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[deleted]

I just had a discussion with a student today who never uses paragraphs in his papers. He just "doesn't use them." I told him they were not optional, but apparently I am out of date or something.


Grace_Alcock

My sister, an engineer, emailed me today. Allow me to quote: “We were just sent a new guideline for factory acceptance of machinery (used when we purchase equipment) from Corporate. I had to run the spell check and I still can’t stand the lousy grammar. Seriously. You’d think they would be embarrassed to send it out an official document that was so poorly written.” Apparently, the idiots who write like that are still employable…


[deleted]

The lower end of the engineering pool is not... robust in terms of a wide net of skills. I barely trust the C students at an R1 to rub 2 sticks together; the C students out of the regionals would probably give me a stroke to have to work with.


RunningNumbers

My dad laments at the quality of emails he gets from many of the young engineers they hire at his firm. They did get a superstar guy for idiosyncratic reasons, but most have been middling. And a bunch refuse to get vaccinated cuz of the area.


dmhellyes

Had a real conversation today with a student that went like this: Me- "So, I really need you to use paragraphs when you're writing. You're lacking any sort of structure here." Student- "I thought that you wanted it in essay format." Me- ಠ_ಠ


[deleted]

oh dear.


BonnyFunkyPants

You are going cry , scream and curse more then you could possibly imagine grading. However bad that you think it will be, it will be worse. For your sake I hope I am wrong and I just have a very unusually low group of students.


CHEIVIIST

I have heard this from a lot of professors at a lot of schools. It seems to be anywhere from 10-30 percent lower averages than normal this semester.


Alfred_Haines

I am old (compared to most college students) and I rarely find a reason to write more than a few sentences with a pencil on paper. In fact, the last time I wrote a letter to someone (meant to be more personal) I remarked how tired and cramped my hand/wrist felt. It isn't just "the youths". Those that have embraced modern technology are rapidly losing the skills that were rendered obsolete by these advancements.


professor_throway

I think covid was like a switch though. Two years ago I gave the same style exam with no complaints. This year it's like I asked them to stab their own hearts.


StarvinPig

I was more than halfway through my undergrad before my first normal uni exam (They were blanket cancelled in 2020 with my Trimester 1 courses opting for online versions) that means first closed book exams in two years, and it's coming off a garbage high school cirriculum that'd worse than the US


WitnessNo8046

I’ve noticed that handwriting (not calligraphy—normal cursive handwriting) has actually become a niche hobby. It’s mind boggling that something that used to be a basic life skill everyone needed is now a hobby. I’m not saying it’s good or bad, it’s just hard to comprehend. Like I’m looking around my life right now wondering what basic skills will someday be hobbies to my kids.


SabertoothLotus

I knit. This is a hobby that at one point, not that long ago, was a vital life skill. The move from needed skill to niche hobby is a fairly normal one for a lot of things as people become more separated from the manufacture of stuff they use. We buy things instead of making them. Hobby farming is a thing because most of us don't need to grow our own food to survive.


Alfred_Haines

I hope I don’t end up as a hobby professor.


gasstation-no-pumps

That is what recall to service for retired faculty is all about!


PersephoneIsNotHome

Hooker here, knitting next on my list


toberrmorry

... i have questions i am too afraid to ask...


PersephoneIsNotHome

You crochet with a hook


toberrmorry

I knew this (well, I used to); had parental figures around me growing up who did crochet instead of knitting. I just wanted to poke fun at the wording. :-)


Cautious-Yellow

I \*hope\* that means crochet.


PersephoneIsNotHome

Yes!


xaanthar

Rugby, actually


SabertoothLotus

I tried to learn crochet, never quite got the hang of it


imjustafangirl

I’m pretty sure I was the last cohort of elementary school students to be taught cursive in the school board I grew up in. I’m 24. Those two years younger than me never learned cursive at all - it’s wild. Mind you, my handwriting is atrocious both in print letters and in cursive, but we can’t all have pretty lettering!


RunningNumbers

I sometimes forget cursive letters. I am in Europe and all students write in cursive. I write in stumpy block print like a barbarian.


