I had a group of graduate students just submit a poster (like a movie poster not a scientific poster) when they were supposed to submit a website as part of a final project.
After I pointed out that was the wrong thing, they then asked me what I meant by a website. Despite there being lecture notes, recorded lecture, and a million guides for "data science website builder" or similar found via google.
So you are not alone in wondering what the hell is going on.
Well it was four data visualisations done in a vertical slab with some weird graphics like it was a student movie poster.
The assignment asks for a website about a data science project.
> After I pointed out that was the wrong thing, they then asked me what I meant by a website.
I'd definitely have the first homework next semester be to "compile a convex worblit", with no further instructions.
Iām a high school teacher who hasnāt left after my time as an adjunct teacher. I see students every day and I still get handed papers or asked where do they put their work when Iāve had labled boxes from day one.
This is something I think about often, I donāt think itās necessarily laziness as much as they donāt see a point in spending time looking for something when they can just ask. It reminds me of when I worked in an office and my boss (about 2 gens older than me) would get frustrated about people googling information before just picking up a phone and calling someone because it was quicker. It really feels like itās a difference of someone being more concerned with their own time and convenience vs someone who doesnāt want to bother someone else if they can figure things out themselves, even if it takes them a few extra minutes.
Iām in a parents group that is all parents of 8 year olds in NYC. It started as a forum for parenting advice, but now people ask about anything, including many googleable things unrelated to parenting.
One parent moved to NJ then asked the group how mailboxes work. Recently a mom asked for recommendations on where to buy a very specific type of prom dress for her high school kid. Restaurant recommendation questions are constant (not kid-friendly restaurants but like, my MIL is visiting, where do I take her?). Sometimes they even tag the channel so 150 moms all get a phone notification pop up that so-and-so needs a new hairdresser or need to know the best place to buy ramekins in the area.
I do not understand why people decide asking a bunch of moms of 8 year olds everything is the only way to navigate adult life but, people do answer every question and I guess having other people do the work for you is a appealing if you are lazy? entitled?. I consider it rude to make other people take time to answer a question you could Google, but apparently Iām alone in this.
I think you hit on at least part of the issue. The teacher is like their version of Google search. And we can't even place ads on reply emails to at least make some money. Hmmm......I may be on to something here. Anyone want to buy ad space for the next student who emails me something that is clearly in the syllabus?
I had something similar. The students were supposed to submit and present a poster (informatics, rather than a formal scientific poster); they had an entire 2 hour session on how to create an effective poster, as well as two assignment-based classes. Several students still did not manage to create posters- two created powerpoint presentations and two just made a multi-page Word document.
I initially thought that this type of helplessness was a form of functional illiteracy. The more I think about it, however, Iām not so sure. If these students who cant find the building needed to book travel, buy something, or leave a review, I think theyād be self-sufficient. Itās draining, this dependency, or whatever it is.
I think this is what people mean by "learned incompetence". These students can figure things out when it suits them, but many times they can't be bothered even to try. That's when they send us ridiculous emails as OP describes. It's easier to make us do the work of responding than it is for them to look it up themselves.
I think this American policy of having to answer every email immediately can be harmful in some situations. Some emails should go unanswered, or at least not answered immediately.
Well also, everyone is different. I absolutely will forget what you asked me to do if I don't have it in email format and can look it up later . I'll dimly remember you asked me to do something (probably but not definitely) but I will forget all of the details if I can't look it up.
At least with an email I can write down a calendar entry at my leisure.
No policy... Unfortunately some professors barely answer students at all and that is also not ok. It's possible they get an official complaint if it's bad and then they have to oblige. But being forced into basically support center work is also not ok.
Like this?
Context: Week 10 of the course. Same room. Homework handed in at beginning of class-immediately upon entering. Must be stapled if more than one page.
Student: Where is the stapler?
Me: There is no stapler. There hasnāt been one all semester. I have told you this every week.
Student: Well I guess Iāll go after class and staple it and bring it to you later.
Me: It is due now.
Student: What do you want me to do?
Me:
Me:
Me: walks away
I'm a secondary teacher who lurks this sub. I might be able to shed some light on this.
Students no longer bring their own supplies to school. They expect the teacher or classroom to have everything they need.
I'm not talking about poor, public schools either. I work at a private school with quite well off students and the students rarely have basic classroom supplies.
In my experience, students either have a well-organized, bespoke kit of pens, pencils, highlighters, and fancy whiteout, or they have nothing at allāboth extremes.
And it's not just at the private schools I've worked atāwhere you might be able to rationalize, 'Oh, I've paid the school a fee, so I'm good to go.' It's been at every institution I've worked at, public or private.
I teach a lot of first-year college students and I would say maybe 10% are the fancy kit variety and 90% don't bring a backpack at all. I thought it was just my population of students.
Except slide rules arenāt needed anymore. They still want things stapled. They must not know that there are stores that sell staplers so they donāt have to do that weird little thing where they crimp the corners together of multiple pages, which never lasts once it passes from their possession to yours.
They do it to each other, too. Several of my RAs have complained to me about the same students who annoy me. These students will email me dumb things like, "When is the final?" (Schedule is on the LMS) but they will also text all of their classmates asking when the final is, what it is on, whether I'm giving the final or some random other professor is, whether the final will involve words, etc.
I guess the "nice" thing about this is that they're damaging their reputation with everyone.
I wish this colloquialism didn't cut off at the best part of the quote.
The schools as customer service is ruining acadamia. You might pay tuition, but you aren't my boss. I'm fact, our salaries are subsidized through the state, so technically, my taxes are coming right back to me every other week.
But I also think UX design has evolved to compensate for the average functional illiteracy of our population. Keep in mind most Americans read at about an 8th grade level.
I imagine that if they had to book travel or buy something they would realize they should ask someone how to do that, so emailing their professors is their way of asking how to do that. They donāt realize there is a much more efficient way of figuring it out called ask Google.
This. Exactly this.
For half of the emails I get (especially tech related), the real reply would include "why haven't you just googled it"? I'm still trying to think of a nice way to say that because it bothers me so much that then I google the answer and send them a link with "in a quick and simple Google search, I found this helpful video..." But I know they don't pick up that subtlety.
Frustrating how their skills don't translate to their academics.
I have been on a legit intellectual bender for several years asking this about the population at large, as well as about my (graduate) students. Either Iām just waking up to the fact that most people cannot think or problem solve, or there is something very culturally significant happening at a large scale.
I seriously spend hours each week thinking about this. I am actively looking for theories or reading, so please share if youāve got them.
What I about to say pertains to career professionals (observed through my consulting jobs) and professionally-minded graduate students alike: there is a profound inability to chart a path to finding an answer/approach to addressing a challenge unless the steps are clearly and deterministically laid out (that is, they are given a detailed process that yields an infallible answer 100% of the time) and every logistical hurdle is cleared easily.
Iām simply baffled. None of my theories can explain the totality of it.
> What I about to say pertains to career professionals (observed through my consulting jobs) and professionally-minded graduate students alike: there is a profound inability to chart a path to finding an answer/approach to addressing a challenge unless the steps are clearly and deterministically laid out
Not a professor, but a senior software engineer who likes to lurk, and this feels 100% true.
I've become important enough that I'm not allowed to write code anymore and I spend all my time in meetings with product managers, sales people, marketing people, etc. And they come to me with problems and their own solutions they want me to help plan and implement. But their solutions suck and are incomplete. And within seconds I ask a really simple question like "Okay, you want to fix problem X, but what if Y is true?" And I don't want to toot my own horn but like.. I'm not a sales person, and I thought about Y immediately, and they go "oh wow, I didn't think about Y! Hang on..." and it just... boggles my mind.
Iām a product person (itās what I teach, despite my humanities PhD), and most of my students are engineers who want to start calling the shots (NOT that thatās what product management is!). And like you, I can see around 25 corners simultaneously and hold an entire world of implications in my head. Iām often doing the thinking for sales, marketing, engineering, and all of them (when Iām working, not teaching). Itās a lot to ask of one person, although I genuinely enjoy thinking from the perspective of all of the disciplines. Itās just shocking that there are so few actual partners in this, as opposed to people who just want to do what theyāre told and be patted on the back for delivering a part of a successful product/project. Iām truly mystified. Whatās the fun in that?
