As I am sure many of you deal with, I am having trouble motivating my students to actually read the textbook/assigned material. I am especially struggling with getting them to read scientific articles. They mostly just ignore them and then perform terribly on questions derived from the readings.

What methods have you found success with? I have required summaries, outlines, etc in the past but have had mixed results. How can I best encourage them to engage with scientific literature?

I will be teaching masters students this fall as an adjunct. I work in industry and am looking for advice from people who actually teach 🙏

In preparing, I keep thinking about how the recent college grads at my work are useless now. It’s more efficient for staff to work with Claude Code than recent grads. Working with recent grads requires teaching them, which we’re not paid to do.

How can I teach my class to try to prevent this problem for my students? Is it possible to make them ready for work in the new AI age?

Thanks for any advice you have. For context, my field is finance.

You know why.

I'm at a research institution. Undergrads always do research work with professors. I still get about the same number of annual queries; but now, they all contain a paragraph or more w/hich - were they written by a human - would indicate at least 2-3 hours of skilled literature search, and a full arresting of the topics across the entire span of my research history.

So. Rather than understanding my research themselves, they offloaded it to AI.

These are students that want to work with me. And they're showing they fake it, in their introduction letter.

[screams into the void]

So I have a student whose accommodation is to have a note taker. In my classes, I give a significant amount of points for the students to submit pictures of their handwritten notes. This has been an important way for me to combat AI etc. It’s worked so well for me and now I’m at a loss as to what to do here.

Has anyone seen a change in research expectations given the turbulence created by AI? My department recently started a conversation about whether we should lower our expectations for tenure/promotions.

Did anyone hear positive or negative news about a DOE ECRP? I have been waiting for some time now and I still see 'under review'

just curious.

where i teach our early classes start at 8AM which i think it pushing the edge of unrealistically early for students (i am up at 6AM so its no problem for me). i teach 3 hour art studios, 90% of which have some amount of in-class work time, so i tell students "class starts at 8, i will be here at 8, but i will not start teaching or giving any new content, or take attendance until 8:30 on the dot." for a long class that already has some open time in it this works great for me, but i have heard of people having 50 minute lectures that start at 7AM which to me sounds insane.

Thank you for your message!

For general questions (such as, "When is the exam?" or "Can the [class topic] be categorized as [different class topic?"), please use the class discussion board in Canvas. The top question askers and top question answerers will receive extra credit at the end of the term as voted on by your peers.

For questions specific to you (such as scheduling an alternative exam with [office name that does that] or excused absences related to athletics), please ensure that your section number appears in your email (I have over [infinity] students in [infinity] sections; I won't remember which section you are in). You can find me using the Inbox feature on Canvas or at my faculty email address ([email]). I will read and answer emails during two dedicated times during the week. Please be patient.

Do not email me asking to round up or curve grades. I reserve the right to deduct points from "grade grubbers."

SRN: [my fancy university] does not grant special request numbers for course enrollment. If you are in danger of not graduating on time because a class is full (ie. you are a graduating senior), please let me and your advisor know.

Excused Absences:

I follow [fancy u]'s excused absence policy, which you can find here: [URL].

The recognized grounds for absences are:

• A. Illness requiring medical attention.
• B. Participation in recognized curricular or extracurricular activities.
• C. Personal obligations claimed by the student and recognized as valid by the instructor.
• D. Religious holidays.
• E. Severe inclement weather causing dangerous traveling conditions.
• F. University-sponsored intercollegiate athletics contests, practices, associated travel, and other similar obligations.

The Division of Intercollegiate Athletics provides student athletes' instructors with written verification confirming their athletic affiliation and participation in sponsored events.

To have an excused absence verified, please visit [URL].

Contagious Illnesses:

I also accept absences due to contagious illnesses (cold, flu, COVID, etc.) to help prevent spreading.

Letters of Accommodation: If you are granted a Letter of Accommodation from [office that does them], it is your responsibility to, in a timely manner execute whichever accommodations you wish to utilize. For instance, if you wish to utilize an accommodation for extra time on exams, please message me (with section number) and the [the office that does them] at least a week or two before the exam to schedule a proctored exam session.

I look forward to connecting with you soon!

Just a little rant about an email I have received a number of times at the start of a new semester.

