This is what I'm dealing with: Assignment I gave to one of my classes.....

[Coventina]

Keep in mind, this is a college student.

I gave an assignment asking students to compare three different statues of human figures produced by three different cultures and discuss their differences. I specified that they had to choose from statues either discussed in class or provided in the course materials.

I covered all three cultures at length, and have a very robust supporting materials supplied to them as well.

The instructions for the assignments were given to them in writing, and I explained them verbally in class and asked if there were any questions.

This morning I got an email asking: "Do you have resources I can use or do I have to go out of my way to find the research?"



(and yes, this student was present when I gave out the assignment)

[Ritabert]

1. Probably too busy texting to listen to you.

[Ray Bruns]

61. Exactly.

[ColoringFool]

2. "Yes. No. Check Your Class Notes."

[relayerbob]

20. This, right here.

[Wounded Bear]

3. Tell them: the most important thing you need to learn from this class...

the ability to do that research and turn it into a coherent thought.

[Traildogbob]

4. So frustrating.

I retired in 2012. College faculty, and it was just getting worse each year. And that grew from 1st grade through high school which is better than what they are doing to public education now and coming.
All they will eventually slightly understand will be the 10 commandments, and warped versions of Gawd’s book.
As I age, death does not seem as horrifying as it used to be to, because this place is turning to hell above ground.
I bet you had literature review assignments, when in college, and the library was the only resource, and documenting had to be precise and detailed. And yes you had to go out of your way to find it.
Now they can buy a report.
Stupid is more contagious than a Covid/measles mixture. Just look at the stupid in GQP from Harvard grads. Stable geniuses everywhere. And by Stable I mean detritus feeders in barn stalls.
Nope, God ain't gonna help us. Our species needs listed as endangered. Just because of stupid and lazy.
Good luck. Keep a pocket full of red pens.

[highplainsdem]

15. They don't have to buy a report. All they have to do is use a free dumbing-down tool from one of

the AI companies to write it for them.

The AI companies are desperate to addict users, so there are lots of free AI tools available, and OpenAI is pushing very hard to get ChatGPT used in schools. Even though there are already a number of studies showing AI use dumbs people down.

What generative AI - that type of AI - does is let people pretend that they learned something, wrote something, created something with a talent they don't really have.

A cousin of mine, a high school teacher, quit teaching several years ago to take care of her mother, who's gone now.

Because of genAI and the harm it's done to education in just a few years, my cousin has no interest in returning to teaching.

[Traildogbob]

22. Wow.

And fast food workers are paid equally.

[highplainsdem]

29. Teaching is challenging, and an existentially important profession. What the AI companies have done to it is

tragic.

[COL Mustard]

30. AI is one of the most frightening developments out there right now.

I recently ran my resume through an AI detector, and it came back as 95% certain AI had written it. Nope, it was just my dense writing style and particular word usage. But I understand why college students would use it; they are focused on the GPA and if it helps them get the A they think they need, they'll use it. Glad I'm done with school (at least that kind of school).

[Conjuay]

64. I can relate.

I've spent over 60 years making music (the HARD way) and a neighbor strolls by one day and hands my wife a card listing the six or so songs he "wrote" and how to pull them up on Spotify.
We've known this guy for 30 years, and the closest he has ever gotten to a musical instrument has been carrying one in the back of his cab
It's infuriating.

[highplainsdem]

65. The AI companies have leaned very hard into promoting AI "democratizing" talent - letting people

without particular knowledge/skills/creativity pretend they have those abilities thanks to AI trained illegally on datasets of stolen intellectual property created by real people with real knowledge and real abilities that they worked hard to acquire.

AI companies like to trash those real creatives as "gatekeepers" whose only reason for opposing genAI is supposedly to prevent those poor discriminated-against AI users from also being able to express their creativity and perhaps make some money from it.

This is bullshit, of course, but it appeals to people who want to be rewarded without doing the work, to get applause without any accomplishment...and who might have long envied those real creatives they hope AI will enable them to replace.