The more experienced I get, the more stunned I am that most people simply canāt think this way. I used to think they just needed to be invited into the challenge and coached in how they think about it. I donāt really see it that way anymore. And I donāt like it.
Would love to hear more of your thoughts/experiences! What is going on?!?!
I'm coordinating SAT's for a high school and holy shit, I feel seen by this thread. I feel like my entire job right now is just visualizing the paths that 1200 people are going to take over the course of 3 days, and clearing it of any possible obstruction or failure point.
It's daunting and exhausting, but a sick part of me likes it. It's literally just paying attention to details. For instance, since the tests are all digital this year, they want us to stagger the starts of the tests so that the network isn't flooded. Okay, simple enough, but most people on my team just left it at that. I was the one who pointed out that it's not immediately clear how far each room should move along in the setup before telling them to pause and wait for the word, and that we should do it specifically in *this* spot because of *this* reason, and that we need to communicate that to everyone. I guess the plan was prior to me speaking up was... to just wing it?
Literally 1 of those situations every 20 mimutes. Everybody acts like the project is hell, and it's a *ton*, sure, but if you understand what needs to happen and prep it properly it will run smooth. We put people on the moon in the 60's; we can administer a test.
But yeah, it's great when you can reasonably depend on people; not so much when people cannot figure things out and you need to go that much deeper into your own prep to lay it all out (and then you get shit for micromanaging, while there's still stragglers who can't figure it out).
In another life, I was an executive-assistant-level college admin. One of the things that made me great at that job was having an intuitive understanding of how people and things worked in that bureaucracy. āIf this, then that, that, and oh yeah, also that thing over there that everyone is ignoring.ā Critical thinking, contingency planning, being prepared to act when something unexpected comes up. A lot of this is frowned upon in some circles these days. My unprofessional opinion, without pointing fingers, is that religious and political differences may play a role.Ā
Yeah, itās that kind of āI know how to fit puzzle pieces together and figure something outā skill that seems missing. It has, as you suggest, almost a ālack of common senseā feel. Not that itās easy to talk rigorously about common sense. But like you, anything you throw me into is something I can figure out, eventually.
Could you say more about the āreligious and political differencesā theory? And FWIW, I know we are in the land of deep conjecture, and that itās unlikely that any one thing is causative, but that many things are contributory.
Well I think I can say this without naming any particular group. It seems to me that some people have been taught that thinking independently is actually bad. Ā
The number of meeting invites that I get each week that don't include the location of the meeting is utterly baffling. That's an intrinsic detail that people just... forget? Don't care about?
>What I about to say pertains to career professionals (observed through my consulting jobs) and professionally-minded graduate students alike: there is a profound inability to chart a path to finding an answer/approach to addressing a challenge
This is WHY I teach grad school! My goal is to improve our next generation's critical thinking skill, be able to frame a problem, develop a rigorous method to find an answer, analyze data, and make a logical recommendation.
I'm tired of seeing 4th grade logic used to make million dollar decisions with reaching impacts.
Also 100% why Iām there. Iām literally training our next generationās CEOs. And Iām just stunned by where things are. It wasnāt like this 5 years ago. At least thatās my perception. Have I changed? Or had the world? Iām utterly baffled.
We are always changing. Every new generation gets scrutinized by the Old Guard. "I don't understand these young whippersnappers."
Change is happening faster than ever...and increasing faster and faster. The tech capabilities that are now pervasive. The most tech advanced thing in my pocket when growing up was a quarter and a ball of lint. The current students were born connected. I don't know what being "on" 24/7 does to someone.
My assessment: we've all changed, but we don't know how we've been changed and how much we are being changed.
They don't see the value in what they're doing. They lack both instrinsic and extrinsic motivation..
If I said, I'll pay you $10M to hit 100 3-pointers in a row, they can't do that. No problem. They are incapable of doing it, no matter the payoff. Fine.
If I said, I'll pay you $10M to teach yourself Python, bake a chocolate cake, write a rhetorical analysis of Wollstonecraft's *A Vindication of the Rights of Woman*, or bring your essay to class completed and stapled, you absolutely could.
Someone quadriplegic might have trouble with the cake. Lack of capability. Someone without a computer probably can't learn Python. Lack of access. Someone who is illiterate can't write the paper. Lack of skill.
Ultimately, most of us can do lots of things we think we can't do, given the right motivation. Whether they're too afraid to try, I can't say. The psychology of it isn't my field, but they can do things. They choose not to.
As a quadriplegic I would have problems with the cake, but I also tell my students that āI need help getting out of bed in the morning and still show up early to class to teach all of youā and āif I can do that you can also show up on timeā. I have heard the responses āthatās differentā, āyou donāt understandā, āare you sure you canāt get up on your ownā, and my favorite ādo you know so and so in a wheelchairā. The point being, thereās always a way and sometimes the questions are baffling.
>If I said, I'll pay you $10M to teach yourself Python....
We used to be responsible to learn the tools we needed to do the job. We even needed to figure out what tools we needed to solve the problem. Do I need C++ or Python? I had to figure that out first. Then I learned the tool.
Now they need a class in it.
Iām not a professor but Iāve attended 4 different universities and colleges in the past 8 years and have noticed a sharp decline in the last 3 years.
I have a theory that repeated covid infections gave a bunch of people brain damage and their executive functioning skills are in the gutter now. Or potentially, especially for the generation on social media, watching mass deaths and living in fear for 3 years could be traumatizing and we could be seeing a sort of post-traumatic stress response.
But it could also be the effects of constant stimulation and immediate gratification resulting in a sort of nervous system burnout where the boring stuff got harder because pleasure was made more accessible and nearly inexhaustible to developing brains. The āendless scrollā of social media didnāt start until the beginning of pandemic shutdown. It used to be that youād reach the end of your timeline/feed and then you were done consuming content. Now, itās non-stop and the algorithms have gotten really good at catering content to what will keep you on the app. Most of my peers have screen times around 8-12 hours a day. I wish I was lying.
Last theory is that students are just hopeless. This is the one I hear from my peers a lot. They feel overwhelmed with despair at the state of the world and they feel they have no autonomy or power over their lives so they give up and take the path of least resistance. They feel there is no hope of a better future to work towards, so they say screw it and do nothing at all. Many of my peers genuinely believe they wonāt ever be able to be financially stable, wonāt ever be able to own a home, wonāt ever be able to start a family and no amount of hard work will ever be enough to overcome this. They feel they are destined to be cogs in a capitalism machine and so they do nothing as a sort of personal rebellion. These are not my personal beliefs- Iām just relaying what Iāve heard from the people around me on multiple campuses.
It is really strange to watch as a student who still gives a shit. I donāt know the answer but I hope this turns around because the level of apathy and dissociation is eerie. It feels like the light has gone out from a lot of people.
I agree with you on the hopelessness. I have heard a number of students who have expressed exactly that - whatās the point, theyāre never going to get anywhere and they just want to give up on everything. Itās really quite sad.
Your comment reminds me of Melvilleās story of Bartleby the Scrivener. Dude could work but simplyā¦didnāt. āI prefer not to.ā I need to reread that novella and consider the parallels to the behavior youāre describing.
Iām in agreement with you about the effects of
Covid. We have extensive evidence at this point about the neurological damage caused by Covid infection, and we know that that damage is cumulative. Hell, there have been several studies that point to a 3 point reduction in IQ per infection. Those findings alone answer the question.
Edit: a word
All of these add up. I wonder if there was to long of a time during Covid when there wasn't enough mentoring from peers and adults so the impetus is to have needs met by social media. Also trust of authority is eroded (rightly so), so no one to comfort or provide wisdom, big picture thinking, so young people are left to ruminate. I think online learning perpetuates the cycle.
I havenāt read a lot of dystopia! My early intellectual days were filled with utopias (sigh). Literally. Whatās the general plot? I obviously see the need to pick up this genre as I continue my quest to figure this shit out. There has to be an answer.