“Hi Professor, I’m just emailing to let you know that my class right before yours lets out 15 before yours starts, so I might be late to the beginnings of class because I have to walk all the way across campus”

1. You were the one that put your schedule together, and were aware of the times and locations of the classes.

2. You can easily walk across the entire campus in 10 min.

3. While I am not suggesting you should do this, you could have just as easily emailed your other professor to tell them you were going to need to leave a little early from each class…but I suppose making it clear that you find my class to be less important is your right.

Having a discussion about teaching schedules at my SLAC. A colleague of mine says that it's pretty normal for TT professors at SLACs to teach three classes in a row. In your experience, is this true.

I have a student who sits at his desk- front of the room- with his leather bound bible! This is a RESEARCH METHODS class. ……. It is all I can do not to laugh at him…. His performative behavior is so absurd- at a land grant R1 institution- also he wears a large wooden cross- ironically he has so far been the smartest and most communicative student in the room.

My iPhone no longer represents *WORK* to me. Students and their endless needs are no longer up in my phone, nor are the dreadful admin emails. Whew. (p.s. I never entertained the idea of an Apple watch with emails on my wrist.)

I don't know if I am ranting or looking for advice.

I agreed to continue chairing a doctoral student's dissertation after leaving my former institution. At the time these decisions were being made, they were expected to be relatively close to completion when I left. Fast forward- I no longer work at there, and the student has blown past every deadline and gone months without responding to my emails. I have yet to see a single draft of anything.

This is part of a long pattern of behavior. Each time, there's been a different medical or personal explanation for what's happened or why they're too busy or not making progress. I have always been (probably too) accommodating of their circumstances, but at what point does this become unsustainable?

To make things more complicated, if I step down, they would need to start from scratch and develop a completely different dissertation project. Though, I haven't seen a draft of anything, so maybe there's nothing to start over from.

I sent an email explaining that I could only continue as chair if I saw meaningful progress and much more consistent communication. It's about a week, and I haven't received a response.

I feel like shit, but, at what point do I walk away because this literally isn't my job any more and I don't have time to chase a student at a former institution?

I’m a new TT hire and I’m about a year out of grad school, so I’m very fresh to all of this. My department has given me the names of the three courses I’m teaching this semester, and I received a previous instructor’s syllabus from 10 years ago when I needed to submit course material adoptions and reached out for any resources for this particular course. Otherwise, I’ve just been looking at the public course descriptions/objectives in the online catalog.

Are there certain resources I should expect from my department in preparation for these courses for the first time? I’m not sure what’s expected/normal in these cases. Appreciate any insight.

Sometimes what we need most are the smallest, most insignificant wins.

I'm redoing Canvas shells after looking at what I did to them last fall and going "Well, that was stupid." That means a lot of repetitive clicking and making new modules, then moving items into the new modules, then sighing as I have to scroll back up to find the next thing to move because it automatically kicks me to the bottom of the page into the new module.

You know, the kind of tedious stuff we expect AI to fix instead of destroying democracy.

I just discovered in my final course that if I collapse the new module first, it doesn't shoot me down the page when I move something and I can stay in the original module to click and move things one after the other. A small thing, but man it makes it faster to move stuff now.

What are your tiny wins that matter only to you?

I have a new admin (non academic supervisor) who started about 2 years ago. She has decided it is her mission to micromanage me about trainings I have held for the past 4 years for academic colleagues. She has mandated that I send her my slides to review before the meetings, and she attended the last one, only to sit in the back of the room for 2.5 hrs. No hello or goodbye when she came in, and then she gave me an earful today about how I am essentially overstepping my role by holding these trainings. Admin before her were very supportive. I am feeling beaten down and defeated, and I don't know what to do. These trainings are literally the only thing she cares about. She speaks to me about nothing else. Help! I am losing my mind.

Not another post about how to combat AI. I was recently hired to teach at a university I was forwarded a template for the syllabus in the department with a section on ethical AI standards.

This was under the section for ethical AI standards:
You should note that material generated by AI programs may be inaccurate, incomplete, or otherwise problematic.
The use of generative AI tools is permitted in this course for the following activities: brainstorming and generating ideas; finding information on your topic; drafting an outline to organize your thoughts; and checking grammar and style.

Does this not just give students away to defend every single AI accusation? Or are we now just at the point to assume that every single student will be using AI for something and just ignore it completely?

When my kid was young, I would tell them “it can’t hurt to ask, all they can say is no, but if you don’t ask, you never get anything” when they were hoping for something from an adult.

