Hello Professor Abbot this is XXX from your PS XXX class. Unfortunately, due to the flu I'm unable to make it to class today, if you don't mind may you just email me some of the points you're going to go over in class today so next week when I go to class I won't be as lost. Have a great weekend.
Now why would a student think a professor has the time to send a student his lecture via email? Did you ever do this in school? Obviously this is something new with the advent of email.
Students out there: Know that this immediately puts you in the pain in the ass column on the grade sheet. GET THE NOTES FROM ANOTHER STUDENT.
22 comments:
I don't think I would want students to be able to email me. That can only ever be a trial to the prof.
Students (and university management) now expect you to upload all your slides/readings onto a virtual learning platform (ours is Moodle) - at least then you don't have to individually email the files, they just logon to get them. There are discussion forums there as well which we're meant to join in and answer any questions, etc. From the students' perspective they've paid their fees etc and they're entitled to a service. The university has set out in broad terms what that service will be by encouraging the use of virtual media for teaching and support. On the other side, we can see how much and in what ways the student uses the media as it records use.
This makes me wonder how much different college must be in this technical age.
Very rude.
On a side note, something I noticed with a a group of high school students I teach is that none of them know how to write an email. Everything is misspelled and in text-speak (no punctuation, 2 and u instead of words).
I feel old... :-)
All the course material is available on a site but not the lectures. They are meant to be interactive, but not online interactive. The chatroom type approach became a way for students to skip class so it was discarded.
My husband prepares a new lecture every time he teaches a course for every class but its in his head and not readily communicable.
To give the student what he wants, he would have to transcribe what's in his head onto an email. And hopefully it is all important or why would he say it. It seems like the kid is saying cut through the filler and just give me the important parts.
P.S. The university took all of the phones out of the offices to save money so unless you want to give out your cellphone #, email is the only means of communication. This is a university of 35,000 students btw.
I remember freshman year in 1985, my English prof (who was a young masters or PhD student at the time and is now a well-respected author) naively gave out his phone # only to get hit on by half the females in the class -- somehow I think he did that on purpose.
Do you get that many emails from students? Back when I was a kid the professors complained that too few students came to office hours.
That is true, Dan. Very few come to office hours--especially Undergraduates. They want to do everything online.
This week is the fifth of the 15-week semester, and Monday I received this:
“Professor Zackel,
My name is XXXX and I was told that you were the professor for XXXXX. I am currently taking British literature but am having a very difficult time getting to class because of my work schedule and have been told that I will be failed because of the lack of attendence.. I have plans on graduating this fall as I have just several requirements to accomplish, one being the requirement of a literature course. I understand it is 5 weeks into the semester but I would be willing to accomplish any assignment or task that would be sent my way. The professor of my British literature course told me to drop her class because she will fail me and so I feel as though attempting to get into another course at this point would impossible. I am asking this because a friend had told me that they were in a course and that I should at least ask. I apologize for asking such a favor and I completely understand if there is no possible way to get into your course. I wanted to have at least asked. Thank you for your time.”
And if, out of kindness, you allowed the student to register for your class, he/she would expect you to bring him/her up to speed and tolerate more absences. Phil gets requests like this one every semester too.
"But you let me into your class after five weeks knowing I dropped out of another class because I didn't go or do the work. How can you possibly fail me?"
Signed,
Potential Lawsuit
Jeff M.
Ah, there's the rub.
"The university took all of the phones out of the offices to save money."
I'm flabbergasted. That just doesn't make any sense to me. Don't people need a work number, so that they're not fielding personal/work calls on their own phones all day and night?
Most of the professors admitted they received few calls from students each week. (Never mind other calls!) That email was by far the most common way to communicate. After that office hours or calls to the main office of the dept. Very few of them gave out their cellphone numbers but there is another method of communication being explored.
About 90% of the email from my students concerns their textbook problems. They bought the wrong book or they want to know if an older edition of the book is acceptable. A couple years ago I handed back the first exam of the semester. A student looked at his failing grade and sheepishly said to me, "Dr. Kelley, I guess I'll have to buy the book for this course."
With Phil it is usually like this one. You can't miss his classes and pass because the material is not in the books.
I get emails like these constantly. The phone never rings (which I'm grateful for), so no desperate voice mails to deal with. I don't mind most of them, except for the occasional "I won't be in class; will I miss anything important?"
Usually, the students who don't buy the textbook (or read the copy I put on RESERVE in the Library) also believe attendance is optional.
I get lots and lots of emails from students, many of them much like this. I probably waste half an hour a day explaining to students why, essentially, I can't make up their work for them by sending them notes, informing the university dean that they are going to miss my class, making up a different test for them to take at a different time from the other students, give them an extra day to get in an assignment, etc, etc.
Hello Prof Patti
As I am not really well today (might well be the flu), couldn´t you please email me to tell me what´s going on this week chez Patti so I won´t be as lost ... But short points, mind you, because my concentration is not the best.
Have a great weekend. ;)
It might be a good idea to form partnerships in your classes to avoid this sort of problem in the future. And have a good weekend too.;)
Combination of kiss ass pandering and dithery entitlement. "Make my life easier, please. I'm so damn important." And if you do it all with a smile and don't offend you're bound to get what you want, right? I can't help but read between the lines and see a very ugly borderline antisocial behavior in those emails. What happened to the cane of old British public schools? These kids never were beaten into submission, were they? Thanks for reminding me why I chose to forsake a life in academia. I'd have zero tolerance for this blithely irresponsible manner of navigating through life as if no one else in the world mattered but oneself.
Is it true that students have fights via texting in their dorm rooms and pull passive aggressive silent treatments on each other? Is that diseased or what? I'm so glad I went to college in the days long before Facebook, laptops, cell phones and text messaging. It must be hell now.
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