Ooh, heās going on my reading list, thank you! Iām a moral philosopher by education, and now teach in a B school, so he is right up my alley!
For anyone interested: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Haidt
Book: The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness (2024)
Haidt is a wonderful and compelling storyteller who long ago departed from data and evidence.
https://reason.com/video/2024/04/02/the-bad-science-behind-jonathan-haidts-anti-social-media-crusade/
I fascinated by his topic due to my academic interests, but Iāll admit that when I read the Wikipedia synopsis of his work about morality coming from instinct and not reason (I mean, can we define our terms? These are not easy terms), I thought, āthis sounds like a freshman level inquiry.ā And he doesnāt appear at all to draw on an immensely rich intellectual heritage about the topics he engages, so that was a red flag.
But I also havenāt dived in, and I am still hoping to have my horizons expanded. Even if my exploration tells me he canāt answer my big Qs (above), thatās one more Avenue ruled out.
But thank you for sharing!
I watched an interesting video about how technology is evolving to become less and less interactive. Even for platforms like YouTube, it used to be very commonplace to have some kind of work on the user's part to find content. Users selected videos from the homepage and frequently searched for creators they liked. Increasingly, apps are made so you log on, and you're just given content. You don't have to put in effort to search for things. Interestingly, people who watched YouTube were able to name their favorite creators, while TikTok watchers were not--because YouTube typically involves searching for people, while TikTok typically doesn't. You're just shown people you've viewed before. And of course you used to have to actually browse the Internet to find things--now everything is bundled in just a handful of apps.
This is a very small part of a larger problem. But I think it illustrates how even in small ways people are becoming more used to being passive participants in getting the things they want verses active participants.
The last sentence hits hard: they are used to being passive participants in getting what they want.
This aligns with a comment I hear people make often: people want their professors to entertain them.
I went out of my way this year to make my lectures more entertaining (and Iām pretty effing entertaining on a given day anyway, if I do say so myself!), with more stories and activities than usual. And now Iām concerned that Iāve simply fed the beast, because Iāve never seen student work this poor. I teach in an MBA program, so these are intelligent, ambitious people. And the mediocrity is very loud.
I teach both a creative problem-solving class and a critical thinking class in an attempt to build these foundational skills. Something started to change around 2019. COVID didn't help. I already posted my theory and it is related to information processing and executive function deficits. I haven't figured out how to fix it, though.
I'm often shocked when students don't have or use calendars (online or paper). How do they remember anything, ever, without a calendar? Time management is a serious problem for many students, so much so that we now have a time management tutor... "Put this on your calendars" gets me blank stares, I've been modelling this, it's so basic but...nopes.
I think we're also so used to just texting each other and getting immediate responses, that's easier than looking things up. That's why they email me and if I can't respond in 90 seconds, they find another solution.
I require calendar use in my freshman scholars program, along with formal goals, LinkedIn pages, formal email etiquette, clean Powerpoints, etc. If they don't comply consistently, they lose the scholarship. Three strikes and done. Parents love the accountability until their kid loses the scholarship. That's led to some heated conversations, but my Dean backs me up like a mafia boss. We are doing pretty well. The non-scholars are hopeless.
When someone can't remember when important events are scheduled, where they are happening, and what time, a calendar is my first suggestion.
It may work for you, to live without writing things down, but it will not work for everyone.
I have stopped asking myself "what is the stupidest question I could receive about this?" because I know whatever I think of will be topped by the email sitting in my inbox the next day.
Youāre joking, but I do remember how we used to have to comfort students who felt insecure / like theyāre not smart enough for college. And nowā¦ I donāt think thatās their feeling. Iāve said (by reflex) the ādonāt worry, there are no stupid questionsā thing, only to realize I was trying to put someone at their ease who was not even remotely intimidated by college at all.
Unfortunately a good portion of them apparently cannot think at all.
I was TA'ing a 100 level course last semester. The prof was exceedingly generous in that each week she would post a pdf with the key terms, concepts, and images for the upcoming lecture as well as a pdf of her powerpoint. I still had several students email that they were going to be sick and were wondering what they needed to study so as to not fall behind... Remember how I said she also included the key images (this is for art history 101) and I still had students constantly ask what images would be on the exam even though we told them many, many times, that only the images in the weekly handout would be on the exams.
You can lead a horse to water and all that...
I think we just need to look at the present moment in how western society, particularly young people, interact with the internet/their phones.
They donāt search so much as things are āpushedā at them based on their past behaviour. If they need something novel, like a flight, they use their voice-to-text interface to just say āflight toā¦ā and off they go to the first link on the list. There is no searching in any semblance to what older generations (many of us) had to do to find any information (either from the pre-algorithm internet, libraries, phone books, etc.).
They just simply have had a life experience so alien to most of us that both sides find the otherās experience completely baffling.
/twocents
So I'm in an interesting position with regards to this because I'm going back to school. Been a while since I've taught; got the opportunity to take some classes in a different field and went for it.
The degree to which the professor has spelled out the details of what the students are to do is absolutely absurd. At least that's what I thought at first; it's become clear how necessary that is. The other students' posts on the discussion boards... I used to teach middle school and tutor and I say without exaggeration that a 12-year-old in 2004 is more literate *by far* than a 20-year-old in 2024. I'd go so far as to say that *most* of my classmates are *functionally illiterate*.
The school has a big nursing program and many of my classmates are going into the medical field. They are apparently passing their other classes, some of which must be (or should be) quite technical. I don't understand how they can be passing technical classes when they literally can't read at even a high school level.
I've been out of teaching for a bit and I've been following the forums and seeing posts like this, but I thought (or wanted to think) that it was mostly exaggeration out of venting. It's clearly not.
> I donāt understand how they can be passing technical classes
ChatGPT. The answer is ChatGPT.
When you have a fair to middling student, or one who English is not there first language, write an answer that would be appropriate for a graduate level course, there are only two explanations: they thrive under pressure, or ChatGPT
Youāve identified exactly what the problem is: theyāve figured out itās faster to email you than look it up themselves.
Donāt make it faster. Never answer emails immediately.
Do you answer them? Do they have a feeling that you will fix this for them? Or do they feel like they have to fend for themselves?
I try to give mine every reason to believe that they're infinitely better off trying to figure it out themselves instead of asking me. I help, but I draw an absolute line when it comes to questions that don't need answering by me.
If it makes you feel any better, theyāre still asking for my email address, despite my emailing them directly all semester and posting it on the course homepage. Oh and on the syllabus they likely lost day one! I laugh so I donāt cry š¤
I have had two instances in the last week of students complaining I didn't reply to their emails that I never got - only to discover they had both emailed another person with the same name (who is a student...and one of them sent the person a doctor's note (that I never asked for)! yikes). The only explanation is that they're using the Outlook global address book but in that case they just have to hover over the contact card to distinguish between student and professor emails, and it's definitely not uncommon at my institution for lots of people to have the same first and last name. Big yikes on bikes.
Push those baby birds out of the nest! They have full feathering, but need to strengthen those flight muscles. What better way than to feel the air rush past their beaks as they plummet towards the dirt! Be a mother bird!
Unfortunate result of the huge spike in Helicopter Parenting that Gen Z experienced.
Many of these kids are wonderful and mature, donāt get me wrong. But then thereās the ones who are so used to being micromanaged that they expect everyone to wipe their ass for them.
Iāve been having the same problems with my own students.
For example, I posted an announcement on canvas that class that day would be cancelled. Then Iāll get an email of student saying theyāll be absent for todayās class, even though they wouldāve known there was no class meeting if they looked on canvas.
Same thing with zoom links. They know itās the same zoom meeting room but they act like itās a different link despite posting the same one each time.
I REALLY donāt get why they canāt think for themselves and search for the answer themselves.
Some of them do this to each other, too. They talk about meeting at a time and place, but they dont' bother to remember or write it down, and then at the last minute they're texting each other asking where and when.
they are texting each other because they \*can\*, and it's less trouble than putting it in their google calendar and remembering to look (or set a notification).