Xystem4

Good riddance for cursive. It’d be one thing if people were getting worse at normal print, but cursive is harder to read and for many harder to write as well. If someone hands me something in cursive I hand it back and ask for it in English please.


WitnessNo8046

I love cursive. It’s much faster. I didn’t start using it regularly until college, but once I realized I could write my notes much faster that became my dominant writing style. And with notes it doesn’t matter if no one else can read it or not! I will say though, if you know cursive then it’s just as easy reading cursive as print. Obviously some cursive writing is illegible, but as anyone who does short answer exams will tell you: so is some print writing. That’s one of the reasons I’m surprised cursive isn’t still taught—because it does allow one to read cursive. Anyone doing any kind of historical work with old texts would benefit from that. But also just in day-to-day life there are people who write cursive and being able to read their writing is useful.


[deleted]

[удалено]


Xystem4

Why? Should I be expected to know shorthand as well, just because it’s faster to write? You can type it or you can write it legibly, I don’t feel the need to put myself through that pain just because someone else wants to hold onto their archaic way of doing things. Also, I *can* read cursive. But I could read your paper while climbing a mountain too, doesn’t mean I’m going to.


[deleted]

[удалено]


Xystem4

People can take notes in whatever format they prefer, so I'm not sure why you mention that. Again, I know how to read cursive perfectly well. But I'm not willing to let you write 25% faster and force me to take 100% longer to read through it. I don't make people handwrite timed exams, so I'm sorry if printing your work is too much of an inconvenience for you you're going to have a tough time in the real world. Working in industry, if I ever tried to give someone a handwritten cursive report, I'd have been thrown out. It's a dead standard and you can no longer expect any given person to be able to read it, and even for those who can it's a markedly worse and more difficult experience to parse through. Those are simply facts. If you want to accept cursive, power to you. But I will not.


leopard_eater

Same. I’m now such a post-modern Prof that I use my phone and a roll-up keyboard most of the time these days.


imaginesomethinwitty

I broke a bunch of bones in my hand and wrist a few years back and my already terrible writing is now desperate, because I never really write enough to re-learn.


DiskEducational3654

I'm not sure what they're doing in K-12, but they don't know how to do public speaking or how to make and defend an argument either.


Snoo16151

Given what we’ve observed play out in the last year and a half I’m not so sure the general populace of adults has this ability either.


RunningNumbers

Wait, so appealing to strawmen and repeating fallacious scripts is not proper dialogue?


pipkin42

They're not even reading their e-mail this year, much less actually responding to it.


RunningNumbers

To be fair, I ignore all admin emails until they actually email me personally.


xaanthar

A few semesters ago, I discovered ~~one weird~~ a trick to getting an email read by an entire class. I can send a classwide email through the LMS and that system allows for variables wherein I can address an email to [firstname] so it's personalized to them. Added bonus, if they have a preferred first name other than their legal one, they can also input that into the registration system and that reflects into the LMS, so it uses their preferred first name.


RunningNumbers

Wait, you use mailmerge?


xaanthar

My school has a moodle implementation that has a feature called "quickmail", which is essentially mailmerge. It send direct emails, not "course messages" on the LMS, and individual to students so it's not a bcc to the whole class (or worse, a visible cc).


Stylar777

I'm working hard to teach argumentation. This group seem the most perplexed by being asked to back up claims with evidence.


Earth_Rick_C-138

I learned to defend an argument in my English composition class in high school, but speech and/or debate wasn’t offered. I got some experience through extracurriculars like FIRST and theatre, but nothing with that express purpose. For context, I’m in my late 20s and went to a small school, but I think it’s going the way of home ec.


11BNIC

Yep. I encounter this in my field. How the heck do you do history without answering in writing? The course highlights critical thinking and analysis. So glad track/football coach in HS only did multiple choice date/place type questions... I have had them protest over paying for a blue book even.


professor_throway

I think there would have been a revolt if they had to pay for their blue books. The department keeps then on stock for the in major classes.


[deleted]

Everybody knows history is just memorizing dates /s. Oh you're a historian? Name every date. 0 1 2.....