[llmart]

73. "As I age, death does not seem as horrifying as it used to be"

I second that emotion.

[Totally Tunsie]

5. Write them back, saying...

"Donald, This is why you shouldn't be sleeping in my class. You'll never amount to anything if you can't pay attention."

[ananda]

10. Except be president.

[ShazzieB]

33. But only if he has a multimillionaire father who is willing to bankroll all his failures! 🤣

[mcar]

6. I heard an interview several years ago on NPR

with a university professor talking about this generation of students.

On a Friday, she told her students there'd be a quiz on Monday. Something happened over the weekend and she wasn't able to prepare the quiz. No biggie, she assumed.

When she informed the students that the quiz was postponed until Thursday's class, they freaked out. "I spent the weekend memorizing the material. I'll forget it by Thursday!" Apparently the concept of actually learning the material wasn't something they were familiar with. They only knew how to memorize to pass the tests.

I don't blame the students - it's the standardized test heavy K-12 system at fault. Our students don't know how to think.

[erronis]

8. and "I wasted my whole weekend studying when I could have been having a good time!"

[mcar]

19. Yep

[GenThePerservering]

13. I actually recall that when I tutored back in the 70s

I was a 'peer tutor' which mean that I tutored fellow students maybe a year behind who were struggling in a subject which was my own major.

One individual- really nice guy, grade A student in high school, found himself struggling in Jesuit university - which at least then had a rigorous teaching style. After working with him I realized that he was yet another person who had memorized his way through high school but had never learned to really think. In class now, he was required to develop a theme and then argue it. TBH, I recall a lot of that from high school myself.

Looks like it's crept into college - perhaps because the value of being well educated has got so devalued.

[erronis]

21. And "teaching to the test" where tests have become easier to grade - multiple choices, etc.

It's really hard to evaluate 500-1000 word essays! Much easier to scan the forms for check-boxes.

[popsdenver]

69. The Republican's Dumbing Down America is working......

After Trump "won" his second term, at all his rallies and speeches, the made a point of thanking those that had been major in helping him:

He said: "Elon Musk and his Magic with computers" ???????????? and he repeatedly said: "I love the un-educated, love them, love them, love them".....

They don't even TRY to hide their flagrant corruption anymore, and haven't for the past ten plus years..........

I have stopped many a MAGA with a few civics questions.....how many members in the U.S. House and how are they allocated.
How many Supreme Court justices, and how do they get there.......
Without exception, they can't even answer those simple questions, so I say: There is no point in having ANY discussion, unless you can answer those questions.........and without exception, they have a blank expression on their faces and just shut up......

[mcar]

34. I went to a Jesuit uni in the late 70s

fortunately my Catholic high school had prepared me for it.

[LisaM]

24. I was always glad when a test or quiz was postponed.

We do live in an upside-down world now.

[BarbD]

41. "I will teach you to think."

So said my English teacher in 1954. It worked because my mother always said I thought too much.

[dickthegrouch]

75. In 1963 I was told "Think before you speak, then don't speak"

I took that far too close to heart until relatively recently.
I've always been a pusher from the back, rather than a leader from the front based on based on what I'd heard rather than my inability to analyze quickly.
It actually made me into a great risk analyst by the end of my career.

[MadameButterfly]

48. Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but it's the students' fault

By college they should actually want to be learning stuff and they should know how. The teacher did them a favor and should do it more often.

I went to a challenging college and my whole class failed the first French test. We complained that she needed to curve the grade. She said,
"Do you know how much your parent's are paying for you to come here?"
The next test was just as hard, but we figured it out. By the end of the semester we loved her. We found out what we were capable of accomplishing, and we liked being able to speak French.

[OhioBlue]

53. Sometimes it isn't about learning vs memorizing... it's about recall

Not everyone's brain is wired the same.. I was one who had to cram for tests and quizzes. I learned the concepts that were being taught, but to recall specifics, I needed to use lots of methods to recall it for tests and it was more effective the closer to test time.

