Pet Peeves

[Silverblade5 he/him]

5 minutes ago, Chaos said:

Guys, I'm triggered.

So you know how I teach college students, right? Well, I gave my final today, and I want to complain.

You see, as an instructor my goal with exams is for students to show what they know. I don't believe in ridiculously hard exams that are curved like crazy. I like straightforward exams where students can show off that they do know things.

To this end I made sure this final had problems that were stated very clearly. "Use Green's Theorem to compute this". "Use Stokes' Theorem to compute this." "Use the divergence theorem to compute this." I am basically instructing them onto the path on how to do the problem.

Do teachers somewhere else phrase things this way, but students just think that's there to trick them? Because when I tell you to freaking use the theorem, that's because the problem is way way easier if you do it this way. It's the difference between a three line, standard problem, and you doing a full page problem. I am telling you what to do to save you time! That's like if I cooked people free food and they slap it away because they want to cook the exact same meal themselves, just because. Don't you want free food!

There is even a problem where part a of the problem has you compute a quantity, and in part b, we say, "Compute this using your result from part a." And yet, people totally ignore this even though they usually compute the first part totally correctly. It is mind blowing. 

Shockingly, you'll never guess what happened. Because people spent their effort doing things the directions explicitly told them to not do, the exam seemed too long. Whoa! Maybe we should have read the instructions or something. 

I'm dying a little inside. 

I'm actually a bit curious on if I'd be able to pass this test. 

[Darkness Ascendant he/him]

2 hours ago, Chaos said:

Guys, I'm triggered.

So you know how I teach college students, right? Well, I gave my final today, and I want to complain.

You see, as an instructor my goal with exams is for students to show what they know. I don't believe in ridiculously hard exams that are curved like crazy. I like straightforward exams where students can show off that they do know things.

To this end I made sure this final had problems that were stated very clearly. "Use Green's Theorem to compute this". "Use Stokes' Theorem to compute this." "Use the divergence theorem to compute this." I am basically instructing them onto the path on how to do the problem.

Do teachers somewhere else phrase things this way, but students just think that's there to trick them? Because when I tell you to freaking use the theorem, that's because the problem is way way easier if you do it this way. It's the difference between a three line, standard problem, and you doing a full page problem. I am telling you what to do to save you time! That's like if I cooked people free food and they slap it away because they want to cook the exact same meal themselves, just because. Don't you want free food!

There is even a problem where part a of the problem has you compute a quantity, and in part b, we say, "Compute this using your result from part a." And yet, people totally ignore this even though they usually compute the first part totally correctly. It is mind blowing. 

Shockingly, you'll never guess what happened. Because people spent their effort doing things the directions explicitly told them to not do, the exam seemed too long. Whoa! Maybe we should have read the instructions or something. 

I'm dying a little inside. 

Wow. Now I kknnow how our teachers at my school feel like.

cos the teachers have to word everything perfectly now, lest we find a loophole 

Hope your day got better chaos!

[soyperson]

5 hours ago, Chaos said:

Guys, I'm triggered.

So you know how I teach college students, right? Well, I gave my final today, and I want to complain.

You see, as an instructor my goal with exams is for students to show what they know. I don't believe in ridiculously hard exams that are curved like crazy. I like straightforward exams where students can show off that they do know things.

To this end I made sure this final had problems that were stated very clearly. "Use Green's Theorem to compute this". "Use Stokes' Theorem to compute this." "Use the divergence theorem to compute this." I am basically instructing them onto the path on how to do the problem.

Do teachers somewhere else phrase things this way, but students just think that's there to trick them? Because when I tell you to freaking use the theorem, that's because the problem is way way easier if you do it this way. It's the difference between a three line, standard problem, and you doing a full page problem. I am telling you what to do to save you time! That's like if I cooked people free food and they slap it away because they want to cook the exact same meal themselves, just because. Don't you want free food!

There is even a problem where part a of the problem has you compute a quantity, and in part b, we say, "Compute this using your result from part a." And yet, people totally ignore this even though they usually compute the first part totally correctly. It is mind blowing. 

Shockingly, you'll never guess what happened. Because people spent their effort doing things the directions explicitly told them to not do, the exam seemed too long. Whoa! Maybe we should have read the instructions or something. 

I'm dying a little inside. 

I'm sorry, Chaos  What subject of math do you teach?