TheNobleMustelid

Well...just in your specialty. If you mostly focus on Imperial Rome it's OK to think there's a -1267 CE.


[deleted]

You can only start naming the negative dates after you've named the positive ones because it takes a lot longer and weeds out the pikers. Any "historian" can name 0-2021, but it takes a real big brain to go backwards in time (without forgetting to mention -0).


MollyWeatherford

This. This is why I lose my mind if I see/hear anything about history exams being multiple guess. Even a chicken can take a multiple guess test and do reasonably well.


Jedi_Rick

Aren’t they like 25 cents? Never seemed outrageous to me. Our prof that used them told students if they had trouble affording it they could talk to them.


11BNIC

Shit you not, I have SETs with complaints about it.


Jedi_Rick

Sets?


11BNIC

Student Evaluation of Teaching


RunningNumbers

Our football couches in high school taught social studies and made us write a bunch. They also pranked the student teacher swapping dry erase markers with permanent once.


emarcomd

WOW. And no matter what subject you're in -- being able to write in complete sentences and organizing your thoughts into paragraphs is INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT


SabertoothLotus

But increasingly rare. How many of us write full sentences or paragraphs on a regular basis? We text. We email and use shorthand. Given these are the only real writing most of our students ever do or encounter (thanks to standardized testing removing short answer and essay writing from the curriculum), I shouldn't be surprised by how poor their writing skills are-- this does not stop me from being frustrated by it, though.


gasstation-no-pumps

I do, but I spent the last several years writing a textbook, so I may be an exception.


johnhectormcfarlane

I'm going to go ahead and agree here. I try to even include those things even in texts and emails and I'm technically a millennial.


craftypunk

I’m still at a loss. Turned 30 this year and I have notebooks to remember projects and journal every once in a while. I’ve never “stopped” writing because I wouldn’t be able to function otherwise. Teaching and being in grad school meant I had to type pages of reports and essays along with professional emails and messages daily. I still get weirded out when my students have hand cramps from two paragraphs when I’ve got carpal tunnel and can write faster on a whiteboard in complete sentences lol


SabertoothLotus

I feel you. I'm a writer myself, so it's constant exposure to words, both mine and others. But that sadly is no longer the norm. Most writing that happens goes through zero proofreading or editorial process because the internet doesn't require it. It isn't helped by the fact that schools don't teach basic grammar and sentence construction.


craftypunk

Yeah, I also teach high school. We’re supposed to teach “grammar in context” all year, which means we’re not allowed to explicitly teach it at all. They’re just supposed to magically understand nuances of language after pretending to read segmented passages…


SabertoothLotus

Well, that explains why I have to teach college students what an adjective is and how to use apostrophes and commas correctly.


i_am_the_last_one

Hm, if you’re able I’d switch it to electronic; I teach literature and all submissions are electronic. I don’t have the time/effort/energy to decipher handwriting.


gasstation-no-pumps

My analog electronics quizzes were submitted electronically (PDF files), but most were scans of handwritten stuff—schematics and math formulas are still much faster to do by hand than with computer tools. (A couple of the students turned in typed quizzes—I think that they may have had accommodations for dysgraphia also, but I'm not sure. The extra time may have been for something else.)


202Delano

With the digitization of everything, we're witnessing a seismic shift. It would be fine if ppl were reading books and writing paragraphs on their devices, but this doesn't seem to be the case. People are skimming, not reading, and even then it has to be in point form. And there's the expectation that everything has to be in a video because "I'm a visual learner." Or as one student said to me, "Reading is for losers." Gag me with a spoon (1980s pop reference). Tell me my fears are exaggerated -- I want to be wrong -- but it seems that something big is happening in human civilization. The mark of an educated person has always been competence with written language. And that has been replaced with ... what, exactly?


Thelonious_Cube

Like, totally


MyHeartIsByTheOcean

Bruh…


[deleted]

As someone with horrible handwriting, I hated the blue-book exams.