I'm thinking about an environmental science test that I pulled an all nighter studying for and then the prof said, just turn in your final paper and enjoy the summer. No test.... I was devastated. At the time I believed I would have aced the test and pulled my grade from B to A. To use that class as an example - I learned why wetlands were important, I understood the concepts of flood control and how the plants helped clear toxins from the water before it reached a larger body of water. But to list the names of 5 of those plants... can't remember

[MadameButterfly]

60. Well, sorry you didn't get to raise your grade

but you learned the stuff. And, one would hope the emphasis (if there was a test) would be on the concepts and not the specific plants. Unless you were getting a landscape architecture degree and you needed to plant the plants.

[IbogaProject]

74. I had a house mate in 1990

He had all A's except one B+ over undergraduate and a maters in Mechanical Engineering. I asked him what would be his advice and he said he never crammed. He always got his work done at least one day early. So no last minute papers and no cramming. All he did the night before a test was review and maybe check a few notes if he thought he needed to. It is such a simple method to leave one or more days padding. He was from 1980s Beruit so that was a motivator, I hope you're doing well back there Alan.

[CBHagman]

7. "...do I have to go out of my way to find the research?"

[thesquanderer]

17. and his definition of "go out of my way to find the research" is probably ask chatGPT. (n/t)

[SomewhereInTheMiddle]

59. Since many students gravitate to AI's as their first source of information ...

... I have seen several instructors training a custom class GPT on the syllabus, assignments, and class content. This allows the students to get your information their way.

Not ideal from our perspectives, but it is helping some learners. And the class GPT can be limited to the data you have added.

[littlemissmartypants]

9. Tell the student they can get five points of credit on the assignment...

When they present you with a hand written copy of the definition of the word RESEARCH from two dictionaries and one encyclopedia.

And wait.

[SheltieLover]

27. But don't hold your breath while waiting

[littlemissmartypants]

56. Exactly. I taught at a state college in NC.

The kids loved easy assignments like that, or they didn't do the work and dropped the class. I don't remember failing anyone except the totally never appearing in class party kids.

But then I was teaching a class that was required for all students to graduate from the college.

I had 90 students per class, three per semester. Lots of papers to grade, and I tried my best to give them ample opportunities to succeed.

Those who dropped out eventually came back because they had no choice if they wanted a diploma.

Leverage is an important tool for an educator. There's a way to create it in any situation and especially in one when there's a built-in power imbalance like between teacher and student.

I'd love to get my hands on this one. It would be fun for me.

This quasi student needs to be required to write a paper about the history of the teacher-student relationship to pass the class. That's in addition to my previous suggestion. That's really where I'd start.

[Jacson6]

11. When I was in Catechism class and I failed to pay attention I got a ruler across the hand.

Too bad you can't do that to college students!

[GPV]

12. Brace yourself. There's more of them coming up through

Middle school right now.

[LoisB]

14. How sad.

[perdita9]

16. I quit teaching after 15 years because of stuff like this

[OddMom20]

18. That must be BEYOND frustrating

I can’t help but wonder if that is the mindset of today’s younger generations? I work for a Fortune 500 company and have for the last 20 years. I do a lot of mentoring/onboarding for new employees. The expectations and behaviors of these kids blows my mind. They seem shocked that they have to WORK. Not for nothin - but when I was their age and starting with this company, I expected it would be a challenging climb up the corporate ladder. You are a far better person than I, Coventina - I don’t know that I’d be able to keep my thoughts to myself in your scenario.

[mountain grammy]

23. I've never been a teacher.. bless every one of you

my contact with college age people is my 5 granddaughters and their boyfriends.

I loved your post and was pleasantly surprised at the end that you only got one email.

That's just from me who knows nothing.

[flor-de-jasmim]

25. Also retired prof here...

The other aspect which I find appalling is that the student showed no embarrassment (apparently) in asking this of the teacher, as opposed to asking a classmate. I would have been ashamed to phrase my question in that manner to my teacher! Having said that, I can say I also had students who acted similarly, so I sympathize.

