Perspectives (No. 1)

Sometimes it's exasperating when students have a particular way of thinking about something, which results in issues for me to deal with, repeatedly. I don't blame them for thinking in that way, after all it probably seems quite natural from a student's perspective, but repeatedly having to deal with their misconceptions is tiring. After all, I was once a student, so I can (I think) imagine what it's like from their perspective, as well as being able to see it from my current lecturer's perspective. However, they can't see it from mine, they have no idea what it is like to be a lecturer, so the onus is on me, not them, to resolve the issue. For example:

Student thinks:

I'd like a better idea of how much I have to write for this report I have to hand in for the course that this lecturer teaches on.

Student says (to lecturer):

How many pages should I write for the report?

Lecturer hears:

I'd like to know precisely how many pages you want for the report, and then I'll slavishly aim for that number. If my writing comes out under that many pages, then I'll stretch the report with a lot of waffle, and if over, then I'll cut lots of important bits.

Lecturer says:

It's difficult to give an exact number of pages. Some good reports will be short, some good reports will come out longer. Try to write as much as what you have to say takes up. Be concise, rather than padding it out with waffle or miniscule details, and don't leave out important parts of your writing. Use the marking scheme as a guide.

That gives another example above, too. The student knows full well which report for which course is being asked about, but merely refers to "the report", either assuming that the lecturer will know precisely which one is being referred to, or not even bothering to make that assumption because it's so obvious to the student concerned. The lecturer, on the other hand, may not know which course the student is referring to, because the lecturer may be teaching on several courses during the teaching session, one or more of which might require report writing, and if the classes are big, the lecturer may not be instantly able to recognise the student and which course the student is studying.

Oh no! That's too harsh!

Lecturer:

Just to check, this was your program that you submitted, yes?

Student:

Yes.

Lecturer:

And you ran the tests with this program?

Student:

Yes.

Lecturer:

Now, this program doesn't compile. You ran the tests with your program even though it doesn't compile?

Student:

Well I ran it on someone else's machine.

Lecturer:

I'm not interested in what machine you ran it on, I'm interested in which program you ran. How can you have run your program at all if it doesn't compile?

Student:

I ran a different program.

Lecturer:

You weren't meant to be testing some other program, you were meant to be testing this one. That's what you submitted for your assignment work.

Student burbles some complete nonsense.

Lecturer:

Well I'm going to give you a penalty. Zero marks for this assignment.

Lecturer:

Oh no, that's too much, that's too harsh.

Student seems to fail to grasp that, with a non-working program, test results which don't match, nothing else of value in the submission, even without the penalty, the mark would have been zero anyway. Not only is the penalty not harsh, being no penalty at all, it's an extremely generous, considering it's against University rules to hand in false test results!

Conversation with a student

Student:

So how come I didn't get good marks for my programming assignment? The program works, and a third of the marks are for the implementation alone!

Lecturer:

One of the problems is your testing of the program.

Student:

But I tested it! I ran the program with several large files!

Lecturer:

Testing isn't simply running the program with some input files. You have to actually check whether the program produces the results you expect it to, in all kinds of situations.

Student looks unconvinced.

Lecturer:

Look, suppose you were taking a flight in an aeroplane, and the software that was flying the aircraft had only been tested by running it a few times and seeing that the program didn't crash. Suppose no-one had actually checked to see whether the program was doing what it was supposed to. Would you be happy to fly in that plane?

Student:

Er, no.

Lecturer:

Of course. You'd want to know they'd tested it thoroughly, wouldn't you? You would want to know that they'd tested it in all kinds of different situations and checked to make very sure that it was flying the plane how it was supposed to do, yes?

Student:

Yes.

Lecturer:

Ok! So you have to bear in mind that same sort of idea when testing your own programs.

Student wears thoughtful expression and stops complaining about the assignment grade.

Corridor Conversation

Scene: the corridor, just beyond an open door to the office of one of my colleagues.

Student:

You know this assignment? Do we have to do anything for it?

Lecturer:

Er, yes.... did you come to the talk I gave?

Student:

Er, no, what talk was that?

Lecturer

The one I sent you an email about.
(faint snorting sounds heard emanating from the direction of the open door)

Lecturer:

Well it wasn't a good idea to miss the talk because I talked about exactly what you had to do, in detail. Did you look at the website instead? Where I'd put slides of the talk?

Student:

Er, no. I remember.... we had mumps that week!

Lecturer:

Oh that's a new one, I haven't heard that excuse so far this week.
(louder snorting sounds)

Student:

It's true!

Lecturer:

Never said it wasn't. Now, here, let's just move down this corridor a bit away from the noise, and get you started off in the right direction. The first thing is go to the website and look at the slides....

Things that students manage to do that irritate me (No. 3)

Email me, 30 minutes before a big deadline, detailing every kind of excuse they can think of, to try and not get penalised when they hand their work in late. Further ask that I hang around for several hours on a Friday evening, or come in specially over the weekend, so that they can find me to hand in their work, if they turn up, of course.

That's not really the irritating bit of it. The excuses and demands are so ludicrous that they are laughable. The real irritation is their attitude towards being responsible and handing things on time leaves a lot to be desired, and as a consequence they think absolutely nothing of causing people extra hassle, and making requests that staff bow to their oh-so-important demands.

Mate, if it was that important to you, that you asked me to give up several hours of my free time for you, then it was important enough for you to hand in your work on time in the first place. Responsibility. Respect. Two words you'd do well to ponder on.

So Tired

In an earlier post on long hours, I mentioned that I was going to keep track of my hours. So far, the average amount of time I've spent working per week just exceeds 60 hours. That doesn't count time internet browsing whilst munching a sandwich, or time spent blogging, only time spent actually working. That's 170% of a full-time job, by my reckoning.

Gail Kinman at the University of Luton, along with Fiona Jones, at University of Leeds, have put out another report examining the same issues looked at in the 1998 report Pressure Points. This new report Working to the Limit ­Stress and work-life balance in academic and academic-related employees in the UK (summary) shows that stress is still a big problem and overwork is institutionalised. This is certainly in accordance with my experience. I don't know how other people cope, especially if they have young children.

Last night was particularly bad. I finished preparing my lecture around 3am, and whilst wandering through the University buildings to start my journey home, got accosted by a student taking pity on me who was worried about why I was out and about so late, and thought I needed a lift home. I explained I'd just finished writing my lecture notes, and I'm not sure whether I then acquired "mad" or "hero" status! This was the worst of recent times though, I haven't had to work that late for a while. I've been consistently short of sleep all this week, and this morning in particular, it was a huge effort to drag myself into work in time to give that lecture. I felt so tired, so drained, so physically wanting to curl up and go to sleep.

But in the lecture theatre, something amazing happened... as I knew it would. Adrenalin arrived, and my tiredness went. I was transported into a world of explaining concepts to students who had never seen them before, and trying to get them to understand and see how amazing some of the algorithms were, and how they could be of real practical use in solving practical problems. They even laughed at a couple of jokes I managed to crack (I am not great at the whole jokes and camaraderie so this is something, for me). Now, post-lecture, I feel much better, and the dying rays of the sun shining across the frosty grass make me feel exhilarated. I feel alive.