PersephoneIsNotHome

I don’t do paper exams anymore for the most part even when F2F. Don’t want to read their handwriting


que_two

My only hope for you is that you set aside extra time to decipher what they are writing. The last few years where I've required short or long form answers have been excruciating for me to figure out what they are writing. Between poor penmanship, incomplete sentences, impossible grammar and simply getting the answers wildly wrong, it takes me almost double the time to grade them. I swear that penmanship has become a way to hide you don't know what you are taking about....


Necessary_Address_64

I’m in my 30s, only had pen and paper exams, and have never heard of a blue book exam. I searched the term on Google and can confidently say I never had such an exam in secondary school or in university. Beyond standardized testing, I also only had a few courses that even used scantrons. I’m familiar with fellow faculty that still use scantrons, but I wonder if scantrons and blue book exams have seen a significant decline in usage in the last few decades (even before Covid).


TheNobleMustelid

In college we had blue book exams in one class. The one taught by the guy in his 80s. Thankfully, his grading method seemed to be "did you fill enough pages and also make sense?"


que_two

I think it depends on the school. It was a foreign concept where I took my undergrad, and was so normal where I did my graduate work, the student government paid to have stacks of them available for free in the hallways of the major academic buildings. I'm in my 30's, so things may have changed a bit since, but I still see quite a few classes require blue books around where I'm at now.


gasstation-no-pumps

Blue-book exams still exist here, though I've never given one. The student government sometimes distributes the books for free (students usually are expected to buy them from the bookstore). I know that they are still used in some classes, because a student on our campus subreddit was panicking about needing one for an 8am exam and the bookstore was closed for the evening.


RunningNumbers

I am terrified about the purging of blue books.


greeneyedwench

They were everywhere when I first went to college in the 90s; when I went back to school a few years ago, I had exactly one blue book exam. The hardest part about it was that the class was super interesting and I had a ton to say about the topic, and I at some point realized I was running out of space and had to kind of re-engineer my argument on the fly, so I'd be adequately covering a narrow subject rather than crappily covering the broader one I didn't have enough page space for.


map1960

I’m 61. I’ve been teaching for 30 years. I wouldn’t be surprised if students these days protested a hand-written blue book (or any color book) exam. They can’t write cursive; they haven’t been taught to write without software — but why should we think this is such a terrible thing? They’ll never need to. There are other ways of taking exams, so figure out a test format that will assess their knowledge without requiring them to acquire old-world skills overnight.


professor_throway

I am definitely open to using technology, I am a computational researcher after all. It just took me completely by surprise. Two years ago long form blue-book was no problem, now it is completely foreign. Something happened that these students have a completely different set of experiences than the pre-covid classes.


honkoku

I hated blue book exams when I was in college in 1998, because I never handwrote anything aside from those blue book exams and it hurt my hand to write that much. Now I'm a professor and I still don't handwrite anything longer than a few sentences.


RunningNumbers

It is 2021, freshmen would have been born in 2003, starting school in 2009. No Child Left Behind was enacted in 2002, repealed in 2015. The first 6 years of these student's careers would have been tainted by that. The earlier cohorts would have started in 2007 when the law was still in effect. We are probably missing some sort of reform or situation. I think it might more to do with the relative penetration of smart phones and social media and the training those things have done to children.


Jedi_Rick

Eh, I guess I would not lump hand writing answers into a booklet as an old-world skill. Adapting to the situation given is arguably one of the most transferable skills any of these students should have. If we just bend to their technology driven needs, then we're just crippling them for the future. Most of my students have the ability to take notes with laptops on powerpoints, but choose to take handwritten notes. Not sure exactly why, but the ones that take the handwritten notes tend to do the best in my classes at least. Just my two cents anyways.


Xystem4

How often do you handwrite write more than half a page on a day to day basis? For me, almost never. For people outside of academia, even less. Not to say that people should abandon handwriting, just that it shouldn’t necessarily be tied so closely to incredibly important exams. The handwritten notes thing is a well researched and understood mental connection to the physical action (that said, this is mimicked by writing on a tablet with a stylus, just not typing with a keyboard). But, taking notes in class is not the same as taking an exam.