[SheltieLover]

26. Answer email with message to refer to their class notes.

[bucolic_frolic]

28. Classes need Helper Captains in the class to prod the sheep along

What used to get me was when the frats would circulate copies of all the tests over the years amongst their insiders. Seemed kind of corrupt.

[flashman13]

31. You didn't mention whether the student was male or female. I would guess it was a male.

I'll be blunt here. My personal experience is that today's young men are just plain lazy. They seem to be entirely centered on entertaining themselves. I believe women understand that to get anywhere in this world you have to work at it. That's a generational thing because women have always had to work twice as hard as men to attain their goals. When I was in engineering school there was one woman in the entire college. Now in most engineering schools the numbers are at least close to even and the women are out performing men.

Pro tip to my fellow men: If you want to get dates, don't be an ignorant creep. Be able to carry on an intelligent conversation. Learn some manners. And don't be a MAGAt.

[Coventina]

37. Yes, a male. nt

[3catwoman3]

43. "...don't be an ignorant creep..." is a good place to start.

And don't try to jump her bones on the first date.

[Grim Chieftain]

32. Agree completely

I am a retired professor. I noticed in the last years of my tenure, I had to "dumb down" my lectures each year. Perhaps it's social media, the internet, texting, whatever, but many students today are less engaged and less intellectually curious than they once were.

[Sneederbunk]

35. You didn't say if the student could read.

[Sympthsical]

36. Let me provide some balance here

Have a current professor. We have a skills exam. They made a video exhibiting the skill. Spent one day discussing it.

Then scheduled the exam for it two months later. And it involves another skill were were taught one time six months ago. I am self-teaching via YouTube at this point.

What meds will be on the exam? Do we have to make med cards? What information should we presenting?

No one knows! Because the professor did the absolute bare minimum box checking. "I showed them the skill. After that, whatever." Go into the course site - no resource materials. No med lists. No indication really that an exam is even happening.

It's the test of mysteries! I am actually going to school in person tomorrow - on my day off - to unravel the nuances of having no usable information. This is rivaled only by professors who have been offloading testing to a third-party company, which means they don't know what's on the tests, so they have no idea how to prepare us.

Imagine my surprise on the latest final when an entire array of diseases and surgical questions appeared on this test no one had ever heard of. I passed with a high B because I have a mutant brain that remembers everything it reads. The class average was well below failing.

I went to a department meeting and tore into them, up to and including the Dean and Director. The admin and faculty think the system is fine.

Education top down needs reform. Students are the products of what they're taught, and I'm seeing more and more stinkers on the teaching end right along with the students.

[Coventina]

39. I am not that kind of professor AT ALL.

I pour my heart and soul into my profession.

My biggest goal is for students to learn to love my discipline, and succeed.
I've spent the entire first half of the semester preparing them for this assignment, as well as providing a WEALTH of additional information available to them via the LMS.

They need to at least show SOME effort.

[Sympthsical]

46. I understand that

But I imagine that student isn't every student either.

I returned to college in my 40s for a career change. I've seen what students nowadays can be like. It's . . . concerning. But this place can get a little, "the problem with youngins today . . ." and I wanted to provide some balance to the equation.

I have some solid professors. My current OB professor is so knowledgeable and eager to share.

But I have, in the past five years, encountered an increasing number of professors who offload teaching tasks to technology out of laziness, don't really engage in developing the critical thinking skills of their students (the Power Point People), or see a course as a series of boxes they check to say they did it so they can get paid.

As an adult student with years of experience in professional spaces, I have an extremely jaundiced view of some of these individuals, and I'm not afraid to address them as peers (which I know some of them do not appreciate).

I just wanted to counterpoint DU's strong "Kids today!" lean with a "Yes, but adults raised them," acknowledgement. I'm an older Millennial, and it got wearisome long ago to see elders getting all snitty about Millennials and Gen Z without acknowledging they're the products of the system the adults put into place.

If an 18 year old shows at up to college barely able to read, write, or think critically - and I've met plenty in recent years - is that really on the kid at that point? Someone has been letting that slide for years.