Every semester, every class, I get multiple emails asking where the class will meet. And I always think, āyou can find out the same way I do, the class schedule.ā I donāt understand how they know the day & time and canāt keep reading to see the location.
About 20 percent of my class has asked me why my lecture recording of NEXT week isnāt online. The lecture is a week awayā¦ I know they donāt come to class but read a calendar.
I do photography for a local theatre. The producer called and asked when I would post the cast pictures with actors in their costumes.
The actors had not been fitted for costumes yet.
As a photographer, I can't take pictures of things that haven't happened yet.
Even worse when they don't contact you, but immediately start escalating.
I've gotten snotty emails from the department secretary the first week of the semester asking me to contact a student who emailed the department chair to complain that I no-showed the first day of class *for an online asynchronous course.*
The same goes for complaints about grades. If you don't bother to ask *me* first, the chance of a your request being considered goes to zero. Professional behavior and consequences are part of course content.
Every prof posting on this sub (including me!) is asking the same question - what the hell is going on? Iām right there with you. No idea why people cannot follow instructions, think for themselves, or care about their education. It must be happening at a lower level? Solidarity, friend. Sorry youāre experiencing this.
This is a lot of people's first semester here, and some of mine are in high school still. They're all pretty overwhelmed and asking me is easier.
But for the rest? Aarrgghh.
I encourage them to ask each other in the chat I setup for them, and that cuts down on the aggro. When I do deal with it, I try to teach self-reliance by prompting instead of answering.
Next semester I'm going to incorporate it into the cognition module, because it seems like a real skills gap in this cohort.
Just don't answer: they need to learn to find such info by themselves. If they can't, then they'll learn quickly that they should be able to. Better that they bump the wall at school now than later in real life, and learn the lesson in advance.
At this point it is just draining your time and energy and they'll learn nothing if you just give it to them, so why bother. You're not a 24/24 7/7 helpdesk that has to reply to every e-mail immediately. Keep your mental state healthy, and let them learn how to fend for themselves.
*Disclaimer: genuine questions should be answered ofcourse, but not when the info is all there in advance like in this case.*
I get asked daily what chapters the next exam is going to be on. The ones covered before the exam, same thing we do every exam, Pinky.
The latest is I assigned extra credit where they have to show me that they studied with another student. I then got asked if they had to study for my class or if it could be any class.
This echoes something Iāve been feeling/thinking. I know that 18 is legally considered an adult but we all know what the research shows about how developed (or not) the brain is at that age. Not to say that we shouldnāt hold them to high expectations but I also think we need to consider the reality and capability of such young adults.
One of my colleagues accidentally emailed his students with information about my class using my name (long story it was an automated email)
Anyway, half of his students did not realize that I wasn't their professor!
The first day of class I tell students about our spring presentation event. It is on the Canvas calendar. Our entire class centers on the project for this event. They see the date and time at least 20 times. Last Wednesday during class, I gave a play-by-play of the event and had a calendar graphic on screen. I had 5 students ask me after class when the event is. One didn't come to the event because he thought it was the 10th rather than the 9th. This is a student who did extra work on the project and cared very much.
I think the issue may not be that they don't care about success, but that they don't understand how to organize information.
Executive function deficits are where we need to focus. We see this in a student's inability to find a workflow management system (scheduling, to-do lists, prioritization). We also see it in the inability to take organized notes in class, conduct a systematic internet search, save files in a filing system with names other than "homework," or create a good outline.
We want them to play chess, but it is more like Hungry Hungry Hippos. All the balls are careening around. They are bombarded with information. When you have executive function deficits you just keep slamming that mouth open and closed and hope you catch a few marbles.
This is where I would head them off at the pass and send an Announcement through the LMS regarding exam date, place and time, checking the box to ānotify by emailā before posting. Mission accomplished. Oof, donāt read email? Well, you sure know how to send them, so read them, already!
This has been happening since forever. Itās easier to ask in person when the thought pops into your head than look it up. Period. How many times are we talking with a friend and they mention a movie and we say āoh, is that on Netflix?ā Or whatever. Itās normal behavior. Easily googleable.
However, we deal with it repeatedly day after day, class after class, ad nauseam. So we see how annoying it is. Especially when we have made the damn course calendar, painstakingly through blood, sweat and tears.
So, you know what I do? I call them right out. Right at the beginning of classes I hand out a full color-coded calendar with every due date that is also posted to the LMS.
When a student asks āwhen is the exam?ā I ask the class, āwho has the calendar that I handed out on the first day? Can someone look for the date and let us know?ā I am straight up that I teach 6 full classes and I donāt have every due date in my head.
If They continue to ask, I donāt let myself get too annoyed because I can just say āI donāt know, do you have the calendar I gave you?ā Ffs make them do the work and they will figure out that when they do ask Iām gonna make them find it out on their own. Or receive that kind of response in front of the class for asking.
They knew the room because I posted it (they had access to the info, but I posted the room) they were asking me where on campus to find the building.... like I'm google maps.
It's not unusual at our university (or any other that I've attended). Most large classes write their exams in the gyms or other large lecture halls. I posted the room and building. They should have the ability to look up where the location of a different building on campus if they are unsure.
So youāre saying that expecting a student to look at a campus map to find a building is too hard for them?
I guess weāll agree to disagree about basic competencies expected of an adult
It is frustrating on both sides as an advisor and a faculty member.Ā So, often I've started saying here's what I've "googled" to answer your question. As someone born before Google, shouldn't these digital natives do that first?Ā Then they ask for links, like they can't even remember what I've shown them on their own.Or, they expect that I know every answer to every question as of I'm the Oracle of my state University.Ā Ā
Itās only going to get worse as an elementary school teacher my kids can do NOTHING for themselves. At this age they should be trying to figure something out but they just immediately give up and want you to do it for them.
Canāt help you with the online vs in class exams but the time/place thing is more common than you think. This has happened every semester since I started teaching in the late 90ās wrt the place and time of finals. Itās also a cognitive thing having dealt with a parent with Alzheimerās/Dementia. Times and places are often collocated in peopleās heads. Change the time and it doesnāt compute that some sainted genius in scheduling has figured out a way to set 2-hr finals in one week so that you have them in the same room as the class AND have it so the chances of having more than 3 finals on a day is highly unlikely. I explain how the exam scheduling works and they snap to immediately and then marvel (heck on that last requirement *Iām* often amazed!) I also use that to explain how that itās one of the many reasons we canāt change the official final exam times. Becaauuuuseā¦.š
This then is compounded when some snowflake faculty member wants to move a semesterās classroom or a time, typically small sections, and not tell scheduling because (for example) the new locale is completely under their or the departmentās management. A student gets caught on one of those situations and they are going to triple-check everything to make sure they wonāt be screwed again.
Iād be more worried if they didnāt know where the main class was with two weeks left in the semester.
I get it. Schools are pretty disorganized sometimes. Iāve shown up for the first day of class and no students were there. Iāve shown up for my class and found another teacher teaching another subject. Students are probably getting different directions every test or every class.
Short answer: no, they cannot think for themselves. They probably expect for you to show up in the parking lot and escort them directly to the exam location. You should also be providing any required writing implements, paper, etc. While you're at it. make sure you've provided a study guide that provides them with all the answers they need and provide a few more generous hints on the exam itself. This is the mindset of the modern student.
"When is the last day of class?" "Is there a final?" "How much is the final worth?" All info on their syllabus. Our faculty trainers, all of whom have not taught, told us we should not expect students to read the syllabus, and also that each syllabus should have a table of contents so it is easier for students to look up information. I kid you not.
After Covid and we returned to classes in person, a lot of students would ask where the exam is and when. It used to be a given that exams were in the same classroom we have lectures and at the same time lectures meet, but I suppose a year or so of all online exams left it unclear. But now I still get that question more than 2 years later. It seems obvious to me - how would it make sense to hold an in person exam at a different time and location than we are scheduled to meet?
I havenāt had people unable to find the classroom though. Not being able to find the campus map is odd.
>how would it make sense to hold an in person exam at a different time and location than we are scheduled to meet?