[Delightful]

@Chaos it's not you, it's every other teacher they've ever had who's taught them to look for tricks in a test. 

The only solution I can think of is to dedicate a good ten minutes or so to repeating "this is not a trick trust me" the class before the test. 

Still, that's horibbible. *hugs*

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

@Chaos, Delightful hit the nail on the head. 

Combine past teachers who like to pull dirty tricks with a moderate to severe dose of math anxiety, and you have a bunch of students who start to use the prescribed theorem to compute their answer, think they're working toward the wrong one, panic, think the prescribed theorem was a trick, and move on to another method. 

At least, that's one possibility. 

Still, it sucks to have a bunch of students who think you're trying to trick them.  

[Darkness Ascendant he/him]

I reaaally like nails and heads.

But you know what I don't like

People who answer questions with "Don't worry about it" or with another question that does not even relate to my question.

[Kaymyth she/her]

It's stories like these that make me glad I wound up in a career other than teaching. @Chaos, please tell me there were at least a few students who shone their inner mathematical light and actually did the problems correctly, thus giving us a single glimmer of hope for humanity?

[mattig89ch he/him]

My pet peeve is when people say one thing, then do another.  Its gotten to the point where I words are basically meaningless to me.

Just as an example of what I'm talking about.  My brother in law used to say how he would like to join me on a few groups I was in.  So I got approval from the group, and invited him 3 times.  Every time he would cancel at the last minute.  Now I have no trouble with us not being friends, but don't say you want to hang out then avoid it.  Be straight forward with me, and I'll do the same.

[Erunion he/him]

23 hours ago, Chaos said:

Guys, I'm triggered.

So you know how I teach college students, right? Well, I gave my final today, and I want to complain.

You see, as an instructor my goal with exams is for students to show what they know. I don't believe in ridiculously hard exams that are curved like crazy. I like straightforward exams where students can show off that they do know things.

To this end I made sure this final had problems that were stated very clearly. "Use Green's Theorem to compute this". "Use Stokes' Theorem to compute this." "Use the divergence theorem to compute this." I am basically instructing them onto the path on how to do the problem.

Do teachers somewhere else phrase things this way, but students just think that's there to trick them? Because when I tell you to freaking use the theorem, that's because the problem is way way easier if you do it this way. It's the difference between a three line, standard problem, and you doing a full page problem. I am telling you what to do to save you time! That's like if I cooked people free food and they slap it away because they want to cook the exact same meal themselves, just because. Don't you want free food!

There is even a problem where part a of the problem has you compute a quantity, and in part b, we say, "Compute this using your result from part a." And yet, people totally ignore this even though they usually compute the first part totally correctly. It is mind blowing. 

Shockingly, you'll never guess what happened. Because people spent their effort doing things the directions explicitly told them to not do, the exam seemed too long. Whoa! Maybe we should have read the instructions or something. 

I'm dying a little inside. 

As a student who's taken this course (not with you): you can blame a mixture of panic, forgetfulness, and previous bad teaching.
Because a LOT of students are trained to expect tricks on tests. Because they're given tricks. 
Add to that, when you're in exam mode, have barely slept, and are desperate, and suddenly you're asked to use a theorem and you completely and totally blank.You forget everything about that theorem, or how to apply it to the problem. And you desperately try to figure out a way around it. 
I've been in both of those situations as a student.

Conversely, the fact that you actually tell the students which theorems to use on an exam? That you don't give impossible exams? 
Your foolish students don't know how much of a gift you are, and that they're squandering. That is so, so, so nice of you.

For reference, when I took Calc 3, there were 300 of us writing the final exam. The exam was out of 180 marks. 
I'm fairly confident that not one of us finished that exam in the three hours we were given. The class average on the final (worth 50% of our grade) was 40. 

Not 40%. 40/180. That's 22%. 
A 300 person class had that as their final exam average. 

I'm still bitter about that exam, two or three years later. (For the record, I got 67/180 on the exam, which was curved so harshly it ended up giving me a decent overall grade on the course despite having been horribly sick and bombing both midterms). 

[soyperson]

Misspellings and lack of capitalization/punctuation.

[Nashan’Elin he/him]

1 hour ago, bleeder said:

Misspellings and lack of capitalization/punctuation.

wow taht soonds terrible

(Sorry, sorry. That really bothers me too, and it was physically painful to write the above statement.)