[Coventina]

50. It's not every student, but a lot of them.

I don't know what's going on in K-12 education.
By the time they get to me, they can't read or write, which is a serious crime, AFAIAC.

I don't have surviving children, either, so I have no first-hand knowledge of what is going on in our education system.
All I know is, we're going to be left in the dust by China and other countries who take intellectual ability seriously.

[Sympthsical]

68. Oh, it'd be a whole conversation

We've been partially raising four nieces and nephews (parental death) and just watching high school at work has been a thing. There are a lot of problems. To put it as succinctly as possible, many K-12 systems put in programs, particularly concerning literacy, that were trendy rather than evidence based. It's come to bite everyone in the ass. Hence the boomerang back to the tried and true.

Mix in the pandemic and that whole social mess, and it's a very potent brew.

The project you assigned is extremely cool, btw. Teaching and enrichment.

[Jedi Guy]

76. Critical thinking isn't the focus of a K-12 education anymore, if it ever really was.

When I was coming up in the late 90s, most of the regular classes were simple information retention and regurgitation. Learn it long enough to pass the test, forget it, brush up on it before the final, then forget it again forever after. The current regime of standardized testing really doesn't help with this phenomenon, either.

When I went through high school it was the accelerated and AP classes that really pushed us to think, to interpret, to draw inferences and form opinions. Memorizing the facts was secondary to understanding how and why they mattered. In a regular history course a student might be asked when the Battle of Gettysburg took place. In an accelerated or AP history course we were asked to explain what led to the battle, why it was significant, and how its outcome affected the remainder of the Civil War.

You're right that other industrialized nations are going to leave us in the dust. I saw that during my childhood in Mississippi. Many of my classmates were the children of Vietnamese immigrants fresh off the boat, as it were, the first members of their families to be born in America. Their parents were relentlessly focused on their kids' education, pushing them to excel. The rest of our peers... not so much.

Valuing education is a culture and a mindset, whether you value it for its own sake or for the doors it can open in your life. It seems, given the virulent strain of anti-intellectualism that's alive and well in modern America, that our culture has collectively decided education is less important than figuring out how to get more online clout.

[Mossfern]

49. I love your asignment!

What cultures did you cover?
The assignment looks like fun to me .... but I was an Art History major.

I'm of the generation that took a pile of index cards to the library to do research for papers.
My MFA thesis was typed on a portable typewriter...After crumbling up god knows how many pages (not even correct-type was allowed) I had to hire a professional typist..... and I felt guilty about that.

Today's students are missing out.

My daughter taught biology at UC Berkeley some years ago.
She was astonished at the disinterest of so many students.
I commend you on your tenacity and devotion to teaching.

There's nothing so satisfying as witnessing that "Aha" moment of a student.

[Coventina]

51. Thanks! You're so kind! Yes, I'm an art history professor.

The three cultures are: Ancient Near East (they can pick from Sumer, Assyria, Babylon, or Persia), ancient Egyptian, and ancient Greece.

I do have excited and engaged students, and they keep me going.

Most are just there to skate through with as little work and involvement as possible.

[BlueSpot]

55. Hmmm, let's see

Not an art major but with a general interest in (and a high school semester of) the humanities and the evolution of art...

Greek sculpture is very idealistic. The perfect form and face, everything very graceful.

Guessing a bit here but I'd imagine the ancient Egyptian probably needed to sync with the religion. I mean, they pretty much all look alike. If it's Ra, you freaking well know it's Ra. Not much artistic freedom, I don't think. You just followed form. All the Pharaohs look like the other Pharaohs pretty much too. But that's just a hunch, honestly.

I don't really know about the really ancient ones. If you'd selected Roman, I would know that was very realistic - warts and all. The ancient near east, from what I can come up with in my head, are stiff figures in formal, perhaps religious, poses, but they do have some of that later Roman realism. They are individuals, but they all have to have those long, curly beards (I'm mostly thinking Assyria because I read an historical fiction book about that once and it made me watch videos of the history). Might be wrong there because there are only a few I can think of w/o that arduous research your student mentioned (like google images, lol).