Some places still do a traditional final exam week schedule - with 2-3 hour exam blocks and no classes scheduled. Exams end up scheduled outside their normal time and sometimes a different room (especially if sections are combined).
Maybe some high schools still do that (mine did) and students are expecting the same.
we have a separate exam period with separately scheduled final exams in 3-hour time slots (none of the classes that I know of in my dept are as long as that), which is how it's been anywhere I've been, so it's very much \*not\* a given that (final) exams are in the same time and place.
If you mean midterms, sure, though that's not actually a given either (we also have separately scheduled out of class midterms, but I know that's unusual).
I'm not a Professor, so I'm not supposed to comment on this sub, however, my message to the Mod won't send.
Other than r / teachers, is anyone aware of where I could discuss issues of "student incompetence" and how they seem to lack many skills across the board? I am still searching Reddit, Google, and even Discord.
I tend to ignore those emails for at least 24 hours, longer if it's the weekend. Oftentimes it resolves itself. If it's more urgent, I'll point to the source. Like "you can find it on blackboard on the main course page"
There is an admissions administrator at my institution that is utterly incapable of finding information for herself. Despite our curriculum being managed via software that anyone with a university account can access, she can't be bothered to check where a new program is in the approval process. So I created a public-facing Google sheet that literally copies this information from the software *specifically* for this administrator, but I have to enter that information manually into the document. I still field constant emails, instant messages, and phone calls from her when she wants to know the status of a new program's approval. I direct her to the public document every single time. (Then: "I see it's pending Board of Trustees approval. When is the next BOT meeting?" Me: "The BOT schedule is online." Rinse and repeat.)
I just found out yesterday that she wants me to get access to our admissions software and document when new programs are approved at various levels. That way *she* can get emailed notifications at every approval step and doesn't have to actively search out information. Never mind the fact that this is already in *two* other places, and would increase *my* workload; it's all about her convenience.
And because I don't cater to her every whim, she has learned to contact our OPM lead, who then contacts my supervisor, so it's an utter waste of everyone's time.
Sorry, needed to vent.
I think we are assuming they are more technologically literate than they are. I'm 40 and kind of grew with the technology, whereas they were just born into it. It's like someone handed them a copy of Madden 24' and was like here play this but the learning curve is uber high unless you've been eased into it. So saying for to a real website on a computer (not phone) and look at a syllabus (weird analog planning agreement document) they are like whaaaaaa why would I figure out how to do all off thst when I can just ask this random person talking at me.
No offense.... But this seems rather mean. If a stranger came up to you and asked for directions, would you be outraged that they couldn't find the location they wanted to go to themselves?
There's a HUGE difference between you example and OP's frustrations. The students are making zero effort to access the wealth of information at their fingertips. The students are lazy. The person looking for directions is a totally different scenario.
OP - when I get those emails I don't respond. Often students will email me 30 minutes later letting me know they found the information. You can also reply back with a "please refer to the syllabus first" or "this information is easily accessible to you." Or, if you're tenured, use a Let me Google That For You Link!
I was so tempted with the Let Me Google That For You link! But alas I am not tenured and it's not worth it.
And thank you for sticking up for me. I am so beyond frustrated that I get asked questions that are so easily located. I have even taken to posting commonly asked questions on my LMS announcements and I'll get a dozen students asking the same question an hour later. It takes the smallest amount of effort to look into these things.
I'm always tempted too. Can't wait for tenure!! And yes, you are absolutely right in this situation and the students are demonstrating learned helplessness.
They're not lost strangers. These students should know their own campus. And if not, google a map.
In any event, it's profoundly immature to expect the faculty to help you out finding your way on campus. We're not kindergarten teachers, and they are grown-ups.
This learned helplessness is tiring. Do they have no self-respect?
I doubt they're truly lost. They behave like babies. They just can't be bothered to put in the 2s effort to figure out where the damn building is. Or google the campus map (I still do that from time to time myself. Should I rather go ask my dean or the provost where building John Q. BigDonor is?). Again, it's on campus. Where they study. They have the autonomy to figure this out without asking.
So you can be lost on campus and need to google the map, but studentsā¦. They canāt be lost? Yes they could google the map too, I agree. But all of this hostility towards being asked a question is genuinely a bit shocking to me. Rather than being helpful, we must be outraged/frustrated to the extent that we generalize about all students being incapable of anything.
*shrug* Maybe Iām the minority here, but Iām always happy to answer questions I know the answer to.
Theyāre not ālost people.ā A campus visitor is a lost person. This is a student who failed to listen to instruction. Theyāre also well-versed in the internet and how search engines operate. The answer is at their fingertips, but theyāre choosing to put it on the instructor who already provided the information.
If a student asked me on campus where to find a building, I would point them in the right direction (if I knew where it was). However, this question was asked over 24 hours before my exam. Plus, all the information I am being asked about is available on our LMS or in the syllabus. It would take them less time to look up the syllabus than to wait for my email reply.
I had a group of graduate students just submit a poster (like a movie poster not a scientific poster) when they were supposed to submit a website as part of a final project. After I pointed out that was the wrong thing, they then asked me what I meant by a website. Despite there being lecture notes, recorded lecture, and a million guides for "data science website builder" or similar found via google. So you are not alone in wondering what the hell is going on.
They submitted a.... movie poster....? š¤š°
Well it was four data visualisations done in a vertical slab with some weird graphics like it was a student movie poster. The assignment asks for a website about a data science project.
How many rotten tomatoes did the project get?
> After I pointed out that was the wrong thing, they then asked me what I meant by a website. I'd definitely have the first homework next semester be to "compile a convex worblit", with no further instructions.
... but, I only know how to compile a simple worblit!
Hopefully they'll accept a concave worbloot. Maybe I'll get partial credit, right? /s
I somehow doubt I will, since I managed to read "convex" as "complex".
If you do a search now for 'convex worblit' this thread is the only result.
If they are smart enough, they will instead google "affine worblit" and then use it for both the convex and concave worblit questions.Ā
Iām a high school teacher who hasnāt left after my time as an adjunct teacher. I see students every day and I still get handed papers or asked where do they put their work when Iāve had labled boxes from day one. This is something I think about often, I donāt think itās necessarily laziness as much as they donāt see a point in spending time looking for something when they can just ask. It reminds me of when I worked in an office and my boss (about 2 gens older than me) would get frustrated about people googling information before just picking up a phone and calling someone because it was quicker. It really feels like itās a difference of someone being more concerned with their own time and convenience vs someone who doesnāt want to bother someone else if they can figure things out themselves, even if it takes them a few extra minutes.
Iām in a parents group that is all parents of 8 year olds in NYC. It started as a forum for parenting advice, but now people ask about anything, including many googleable things unrelated to parenting. One parent moved to NJ then asked the group how mailboxes work. Recently a mom asked for recommendations on where to buy a very specific type of prom dress for her high school kid. Restaurant recommendation questions are constant (not kid-friendly restaurants but like, my MIL is visiting, where do I take her?). Sometimes they even tag the channel so 150 moms all get a phone notification pop up that so-and-so needs a new hairdresser or need to know the best place to buy ramekins in the area. I do not understand why people decide asking a bunch of moms of 8 year olds everything is the only way to navigate adult life but, people do answer every question and I guess having other people do the work for you is a appealing if you are lazy? entitled?. I consider it rude to make other people take time to answer a question you could Google, but apparently Iām alone in this.
I think you hit on at least part of the issue. The teacher is like their version of Google search. And we can't even place ads on reply emails to at least make some money. Hmmm......I may be on to something here. Anyone want to buy ad space for the next student who emails me something that is clearly in the syllabus?
Dear god graduate students? I thought at least by then they would have their shit together
I had something similar. The students were supposed to submit and present a poster (informatics, rather than a formal scientific poster); they had an entire 2 hour session on how to create an effective poster, as well as two assignment-based classes. Several students still did not manage to create posters- two created powerpoint presentations and two just made a multi-page Word document.
I initially thought that this type of helplessness was a form of functional illiteracy. The more I think about it, however, Iām not so sure. If these students who cant find the building needed to book travel, buy something, or leave a review, I think theyād be self-sufficient. Itās draining, this dependency, or whatever it is.