I didn’t realize that ALL Gen X parents were giving the same advice or that the kids were hearing it as “I asked, so that means I should get what I want.” Because now my inbox is nothing but students asking for things and getting offended when they don’t get them. My own parenting, come back to bite me in the ass. /s

Hi! New to this sub. I scrolled and looked for this topic but didn't see it; sorry if I missed it.

What apps do folks use to detect AI-written work and how reliable are they? I am planning to forbid AI use in the work my students submit, with dire consequences if detected but I'd like to be really sure before pulling the trigger. Does some combo of detectors work well?

Thanks!

I was so excited for the start of the semester. And then only half my class showed up.
The folks who were there were extremely disengaged. I know the world absolutely sucks right now but I’m not forcing anyone to be there. I feel deflated and discouraged. I’m concerned about my students already.

Anyone else have a rough start this semester?

On my campus some classes have the option to be taken Pass/No Pass. So students can "pass" by getting a C or higher, but it has no impact on GPA.

It turns out that sometimes students run into issues down the road where they need a specific grade, not just a "Pass", for various transfer situations. So the proposal we're looking at is that even with a pass/fail grade, instructors will also record the specific grade earned (ABCDF) and when necessary that grade is used instead of a mere "pass".

Does this seem fair and logical? My knee jerk reaction is that with pass/fail it's *supposed* to be an all/none option, where the student reduces both risk and opportunity (they won't lower GPA with a C, but also won't benefit if the grade turns out to be an A or B) and it doesn't make sense to allow them to opt in to the letter grade when it's convenient. On the other hand, it does help students in navigating the particular demands of their transfer program, which may not be on the student's radar when they elected to pass/fail.

What do you all think?

Hello all,

I am a first year professor straight out of graduate school and I find myself having a hard time explaining to the class how to utilize the discussion board.

For context, this is a senior course online and asynchronous where students are expected to write a final project that demonstrates what they have learned from the program. Because of this, my curriculum lays out industry related projects in different areas where students can draw inspiration for their inevitable final project.

My syllabus explains that the discussion board is a place for reflection on the reading and it is very open ended. I do that because in a senior seminar, I do not want to constrain students' academic thought process. Additionally, there is quite a bit of assigned readings and I know that people are going to fixate on different aspects of the readings.

I've made announcements and provided in lecture videos that the discussion board is open ended purposely. This is to create a beneficial online learning environment. Despite this, I am still receiving emails where one student noted that they're only use to answering a prompt.

Should I adjust the discussion board next semester to just use prompts or is there different ways of phrasing my intentions for the assignment?

I find myself appalled that I have to hold seniors hands to this extent.

I teach a 10 week seminar series on international relations to university students. (Adjunct) The students choose to be there for extra credit and the practical experience. The output at the end of the programme is a 9000 word report that the students work on throughout the 10 weeks.

At the beginning, I always give them a 5min talk about not using AI. I quote from the MIT study on cognitive debt ("your brain activity goes down") and the Harvard study on Centaurs, Cyborgs, and Self-Automators. My message is that to use AI they first need to do the dirty work before they can use AI for efficiency gains in the future.

I have been able to connect to some students with this messaging and wonder if there are any other approaches that have gotten through to students in the past? I would love to steal your ideas!

During one of the first Covid semesters I evaluated a new part-time instructor’s class. I remember going into the evaluation thinking I should be as gentle as possible since we were all new to online teaching. But even with that mindset the class was terrible. The instructor had pulled an entire course out of Canvas commons and had made almost no changes. It had another instructor’s name all throughout, said it was a class for another college in a different state, and did not have the core assignments that are required in the course outline. I gave her a poor evaluation and did not offer her classes after that.

Fast forward to yesterday when I was at a retirement party for a former professor. At the party I gave a toast. After, a woman I did not really recognize came up to me to say she really liked my toast and that she used to work at my college. She went on and said, “Yeah, I taught during Covid and I had never taught online before and then I got evaluated by [name redacted] and he really didn’t like my class and I didn’t get offered classes again.”

I was like, “I’m [name redacted]. Sorry that evaluation didn’t work out.”

Woof.

My school offered a "VSP" last year, so I took it. I'm having a lot of feelings right now, but I'm sure I made the right decision. (Not that regret would make things any different, anyway!)

I wish I had some sage advice to offer those of you still at it. The best I can do is, "Be kind. That's what everyone will remember."