. At the same time, if this really is a better learning experience overall, should we ignore it for the odd student who misses a class? 

My question was is there a means to address the odd student that is hit by a bus that morning, not the typical slacker.

[Central Belt Caley]

12 minutes ago, scottsdad said:

I used to take a register. One year I plotted a graph of grades vs attendance. Clear straight line relationship. I still show it to students today. 

When you have a class of anything over, say, 80 students it becomes a hassle. Getting that many folk to find and sign their names on a sheet of paper takes ages. 

Think I’ve posted this before but one of my lecturers at uni took a register mainly for the benefit of if someone complained about their grade and had only been to 3 lectures then she could show that. 
 

I went to all her lectures and my mate went to all bar one and we got the highest marks in the class.
 

I would say it depends on the quality of the lecturer too, few of the lecturers I had weren’t the best and you struggled to stay focused the full time so were better off just reading the slides at home 

[parsforlife]

14 minutes ago, scottsdad said:

I used to take a register. One year I plotted a graph of grades vs attendance. Clear straight line relationship. I still show it to students today. 

When you have a class of anything over, say, 80 students it becomes a hassle. Getting that many folk to find and sign their names on a sheet of paper takes ages. 

Completely off topic but what are your thoughts on the large sizes for lectures?   I feel it was a large part(certainly not only) of me ending up dropping out, it was quite difficult to transit from being in a small room with 20 odd people(and by the time you hit 6th year some courses barely hitting double figures) to being in a lecture hall for 200+ and being more talked at instead of taught. 

[alta-pete]

3 hours ago, scottsdad said:

First day back at work, and I've gone full Prof. 

He and I had a meeting this morning about his block teaching. As a reminder, for his course he teaches his students for 3 full days (3 x 7 hours = 21 hours face to face time). I teach mine for 2 hours per week for 11 weeks (22 hours face to face time). He was talking about how it gave him weeks on end with no work other than setting online work for the students (I already have loads of that on my course, videos and written notes and quizzes etc).  Time to do other stuff. Time to reflect, think, work on other things. He even took a few days off last year mid-semester. That, and in his full days he sets out far more in-depth work than you can do in a short class. The problem he has is that his course is the only one to do block teaching. So our programme is all disjointed. 

The solution was simple. Someone else will have to do the same. In a moment of either epiphany or madness, I volunteered. 

So the students will show up in a room for a whole day, six times in the semester. Three times they get him, three times they get me. Next year we might get another couple of courses joining so students just have a full day each week, different class each time. 

f**k it. I'm feeling a bit worn out this year and maybe he's on to something. If it all goes wrong I can switch back in future. 

 

[BFTD]

20 minutes ago, scottsdad said:

I used to take a register. One year I plotted a graph of grades vs attendance. Clear straight line relationship. I still show it to students today. 

When you have a class of anything over, say, 80 students it becomes a hassle. Getting that many folk to find and sign their names on a sheet of paper takes ages. 

Aye, I think most lecturers deliver that as their first lesson, and it's a point worth making. Two of the guys I've recently been studying with made it clear from the off that they considered themselves hot shit, and the diploma would be a foregone conclusion for them. Their attendance was abysmal, and they didn't finish all the work needed to complete first year, but were allowed to carry it over to second year. One celebrated by booking a holiday that finished in week four of the new term, and neither turned up any more often, nor bothered trying to catch up with the information they'd missed. Right 'til the end, they were talking about how they'd "get all this stuff knocked out over the weekend".

Both failed. No idea if they'll be allowed to repeat. I saw them recently and one was talking about appealing to the University to carry everything from years 1 & 2 over to third year, which is denial on an astonishing scale. Our lecturers had mentioned that they'd be advising not to allow them to repeat, as they'd just fail again because they don't see what they're doing wrong.

[scottsdad]

24 minutes ago, parsforlife said:

Completely off topic but what are your thoughts on the large sizes for lectures?   I feel it was a large part(certainly not only) of me ending up dropping out, it was quite difficult to transit from being in a small room with 20 odd people(and by the time you hit 6th year some courses barely hitting double figures) to being in a lecture hall for 200+ and being more talked at instead of taught. 

If the lecturer is good, it can be managed well. I use lots of breaks, tasks for them to do in groups and so on. I also have tutors who help go round the room and help anyone when I have given them something to work on. 

In part, this is driving the Prof's plans. The day with him has a bit of lecture, break out rooms, working on a brief, developing something in teams and presenting work. Is that better than showing up for a bog standard lecture every week? Maybe. But it is designed for big classes. 

Biggest class I ever had was 454 students. But that was during covid, and only 50 were with me in person. The rest were watching online. We don't even have a room big enough for all of them. 

[scottsdad]

42 minutes ago, TxRover said:

My question was is there a means to address the odd student that is hit by a bus that morning, not the typical slacker.

Yes, we have things in place for students like this. 

[Cosmic Joe]

18 hours ago, Swarley said:

I'd say most normal people would find somewhere private but yes that sounds fairly standard as offices are full of ârseholes. The ill daughter one will be hoping someone overheard and will now talk about it. 

Particularly seeing as the doctor is the father. 

[Jacksgranda]

20 hours ago, Swarley said:

I'd say most normal people would find somewhere private but yes that sounds fairly standard as offices are full of ârseholes. The ill daughter one will be hoping someone overheard and will now talk about it. 

I'm a cynical b*****d, too...

[philpy]

This lot has been in the sink since yesterday lunchtime. Good to see the bosses instructions being adhered to.

 

[Florentine_Pogen]

^^^ There's one in every village, philpy.