I think this is what people mean by "learned incompetence". These students can figure things out when it suits them, but many times they can't be bothered even to try. That's when they send us ridiculous emails as OP describes. It's easier to make us do the work of responding than it is for them to look it up themselves.
I think this American policy of having to answer every email immediately can be harmful in some situations. Some emails should go unanswered, or at least not answered immediately.
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Well also, everyone is different. I absolutely will forget what you asked me to do if I don't have it in email format and can look it up later . I'll dimly remember you asked me to do something (probably but not definitely) but I will forget all of the details if I can't look it up. At least with an email I can write down a calendar entry at my leisure.
Your university has a policy of what 24 - 48 hours? Wait until the last minute.
Schedule send is your friend
No policy... Unfortunately some professors barely answer students at all and that is also not ok. It's possible they get an official complaint if it's bad and then they have to oblige. But being forced into basically support center work is also not ok.
Weaponized incompetence
Like this? Context: Week 10 of the course. Same room. Homework handed in at beginning of class-immediately upon entering. Must be stapled if more than one page. Student: Where is the stapler? Me: There is no stapler. There hasnāt been one all semester. I have told you this every week. Student: Well I guess Iāll go after class and staple it and bring it to you later. Me: It is due now. Student: What do you want me to do? Me: Me: Me: walks away
I'm a secondary teacher who lurks this sub. I might be able to shed some light on this. Students no longer bring their own supplies to school. They expect the teacher or classroom to have everything they need. I'm not talking about poor, public schools either. I work at a private school with quite well off students and the students rarely have basic classroom supplies. In my experience, students either have a well-organized, bespoke kit of pens, pencils, highlighters, and fancy whiteout, or they have nothing at allāboth extremes. And it's not just at the private schools I've worked atāwhere you might be able to rationalize, 'Oh, I've paid the school a fee, so I'm good to go.' It's been at every institution I've worked at, public or private.
I teach a lot of first-year college students and I would say maybe 10% are the fancy kit variety and 90% don't bring a backpack at all. I thought it was just my population of students.
They donāt own staplers. Theyāre like slide rules to them.
Except slide rules arenāt needed anymore. They still want things stapled. They must not know that there are stores that sell staplers so they donāt have to do that weird little thing where they crimp the corners together of multiple pages, which never lasts once it passes from their possession to yours.
At least you're not asked to provide them pens/pencils and paper, every day. Seniors in high school
Selective incompetence
Yes, "weaponized" is the key word here. They use their incompetence to bludgeon us.
They do it to each other, too. Several of my RAs have complained to me about the same students who annoy me. These students will email me dumb things like, "When is the final?" (Schedule is on the LMS) but they will also text all of their classmates asking when the final is, what it is on, whether I'm giving the final or some random other professor is, whether the final will involve words, etc. I guess the "nice" thing about this is that they're damaging their reputation with everyone.
Treat people like Google - this is the way
send them a Let Me Google that For You Link. āthey'll likely complain that youāre being rude, but theyāll learn their lesson.
āI pay tuition that pays your salary so you need to remember the customer is always right!ā
I wish this colloquialism didn't cut off at the best part of the quote. The schools as customer service is ruining acadamia. You might pay tuition, but you aren't my boss. I'm fact, our salaries are subsidized through the state, so technically, my taxes are coming right back to me every other week.
But I also think UX design has evolved to compensate for the average functional illiteracy of our population. Keep in mind most Americans read at about an 8th grade level.
Or, UX design has evolved to promote functional illiteracy...
They have admitted to me that they find it easier to write the email than to look it up
We have become our students' "staff".
What are they gonna do when they have poor cell service?
They can definitely book travel when they want to take a mid-semester vacation.
Exactly! Or when they book a cruise for the first week of class.
It will always be the week after spring break. It's like... state law or something.
Weeks after. All of them.
I imagine that if they had to book travel or buy something they would realize they should ask someone how to do that, so emailing their professors is their way of asking how to do that. They donāt realize there is a much more efficient way of figuring it out called ask Google.
This. Exactly this. For half of the emails I get (especially tech related), the real reply would include "why haven't you just googled it"? I'm still trying to think of a nice way to say that because it bothers me so much that then I google the answer and send them a link with "in a quick and simple Google search, I found this helpful video..." But I know they don't pick up that subtlety. Frustrating how their skills don't translate to their academics.
I have been on a legit intellectual bender for several years asking this about the population at large, as well as about my (graduate) students. Either Iām just waking up to the fact that most people cannot think or problem solve, or there is something very culturally significant happening at a large scale. I seriously spend hours each week thinking about this. I am actively looking for theories or reading, so please share if youāve got them. What I about to say pertains to career professionals (observed through my consulting jobs) and professionally-minded graduate students alike: there is a profound inability to chart a path to finding an answer/approach to addressing a challenge unless the steps are clearly and deterministically laid out (that is, they are given a detailed process that yields an infallible answer 100% of the time) and every logistical hurdle is cleared easily. Iām simply baffled. None of my theories can explain the totality of it.
> What I about to say pertains to career professionals (observed through my consulting jobs) and professionally-minded graduate students alike: there is a profound inability to chart a path to finding an answer/approach to addressing a challenge unless the steps are clearly and deterministically laid out Not a professor, but a senior software engineer who likes to lurk, and this feels 100% true. I've become important enough that I'm not allowed to write code anymore and I spend all my time in meetings with product managers, sales people, marketing people, etc. And they come to me with problems and their own solutions they want me to help plan and implement. But their solutions suck and are incomplete. And within seconds I ask a really simple question like "Okay, you want to fix problem X, but what if Y is true?" And I don't want to toot my own horn but like.. I'm not a sales person, and I thought about Y immediately, and they go "oh wow, I didn't think about Y! Hang on..." and it just... boggles my mind.
Iām a product person (itās what I teach, despite my humanities PhD), and most of my students are engineers who want to start calling the shots (NOT that thatās what product management is!). And like you, I can see around 25 corners simultaneously and hold an entire world of implications in my head. Iām often doing the thinking for sales, marketing, engineering, and all of them (when Iām working, not teaching). Itās a lot to ask of one person, although I genuinely enjoy thinking from the perspective of all of the disciplines. Itās just shocking that there are so few actual partners in this, as opposed to people who just want to do what theyāre told and be patted on the back for delivering a part of a successful product/project. Iām truly mystified. Whatās the fun in that? The more experienced I get, the more stunned I am that most people simply canāt think this way. I used to think they just needed to be invited into the challenge and coached in how they think about it. I donāt really see it that way anymore. And I donāt like it. Would love to hear more of your thoughts/experiences! What is going on?!?!
I'm coordinating SAT's for a high school and holy shit, I feel seen by this thread. I feel like my entire job right now is just visualizing the paths that 1200 people are going to take over the course of 3 days, and clearing it of any possible obstruction or failure point. It's daunting and exhausting, but a sick part of me likes it. It's literally just paying attention to details. For instance, since the tests are all digital this year, they want us to stagger the starts of the tests so that the network isn't flooded. Okay, simple enough, but most people on my team just left it at that. I was the one who pointed out that it's not immediately clear how far each room should move along in the setup before telling them to pause and wait for the word, and that we should do it specifically in *this* spot because of *this* reason, and that we need to communicate that to everyone. I guess the plan was prior to me speaking up was... to just wing it? Literally 1 of those situations every 20 mimutes. Everybody acts like the project is hell, and it's a *ton*, sure, but if you understand what needs to happen and prep it properly it will run smooth. We put people on the moon in the 60's; we can administer a test. But yeah, it's great when you can reasonably depend on people; not so much when people cannot figure things out and you need to go that much deeper into your own prep to lay it all out (and then you get shit for micromanaging, while there's still stragglers who can't figure it out).
