She made the same mistakes that my other arrogant, self-absorbed, more-technical-than-thou students have made: She never turned in drafts of her essays. She posted topic proposals, but apparently didn't read my feedback that she needed to find information to back all of her claims and avoid using unsubstantiated personal opinions as the basis of an argument. Any feedback on her essays that she did happen to read she took as personal insult (likely because she was only putting forth her personal opinions rather than actual arguments), ignoring my actual words in favor of her emotional response to having her writing critiqued by someone more knowledgeable than she. She did the bare-ass minimum to slide by, rationalizing her poor performance by telling herself that this class was teaching her nothing anyway, so why should she waste her time trying? She was going to be an ENGINEER, goddamn it, a member of the hard sciences, the only field that matters in this world, and no writing teacher from the touchy-feely English Department could possibly have anything to teach her.
I didn't put these pieces together until the weekend after the summer term ended, though. She didn't contact me with questions or concerns. She didn't post anything obviously problematic to the discussion forums during the term. All I saw from her were poorly executed essays that just barely met the minimum requirements and lackluster participation elsewhere. Contrary to her engineering background, the elements of her essays that needed the most work were her logic and her use of evidence to back her claims. I wrote lots of comments and questions on the middle two essays of the course attempting to draw her attention to these problems, none of which appeared to have any impact on her writing or argument quality. She seemed to just grow more stubborn.
Anyway, we slogged through to the end of the term and arrived at the final day. I checked the submission folders, discussion boards, and my email throughout the night that last day, just to see how things were going. No major problems, so I went to bed.
When I woke up the morning after the final deadline to begin the last grading stint of the summer term, I found three discussion posts from Engineering Elise, posted about 9 hours after the final deadline.
One was her response to the final discussion prompt, which asks students to reflect on their learning and development as writers. I think this kind of exercise is worth the risks of students bashing me and/or the class, and I haven't had many students do this in the last six years that I've asked this question in one form or another. The vast majority of my students seem to take the prompt seriously and discover that the class helped them grow, even if they hated it during the semester. Engineering Elise, in her late response which would receive no credit, had the following lovely things to say:
- In the real world I would be able to make logical arguments not according to a rubric but according to fact. I know how to use conventions, keep a reader interested, and add fluff to fill rubric requirements.
- In this class I have learned that composition is still a vague subject with no definitive method. I have reassured my dislike for lack of a concrete answer and do not feel it is important in my future field. I was reassured I picked a fitting degree that does not pay attention to argumentative, opinionated composition but rather solving problems that exist in real life and presenting solutions in clear terms.
- Overall I was expecting to learn about more useful types of writing but I learned not to expect too much from non technical writing classes.
- I have concluded that writing will be in my future no matter what but it will not be open ended or opinionated. It will be factual and present real solutions to real problems in the world. I realize being direct and firm in writing was not what this specific professor was looking for based on comments, but this is an important lesson that applies to all real world disagreements. Change to please and get the grade in this situation, but this was not something I was willing to do.
She also responded to another student's post for the same prompt: "seems like you have grasped the cookie cutter concepts of this class . . . In my opinion you have learned an even more important lesson in this class, fine tuning the art of bulls******* while using persuasion skills :)"
At first, I was angry and sad -- reading these kinds of evaluations always makes me question my teaching and makes me feel like a loser, even when I know the student is a shithead.
Then, I grew concerned -- maybe she was right! Maybe I had graded her unfairly! I reviewed my comments on her essays and remembered how awful her argumentation was. For such a technically-minded, facts-based person, she couldn't argue her way out of a paper bag. Her entire research argument essay had been based on emotional manipulation and allusions to "tradition," without any evidence that tradition was actually better than contemporary practice. If I had to do it again, I would grade her terrible essays the exact same way. Even if she did make a complaint or appeal her grade, her work was well documented as being of low quality, so while it would be a hassle, I would probably not suffer.
Then I looked in the submissions folders: Engineering Elise had not turned in ANYTHING. She didn't submit the final essay or a revision, and she wouldn't receive credit for her discussion posts because they were late. I smiled to myself and resolved to respond professionally to her inevitable email requesting an extension. I would decline politely, citing unfairness to the other students, and I would not point out that she was a total asshole who deserved to bathe in the karma bath she had drawn for herself.
I set about grading and getting the gradebook ready for final review. When I had all the grades in and the final column displayed, I discovered that Engineering Elise had a big, fat F for the course. Ha! Still cautious, I checked for anything of hers that I may have missed, since I really don't enjoy going through the grade-challenge process, and there was nothing. She earned that F, fair and square. She could have gotten a C if she had turned in the final essay, or a D if she had done her final discussions on time, even if they were bitchy. But she didn't, and after her little tirade, I was not given to rounding up or accepting late work or anything that might help her out.