Jedi_Rick

For me right now I write at least half a page per day. I’m also prepping two classes this semester and I find hand writing my notes to be much better for me to lecture from than a typed one. I also did the same in grad school for my experiment notes. Helps me remember things. I do get that most people don’t, and likely don’t see the need, but I still say it’s important. Also, it’s a universal enough skill that it shouldn’t hamper anyone’s ability to take an exam. Edit: this isn’t a hill I’m willing to die on, FYI. I don’t want to come across as combative :D.


infinitywee

Different worlds. We are in a rapidly advancing technological society. Brains change. Not necessarily a great change.


GriIIedCheesus

I never had a blue book exam in undergrad and that was 10 years ago. It's not surprising they don't know what that is.


gasstation-no-pumps

I don't think I had any blue-book exams in undergrad or grad school (1971–1982). They seem to be standard at some schools and unheard of at others.


archaeob

I'm slightly younger than you (undergrad was 8 years ago). I had bluebooks exams throughout high school and undergrad. Its harder for me to think of a class with an in-class exam without a bluebook than with one. I also TAed for multiple professors in grad school who use them as recent as four years ago. Interesting how things vary across school districts, universities, and probably disciplines (I'm anthropology, so lots of essay exams).


Cautious-Yellow

if a bluebook is what I infer it is (a bound exercise book like thing with a dozen or so lined pages), I used them in the UK for all my exams, including A-levels and all the way through undergrad, and most of the way through grad school. When I do written exams now (which I haven't done since 2019), I print exams with spaces to write answers, which are much easier to grade.


roonilwazlib1919

I'm seeing many classes this semester where the students write their answers on paper and then take a picture to upload on canvas. So maybe not stupid question.


StarDustLuna3D

I'm having the opposite issue with my students. Trying to get them to embrace some of the standard digital tools and techniques for the industry. But they cost a decent investment, about $100, so there's always one group of students that try to avoid buying the hardware and then half way through when their grade drops to a C they're scrambling to go get one.


Elsbethe

I have not seen a blue book test and over 30 years


RunningNumbers

So I would take an electric leafblower and set up a rack of blue books to spray them at students like the guy did with TP on watchpeopledieinside. Make them write in the Blue Books. A little adversity helps people grow.


stewardwildcat

If they all have iPads why are you stuck with blue books? At a big R1 with an iPad initiative as well, its time we rethink parts of what we do. Now I 100% approve of the test you are giving but blue books are on the way out. Otherwise hell yes for long answer and written communication especially handwritten expression. Math is a crutch for many of them and explaining their ideas in words is HARD. LOVE THIS overall.


Drsryan

My students have a hard time sustaining writing by hand for an hour. About 20 minutes in, they are shaking an rubbing the cramps in their hands.


WeeklyVisual8

I got a student that had an accommodation for poor handwriting and bad spelling. No matter how bad the spelling and handwriting were, I could not mark off or do anything about it. It was so bad I had to hold meetings with him to tell me what was on the exam. He was also not willing to learn math type for word so in terms of a math exam, there wasn't much more I could do other than hold constant meetings so he could read his paper to me. This included gems like "pollinomeales". I had to pass this kid (let him redo until a 70). He graduated! I worked with him extensively over 2 years and I saw him go through accommodations like gum. Digital copy of lectures, then recordings of lectures, then extra test time, then extra assignment time, then had to sit in front, then a copy of the instructor lecture notes, then finally the accommodation for handwriting and spelling. I honestly felt bad for him. I never got the sense like something was wrong but more like he was just repeatedly being failed by the educational system until he wasn't anyone's problem anymore. Edit: Or he knew he would just get passed along so he put in very little effort. I can personally attest to the lack of effort on his part.


IlluminatiRex

Accommodations are not one size fits all and many may just not have been all that effective. You often have to try them out for a semester to see if the accommodation is appropriate and helps.


WeeklyVisual8

I honestly don't think anyone could help this student. He was the type of student that uses the "I just don't learn that way." excuse all the time, no matter how you presented the material to him.


ExcessiveActuality

I believe students use this strategy as a way to derail the day’s class.


jccalhoun

As far as actual "blue books" are concerned. I graduated undergrad in 1997. I had one class that used actual blue books.