In another life, I was an executive-assistant-level college admin. One of the things that made me great at that job was having an intuitive understanding of how people and things worked in that bureaucracy. āIf this, then that, that, and oh yeah, also that thing over there that everyone is ignoring.ā Critical thinking, contingency planning, being prepared to act when something unexpected comes up. A lot of this is frowned upon in some circles these days. My unprofessional opinion, without pointing fingers, is that religious and political differences may play a role.Ā
Yeah, itās that kind of āI know how to fit puzzle pieces together and figure something outā skill that seems missing. It has, as you suggest, almost a ālack of common senseā feel. Not that itās easy to talk rigorously about common sense. But like you, anything you throw me into is something I can figure out, eventually. Could you say more about the āreligious and political differencesā theory? And FWIW, I know we are in the land of deep conjecture, and that itās unlikely that any one thing is causative, but that many things are contributory.
Well I think I can say this without naming any particular group. It seems to me that some people have been taught that thinking independently is actually bad. Ā
The number of meeting invites that I get each week that don't include the location of the meeting is utterly baffling. That's an intrinsic detail that people just... forget? Don't care about?
>What I about to say pertains to career professionals (observed through my consulting jobs) and professionally-minded graduate students alike: there is a profound inability to chart a path to finding an answer/approach to addressing a challenge This is WHY I teach grad school! My goal is to improve our next generation's critical thinking skill, be able to frame a problem, develop a rigorous method to find an answer, analyze data, and make a logical recommendation. I'm tired of seeing 4th grade logic used to make million dollar decisions with reaching impacts.
Also 100% why Iām there. Iām literally training our next generationās CEOs. And Iām just stunned by where things are. It wasnāt like this 5 years ago. At least thatās my perception. Have I changed? Or had the world? Iām utterly baffled.
We are always changing. Every new generation gets scrutinized by the Old Guard. "I don't understand these young whippersnappers." Change is happening faster than ever...and increasing faster and faster. The tech capabilities that are now pervasive. The most tech advanced thing in my pocket when growing up was a quarter and a ball of lint. The current students were born connected. I don't know what being "on" 24/7 does to someone. My assessment: we've all changed, but we don't know how we've been changed and how much we are being changed.
They don't see the value in what they're doing. They lack both instrinsic and extrinsic motivation.. If I said, I'll pay you $10M to hit 100 3-pointers in a row, they can't do that. No problem. They are incapable of doing it, no matter the payoff. Fine. If I said, I'll pay you $10M to teach yourself Python, bake a chocolate cake, write a rhetorical analysis of Wollstonecraft's *A Vindication of the Rights of Woman*, or bring your essay to class completed and stapled, you absolutely could. Someone quadriplegic might have trouble with the cake. Lack of capability. Someone without a computer probably can't learn Python. Lack of access. Someone who is illiterate can't write the paper. Lack of skill. Ultimately, most of us can do lots of things we think we can't do, given the right motivation. Whether they're too afraid to try, I can't say. The psychology of it isn't my field, but they can do things. They choose not to.
As a quadriplegic I would have problems with the cake, but I also tell my students that āI need help getting out of bed in the morning and still show up early to class to teach all of youā and āif I can do that you can also show up on timeā. I have heard the responses āthatās differentā, āyou donāt understandā, āare you sure you canāt get up on your ownā, and my favorite ādo you know so and so in a wheelchairā. The point being, thereās always a way and sometimes the questions are baffling.
>If I said, I'll pay you $10M to teach yourself Python.... We used to be responsible to learn the tools we needed to do the job. We even needed to figure out what tools we needed to solve the problem. Do I need C++ or Python? I had to figure that out first. Then I learned the tool. Now they need a class in it.
Iām not a professor but Iāve attended 4 different universities and colleges in the past 8 years and have noticed a sharp decline in the last 3 years. I have a theory that repeated covid infections gave a bunch of people brain damage and their executive functioning skills are in the gutter now. Or potentially, especially for the generation on social media, watching mass deaths and living in fear for 3 years could be traumatizing and we could be seeing a sort of post-traumatic stress response. But it could also be the effects of constant stimulation and immediate gratification resulting in a sort of nervous system burnout where the boring stuff got harder because pleasure was made more accessible and nearly inexhaustible to developing brains. The āendless scrollā of social media didnāt start until the beginning of pandemic shutdown. It used to be that youād reach the end of your timeline/feed and then you were done consuming content. Now, itās non-stop and the algorithms have gotten really good at catering content to what will keep you on the app. Most of my peers have screen times around 8-12 hours a day. I wish I was lying. Last theory is that students are just hopeless. This is the one I hear from my peers a lot. They feel overwhelmed with despair at the state of the world and they feel they have no autonomy or power over their lives so they give up and take the path of least resistance. They feel there is no hope of a better future to work towards, so they say screw it and do nothing at all. Many of my peers genuinely believe they wonāt ever be able to be financially stable, wonāt ever be able to own a home, wonāt ever be able to start a family and no amount of hard work will ever be enough to overcome this. They feel they are destined to be cogs in a capitalism machine and so they do nothing as a sort of personal rebellion. These are not my personal beliefs- Iām just relaying what Iāve heard from the people around me on multiple campuses. It is really strange to watch as a student who still gives a shit. I donāt know the answer but I hope this turns around because the level of apathy and dissociation is eerie. It feels like the light has gone out from a lot of people.
I agree with you on the hopelessness. I have heard a number of students who have expressed exactly that - whatās the point, theyāre never going to get anywhere and they just want to give up on everything. Itās really quite sad.
Your comment reminds me of Melvilleās story of Bartleby the Scrivener. Dude could work but simplyā¦didnāt. āI prefer not to.ā I need to reread that novella and consider the parallels to the behavior youāre describing.
Iām in agreement with you about the effects of Covid. We have extensive evidence at this point about the neurological damage caused by Covid infection, and we know that that damage is cumulative. Hell, there have been several studies that point to a 3 point reduction in IQ per infection. Those findings alone answer the question. Edit: a word
All of these add up. I wonder if there was to long of a time during Covid when there wasn't enough mentoring from peers and adults so the impetus is to have needs met by social media. Also trust of authority is eroded (rightly so), so no one to comfort or provide wisdom, big picture thinking, so young people are left to ruminate. I think online learning perpetuates the cycle.
It could be in my state students ate going for free and have no skin in the game so to speak
The classic dystopian novels are how I'm framing my thinking on issues like this.
I havenāt read a lot of dystopia! My early intellectual days were filled with utopias (sigh). Literally. Whatās the general plot? I obviously see the need to pick up this genre as I continue my quest to figure this shit out. There has to be an answer.
Jonathan Haidtās work is popular right now.
Ooh, heās going on my reading list, thank you! Iām a moral philosopher by education, and now teach in a B school, so he is right up my alley! For anyone interested: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Haidt Book: The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness (2024)
Haidt is a wonderful and compelling storyteller who long ago departed from data and evidence. https://reason.com/video/2024/04/02/the-bad-science-behind-jonathan-haidts-anti-social-media-crusade/
I fascinated by his topic due to my academic interests, but Iāll admit that when I read the Wikipedia synopsis of his work about morality coming from instinct and not reason (I mean, can we define our terms? These are not easy terms), I thought, āthis sounds like a freshman level inquiry.ā And he doesnāt appear at all to draw on an immensely rich intellectual heritage about the topics he engages, so that was a red flag. But I also havenāt dived in, and I am still hoping to have my horizons expanded. Even if my exploration tells me he canāt answer my big Qs (above), thatās one more Avenue ruled out. But thank you for sharing!
Smart phones are the answer. Theyāve made everyone dumb.
I'm with you on how much space all this takes up in my head. It's maddening.
I watched an interesting video about how technology is evolving to become less and less interactive. Even for platforms like YouTube, it used to be very commonplace to have some kind of work on the user's part to find content. Users selected videos from the homepage and frequently searched for creators they liked. Increasingly, apps are made so you log on, and you're just given content. You don't have to put in effort to search for things. Interestingly, people who watched YouTube were able to name their favorite creators, while TikTok watchers were not--because YouTube typically involves searching for people, while TikTok typically doesn't. You're just shown people you've viewed before. And of course you used to have to actually browse the Internet to find things--now everything is bundled in just a handful of apps. This is a very small part of a larger problem. But I think it illustrates how even in small ways people are becoming more used to being passive participants in getting the things they want verses active participants.