I never did hear from Engineering Elise, even after the email to the entire class asking them to check their grades. Even if she didn't learn to use up-to-date sources or how not to take critiques of one's writing personally, I hope against hope that she had the self-awareness to take stock of her situation and preserve a shred of dignity by not asking for an extension. She should be deeply embarrassed, and I hope that is the reason she didn't get in touch with me after the end of the term.
I also wonder how she'll go about retaking this course for a passing grade while avoiding me, as I would do if I were in her situation, since I'm the only one who teaches the online section of this course. Perhaps she'll have to suck it up for a whole 16 weeks in a classroom, all because she was too arrogant to suck it up for 8 weeks and do the work as assigned.
This is why I don't use the discussion function in online courses anymore. I learned the hard way that even a simple public question/answer module is a mistake. Without the hovering, IRL presence of the professor, some students will see you as faceless, and will be emboldened to organize themselves against you using the discussion groups as a forum not for learning, but for challenging your authority.
ReplyDeleteIt has gotten worse as the internet itself has gotten "worse". More omnipresent. More combative.
Now, in my online classes, each student is in the equivalent of solitary confinement.
They will stay that way.
I've noticed this too and it's been getting worse very rapidly.
DeleteI've never considered going the isolationist route before. You're right that the risks of a public meltdown infecting the whole class are fairly high in a discussion-heavy online course. I'm not yet totally convinced that these risks outweigh the benefits of allowing them the chance to talk to/learn from each other (sorry, super touchy-feely). I'll keep thinking about this, though -- thanks, Stella.
DeleteMy experience with online discussion groups is that no one wants to participate. The good students write thoughtful responses, the mediocre students parrot the good students (creatively, but parrot nonetheless) and the bad students write either nothing or factual stuff that has nothing to do with the discussion. Thus there is a huge grey area when it comes to assigning the grade.
DeleteBut it is for this reason that I also NEVER break my students into groups, unless I am too sick to teach to begin with.
This is completely the opposite from my experience. I wonder if it is teaching styles? I sometimes have issues in the first modules, but never after that. Perhaps 3 per class simply don't conform, but they receive Fs. Everyone else scrambles to add substantive posts 5-7 times on at least 3 different dates.
DeleteAnd as a result, I get to know more about what they are thinking than I would if we were staring at each other in person.
I get the flip side of this: English and writing majors who are offended that I, a mere scientist, have the temerity to critique their crappy writing.
ReplyDeleteI get that as well. It is beyond frustrating that these supposedly "great writers" that turn up in my non-majors classes can't write a coherent sentence with even halfway decent grammar.
DeleteI don't, but it's only because my general-ed students are terrified of my awesome power.
DeleteLex, undistinguished professor of English, encourages you in this pursuit.
DeleteI get that too. But when they get really obnoxious, I drop the big bomb: In addition to my Ph.D. in a STEM discipline, I also have an M.A. in English. ;)
DeleteI get that too. But when they get really obnoxious, I drop the big bomb: In addition to my Ph.D. in a STEM discipline, I also have an M.A. in English. ;)
DeleteUgh. You have my sympathy. The world of engineering would be just like that if it weren't for the fact that people are the engineers. Engineers are like that before the get a co-op or internship.
ReplyDeleteThis was a really good story. I had to get another beer before I finished. I would be remiss if I didn't point out that engineers are not part of the sciences. They are separate. Here's why.
Another reason is that very few scientists want to take over the world. They don't much enjoy even managing their own labs.
DeleteTrue dat.
DeleteAh, fair enough!
Delete@Lucy: Hey, you can't beat up engineers like that. Only I can beat up engineers like that. ;-)
ReplyDeleteSeriously, you did exactly the right thing. Can you imagine Elise writing the documentation for a nuclear reactor? That it has to be done on schedule and under budget would be only the beginning of the trouble.
I was, of course, being sarcastic. :) I work with engineers in my day-job and I love them to pieces. Engineering students are another breed altogether, as Beaker Ben points out.
DeleteThis is a lot of reading to memorize for the test. Is there a Cliff's Notes for this?
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry! I trimmed as much as I could before I sent it. My bad habit is writing too much.
DeleteI teach, oh, History of Material Culture of Small Mammals, and back in the first term as an instructor-of-record for one of these courses in a summer block at R1-with-Nobel-winning-science-types-(but-also-surfing), I got mostly good student evals, but this one super bitchy excoriating eval, that started,
ReplyDelete"As an engineer, I have to say that this was the most stupid, pointless class I have ever taken. . ."
and went on from there. It was hysterically self-preening and dicky for some 19 year old from some Ventura suburb. Loved it. We tacked it up in the grad student lounge for a couple of terms.
