Three days into the semester...

Summer classes have started and for the first time I am teaching three, yes three, courses. And, since the classes are the same they run on the same schedule. That means that when a class submits a paper I will have THREE sets of papers to grade, or three sets of exams, and so on. In the next 8 weeks I will grade 4 exams, 2 essays assignments, and five discussions, multiplied by THREE and about 25+ students per class.

Great.

So, it is only day three of the semester and already I have identified a few oddballs. Every semester there is at least one in every class.

Here is a little background information to explain the first one: When students have a discussion assignment they have to post to the original prompt and respond to a posting made by one of their classmates. The first "assignment" of the semester is to introduce yourself to the class and this is done within the discussion forum. Well, this is not a graded assignment, yet some students feel like they have to respond to every single student's post. Which is annoying because I have to read them all. Anyway, one guy did this (respond to every single post) and it was so odd. He started by saying, "Hello ________, by name is _____________." Every. Single. Time. I wonder if he realizes that the entire class sees these postings, not just the student he is addressing. Anyway, it got weirder. If a student had any grammatical, punctuation, or other errors in their post he pointed it out, corrected it, and then stated something along the lines of: "I hope you are more careful in the future because the instructor takes off points for grammar and punctuation." I mean, seriously, how bizarre is that? For one thing, the reduction in points is on the essays and that is for excessive errors. Not on discussions, and certainly not on the one where they are merely introducing themselves the class....

Then I have a student who went to my virtual "office hours" last night. Which I didn't actually have because I never hold because no one actually goes to them. I mean, I have had these office hours at the same time, every semester, for about 8 semesters now and have NEVER had a student attend. So, now I don't either. This particular student sent me an email distressed because she was in there alone. She wanted to chat. She was really distraught when I explained that it is not a virtual classroom but rather office hours, meaning you can go and ask me a question, but there isn't going to be some huge class debate. I guess she could debate with me... The downside of this is that I now have to actually log in to my office hours. I hate that.

More stories to come. Just wait until papers start being due. Then the real fun begins.