How'd I do? I've never taken an art history course, FWIW. And I did not go to google images.

It's OK if I flunked. I am retired and will not be taking my results to a job interview or anything. But do post or DU mail me the correct answers if I failed!

[Coventina]

67. You did really well for someone without prior knowledge!

Yes, the Ancient Near East figures did tend to be formal and stiff. And mostly based on geometric forms, more than natural forms.

And yes, much the same for ancient Egypt. Very formal, but more naturalistic than the ANE.

"Artistic freedom" didn't really emerge until the Greeks, and even then it was later on in their history: the Late Classical and Hellenistic periods.

[peppertree]

38. A little Trump in the making?

As you know - Cheeto's former Wharton professors all, pretty much, described him that way:

As a lazy, spoiled, petulant, entitled - and utterly dim-witted - student, who would've been flunked out of school but for his daddy's money.

[BaronChocula]

77. According to his sister

Other people took his tests for him.

[cab67]

40. Smacks of effort, man.

I’ve gotten a few of those. I’m also getting students who seem to think Wikipedia and ChatGPT are infallible.

[Vinca]

42. The student's nose is probably superglued to their phone, so they missed class despite being there.

[Permanut]

44. I want to sign up for your class.

[Figarosmom]

45. Geez

Have they ever heard the phrase " research paper" ?

[Cherokee100]

47. Lets hear it

Let's hear it for AI. It's only going to get worse. I gave my grandson a book, to help him with his senior thesis. He was puzzled. I explained to him, he could look things up in a book. He shrugged his shoulders...

[mike_c]

52. gawd I'm glad I'm out

Mind you, I really enjoyed my teaching career. Well, most of the time other than grading, lol. But speaking with colleagues now, I'm glad I retired when I did. In like-- three years-- AI went from something to snicker at to the 500 lb gorilla in every classroom. I thought the profession was collapsing when students began to complain they couldn't complete assignments on their phones. Sheesh.

[Joinfortmill]

54. Jeezus.

[fujiyamasan]

57. Is this class an elective or a requirement for a degree?

Sometimes, if a class is a gen-ed or distribution requirement, you may not have the most motivated students especially if the class is not related to their major.

It won’t matter how much you try. Some just want to check it off their list, and they may use any shortcut available at their disposal.

Being an engineering major many years ago, I knew many others that couldn’t stand the humanities and various other classes (I was the opposite). They often treated them as blow off classes.

[flvegan]

58. IOW, ChatGPT couldn't figure it out for them. n/t

[Scalded Nun]

62. Graphic Organizers

Suggest to the student that they start filling in a graphic organizer (designed for comparing and contrasting) from their lecture notes and course materials?

[Reader Rabbit]

63. "Ask a classmate who was paying attention when I gave instructions."

That's my go-to when my 7th graders ask something I just explained.

[D_Master81]

66. Wow

I know I’ve been out of college for 20 years but I can’t imagine asking a professor if I “have to go out of my way” to research for an assignment. I mean this isn’t high school we are talking about. Although maybe it basically is now I don’t know.

[highplainsdem]

72. I've seen lots of articles and social media posts about many college kids being shocked if they're

expected to read entire books. Apparently lots of classes now just ask kids to read excerpts.

[Happy Hoosier]

70. Are you an Art History prof?

A little unrelated to your post, but I am curious. My daughter is a studio art major, but she has adored her art history classes.

[ihaveaquestion]

71. Maybe the only thing this student (and others?) may learn from you is the meaning of CONSEQUENCES!

On another note, I would not allow AI usage in my classes - original thought only - with the consequence being an F for the course. I'm sure it would be hard to police this and lots of folks would try to pass off AI generated assignments, but failing the course if caught could be a pretty serious deterrent. Or am I hopelessly unrealistic?

[Mblaze]

78. You're in school.

Research should be in your way.

[OldBaldy1701E]

79. "Do you want a good result?"

"Then yes, you will sometimes have to go out of your way to research things."

"Welcome to life."