Yeah, one of my last classroom classes at a community college starred a young man who was going to become a mechanical engineering major. He made it very clear throughout the term exactly what he thought of writing and my class. Now that I work for an engineering firm (a different subfield than mechanical, though), I wish I could bring him to work with me so he can see just how much writing my engineer colleagues do EVERY DAY. Maybe he would stop idealizing the field.
DeleteI've learned to fear and loathe engineering students. Possibly unfairly, but possibly not.
ReplyDeleteInteresting!
DeleteWhenever I get a shitty stuck up engineering student, I smile sweetly and tell the truth: one of my very favorite poetry students, ever, was an engineering student. She was terrified of the class at first, but every time she noticed something about the structure of a poem or the multiple possible connotations of a word she was spot-on. She let her engineering background help her, and it paid off.
ReplyDeleteAnd then there are the students who are just fine with the class, until they realize that you really mean that satisfactory work receives a B, not an A. How can an English proffie dare to give their work a B (even though they readily accept it when their engineering/other science proffies fail 1/3 of the class, including them)? The whole point of an English class is to bolster their GPAs (or to save them by balancing out that C or D in a science class).
ReplyDeleteActually, for the most part, I like teaching scientists to write. But the grade grubbing, and the lack of respect for my discipline, does get me down sometimes. Still, I'd much rather teach smart, hardworking grade grubbers (i.e. engineers, premeds, and the like) than dumber, lazier ones (all too many business students; so far, I have managed to avoid teaching business writing, and I rather hope to keep it that way).
Engineering students are most often a trade-off for me--they're hardworking and serious about their grades (and will work to maintain a GPA) but they often lack curiosity and creativity. And yes, they grade-grub. Not all, of course--I'm generalizing. On the whole, I usually don't mind having them in my class. They're used to actually, you know, studying.
DeleteSome of my best students have actually been business majors ... but they've also been among my worst. My university admits only the brightest directly into the business program (a 30 ACT is the minimum), but anyone else can declare once they've been there a semester. So you get the smartest in the university, and the dumbest.
My worst students are by far in a field called "family studies"--a catch-all major for people who want to be social workers, teacher aids, parole officers, and daycare workers. Even if they were used to studying, I'm not sure that they would be capable.
This sort of feedback infuriates me well beyond my ability to control my reaction, which isn't good at all. Just the sheer missing of the mark angers me: the idea that criteria are just personal preferences of professors; the notion that writing or communication is just about transmitting facts; that professors want fluff and bullshit; that there's such a thing as writing that isn't opinionated. All of it just cranks up my punching fists. I know it's just a string of lies the student has told herself to mitigate her own intense cognitive dissonance, but I want to say to her, damn it, suck it up and deal with that sense of discomfort at learning new things. That's what growing as a person means.
ReplyDeletethe notion that writing or communication is just about transmitting facts
DeleteWhat these fools don't seem to get is that, in order to transmit facts well, you have to be able to write half-decently.
Totally. The "personal preference as scoring mechanism" is probably my biggest annoyance with these types. Many of them even characterize formal MLA or APA style formatting to be my own personal preference.
DeleteI get the same complaints (though somewhat fewer) even after I have them spend considerable time looking at exactly how people in their discipline "transmit facts" -- i.e. what information goes where in a scholarly journal article.
DeleteI get the same complaints (though somewhat fewer) even after I have them spend considerable time looking at exactly how people in their discipline "transmit facts" -- i.e. what information goes where in a scholarly journal article.
DeleteI would be interested to know why you email them asking them to check their grades, since it seems like asking for trouble. An approach born of experience?
ReplyDeleteSometimes I miss a quiz or something in the process of grading -- the LMS is wonky and stupid, and I'd rather fix the problem before final grades are submitted than have to go through the grade-change or appeal process.
DeleteI also state, "Please do not waste your time by asking me to 'round up' your grade or to accept late work, because neither will happen." And then I say no to any special snowflake who thinks their request for grade-rounding or post-semester extensions is above this statement. Haven't had any problems since I started writing blunt emails like this!
DeleteIf it's any comfort to you, every engineer I know working in the "real world" is completely fucked. I go to a university with a massive self-congratulating engineering program and live in an area that is populated by engineers, and they all hate their jobs. They were all made the same promises when they were in college: that life would be so much better for them than for those soft-soap humanities majors, that they would make so much more money, that they would have so many options. Many of them do make good (but not great) money, but most are somewhat limited geographically. And apparently their jobs totally suck.
ReplyDeleteMy ex-boyfriend was an engineer, and he literally used to sneak out of work every day at 3 pm. He just could not be there physically anymore.
So every time I encounter another smug engineering student (which is all the time at my university), I picture them working for the local soul-sucking car manufacturing plant, which is where they all end up anyway--at least in my area. I think my university literally just shits them out and into that plant.