Edited December 14, 2016 by Nashan'Elin

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

Ya know, Formerly Pushy Coworker, I don't enjoy taking every single patron who makes a stink over fifteen cents. Maybe, instead of sitting at the end of the desk and sipping those coffees you can somehow afford, you could look over once in a while and see there's a line forming????

[soyperson]

1 minute ago, TwiLyghtSansSparkles said:

Ya know, Formerly Pushy Coworker, I don't enjoy taking every single patron who makes a stink over fifteen cents. Maybe, instead of sitting at the end of the desk and sipping those coffees you can somehow afford, you could look over once in a while and see there's a line forming????

Are you referring to Spongebob!coworker?

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

6 minutes ago, bleeder said:

Are you referring to Spongebob!coworker?

No, the "Are you full?" Coworker. 

[soyperson]

1 hour ago, TwiLyghtSansSparkles said:

No, the "Are you full?" Coworker. 

I am not acquainted with the "Are you full?" Coworker.

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

7 minutes ago, bleeder said:

I am not acquainted with the "Are you full?" Coworker.

When he first started here, it was clear he was trying to find an opening to ask me out, despite all the clear "I'm not interested" signals I was sending. Once, when I returned from lunch, he asked me if it was good, I said yes, and then he asked "Are you full?" Hence the moniker. 

[soyperson]

Just now, TwiLyghtSansSparkles said:

When he first started here, it was clear he was trying to find an opening to ask me out, despite all the clear "I'm not interested" signals I was sending. Once, when I returned from lunch, he asked me if it was good, I said yes, and then he asked "Are you full?" Hence the moniker. 

You go through some heavy library drama, jeez.

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

Just now, bleeder said:

You go through some heavy library drama, jeez.

You have no idea. 

I'm currently hoping I can hold it together for the rest of today and tomorrow, but the patrons seem intent on challenging that goal. Im trying to be nice, but it's really hard and all I want to do is go in the back and curl up in my chair.  At least I've gotten a lot of comments about how friendly and helpful I am in the past, so if someone complains chances are good my supervisor will just assume it's an off day. 

[Kaymyth she/her]

2 hours ago, TwiLyghtSansSparkles said:

You have no idea. 

I'm currently hoping I can hold it together for the rest of today and tomorrow, but the patrons seem intent on challenging that goal. Im trying to be nice, but it's really hard and all I want to do is go in the back and curl up in my chair.  At least I've gotten a lot of comments about how friendly and helpful I am in the past, so if someone complains chances are good my supervisor will just assume it's an off day. 

I am beginning to suspect that somehow, despite the fact that we live hundreds of miles apart, our cycles have synched up.

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

4 minutes ago, Kaymyth said:

I am beginning to suspect that somehow, despite the fact that we live hundreds of miles apart, our cycles have synched up.

I actually had mine a week or so ago, so no idea what's going on today. 

[Kaymyth she/her]

1 hour ago, TwiLyghtSansSparkles said:

I actually had mine a week or so ago, so no idea what's going on today. 

Ooh.  Well, that's definitely not it, then.

I hate my reproductive system so much.

[soyperson]

Just now, Kaymyth said:

Ooh.  Well, that's definitely not it, then.

I hate my reproductive system so much.

One of my closest friends got hers today and made me hold a heated-up full plastic water bottle to her stomach for half of Drama class.

[Kaymyth she/her]

Just now, bleeder said:

One of my closest friends got hers today and made me hold a heated-up full plastic water bottle to her stomach for half of Drama class.

Heat does help.  So does naproxen.  I basically have about 24-48 hours every month where I have to have some kind of painkiller in my system or else things get really, really bad.

[+Slowswift he/him]

Right now, as they're stuck in my head and my mom won't stop singing them, thereby putting them back in my head:

I am of the opinion that every song titled "(Color) Christmas" should be burned, and then their ashes burned as well.  

Edited December 15, 2016 by Slowswift

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

Just now, Slowswift said:

Right now, as they're stuck in my head and my mom won't stop singing them, thereby putting them back in my head:

I am of the opinion that every song titled " Christmas" should be burned, and then their ashes burned as well.  

If you want a nice break that's still in the spirit of the season, may I suggest Relient K's "Santa Claus is Thumbing to Town"?