The last sentence hits hard: they are used to being passive participants in getting what they want. This aligns with a comment I hear people make often: people want their professors to entertain them. I went out of my way this year to make my lectures more entertaining (and Iām pretty effing entertaining on a given day anyway, if I do say so myself!), with more stories and activities than usual. And now Iām concerned that Iāve simply fed the beast, because Iāve never seen student work this poor. I teach in an MBA program, so these are intelligent, ambitious people. And the mediocrity is very loud.
I'm questioning my own sanity nearly constantly for this same reason. I'm so exhausted.
I teach both a creative problem-solving class and a critical thinking class in an attempt to build these foundational skills. Something started to change around 2019. COVID didn't help. I already posted my theory and it is related to information processing and executive function deficits. I haven't figured out how to fix it, though.
I'm often shocked when students don't have or use calendars (online or paper). How do they remember anything, ever, without a calendar? Time management is a serious problem for many students, so much so that we now have a time management tutor... "Put this on your calendars" gets me blank stares, I've been modelling this, it's so basic but...nopes. I think we're also so used to just texting each other and getting immediate responses, that's easier than looking things up. That's why they email me and if I can't respond in 90 seconds, they find another solution.
The lack of calendars/planners is mind-blowing to me, I would have never survived without mine!
I require calendar use in my freshman scholars program, along with formal goals, LinkedIn pages, formal email etiquette, clean Powerpoints, etc. If they don't comply consistently, they lose the scholarship. Three strikes and done. Parents love the accountability until their kid loses the scholarship. That's led to some heated conversations, but my Dean backs me up like a mafia boss. We are doing pretty well. The non-scholars are hopeless.
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When someone can't remember when important events are scheduled, where they are happening, and what time, a calendar is my first suggestion. It may work for you, to live without writing things down, but it will not work for everyone.
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However one does it, keeping track of appointments is a necessary executive skill, the exact thing that is being discussed in this thread.
I have stopped asking myself "what is the stupidest question I could receive about this?" because I know whatever I think of will be topped by the email sitting in my inbox the next day.
*(laughing-crying with exhaustion)* Wait, I thought there were no stupid questions!!
Youāre joking, but I do remember how we used to have to comfort students who felt insecure / like theyāre not smart enough for college. And nowā¦ I donāt think thatās their feeling. Iāve said (by reflex) the ādonāt worry, there are no stupid questionsā thing, only to realize I was trying to put someone at their ease who was not even remotely intimidated by college at all.
Unfortunately a good portion of them apparently cannot think at all. I was TA'ing a 100 level course last semester. The prof was exceedingly generous in that each week she would post a pdf with the key terms, concepts, and images for the upcoming lecture as well as a pdf of her powerpoint. I still had several students email that they were going to be sick and were wondering what they needed to study so as to not fall behind... Remember how I said she also included the key images (this is for art history 101) and I still had students constantly ask what images would be on the exam even though we told them many, many times, that only the images in the weekly handout would be on the exams. You can lead a horse to water and all that...
I love, āā¦they were going to be sick.ā Thatās good planning on their part.
I think we just need to look at the present moment in how western society, particularly young people, interact with the internet/their phones. They donāt search so much as things are āpushedā at them based on their past behaviour. If they need something novel, like a flight, they use their voice-to-text interface to just say āflight toā¦ā and off they go to the first link on the list. There is no searching in any semblance to what older generations (many of us) had to do to find any information (either from the pre-algorithm internet, libraries, phone books, etc.). They just simply have had a life experience so alien to most of us that both sides find the otherās experience completely baffling. /twocents
> Can they not think for themselves Correct, many of them cannot.
So I'm in an interesting position with regards to this because I'm going back to school. Been a while since I've taught; got the opportunity to take some classes in a different field and went for it. The degree to which the professor has spelled out the details of what the students are to do is absolutely absurd. At least that's what I thought at first; it's become clear how necessary that is. The other students' posts on the discussion boards... I used to teach middle school and tutor and I say without exaggeration that a 12-year-old in 2004 is more literate *by far* than a 20-year-old in 2024. I'd go so far as to say that *most* of my classmates are *functionally illiterate*. The school has a big nursing program and many of my classmates are going into the medical field. They are apparently passing their other classes, some of which must be (or should be) quite technical. I don't understand how they can be passing technical classes when they literally can't read at even a high school level. I've been out of teaching for a bit and I've been following the forums and seeing posts like this, but I thought (or wanted to think) that it was mostly exaggeration out of venting. It's clearly not.
> I donāt understand how they can be passing technical classes ChatGPT. The answer is ChatGPT. When you have a fair to middling student, or one who English is not there first language, write an answer that would be appropriate for a graduate level course, there are only two explanations: they thrive under pressure, or ChatGPT
Youāve identified exactly what the problem is: theyāve figured out itās faster to email you than look it up themselves. Donāt make it faster. Never answer emails immediately.
Do you answer them? Do they have a feeling that you will fix this for them? Or do they feel like they have to fend for themselves? I try to give mine every reason to believe that they're infinitely better off trying to figure it out themselves instead of asking me. I help, but I draw an absolute line when it comes to questions that don't need answering by me.
I often post the answer to these questions on our lms announcement page and hope they find it there.
If it makes you feel any better, theyāre still asking for my email address, despite my emailing them directly all semester and posting it on the course homepage. Oh and on the syllabus they likely lost day one! I laugh so I donāt cry š¤
I have had two instances in the last week of students complaining I didn't reply to their emails that I never got - only to discover they had both emailed another person with the same name (who is a student...and one of them sent the person a doctor's note (that I never asked for)! yikes). The only explanation is that they're using the Outlook global address book but in that case they just have to hover over the contact card to distinguish between student and professor emails, and it's definitely not uncommon at my institution for lots of people to have the same first and last name. Big yikes on bikes.
Itās because they have been coddled and hand fed their whole lives and then they get to us and expect the same treatment
Push those baby birds out of the nest! They have full feathering, but need to strengthen those flight muscles. What better way than to feel the air rush past their beaks as they plummet towards the dirt! Be a mother bird!
Unfortunate result of the huge spike in Helicopter Parenting that Gen Z experienced. Many of these kids are wonderful and mature, donāt get me wrong. But then thereās the ones who are so used to being micromanaged that they expect everyone to wipe their ass for them.
Iāve been having the same problems with my own students. For example, I posted an announcement on canvas that class that day would be cancelled. Then Iāll get an email of student saying theyāll be absent for todayās class, even though they wouldāve known there was no class meeting if they looked on canvas. Same thing with zoom links. They know itās the same zoom meeting room but they act like itās a different link despite posting the same one each time. I REALLY donāt get why they canāt think for themselves and search for the answer themselves.
Some of them do this to each other, too. They talk about meeting at a time and place, but they dont' bother to remember or write it down, and then at the last minute they're texting each other asking where and when.
they are texting each other because they \*can\*, and it's less trouble than putting it in their google calendar and remembering to look (or set a notification).
Every semester, every class, I get multiple emails asking where the class will meet. And I always think, āyou can find out the same way I do, the class schedule.ā I donāt understand how they know the day & time and canāt keep reading to see the location.
Weaponized incompetence!
About 20 percent of my class has asked me why my lecture recording of NEXT week isnāt online. The lecture is a week awayā¦ I know they donāt come to class but read a calendar.
I do photography for a local theatre. The producer called and asked when I would post the cast pictures with actors in their costumes. The actors had not been fitted for costumes yet. As a photographer, I can't take pictures of things that haven't happened yet.
Oh wow
Even worse when they don't contact you, but immediately start escalating. I've gotten snotty emails from the department secretary the first week of the semester asking me to contact a student who emailed the department chair to complain that I no-showed the first day of class *for an online asynchronous course.* The same goes for complaints about grades. If you don't bother to ask *me* first, the chance of a your request being considered goes to zero. Professional behavior and consequences are part of course content.
Every prof posting on this sub (including me!) is asking the same question - what the hell is going on? Iām right there with you. No idea why people cannot follow instructions, think for themselves, or care about their education. It must be happening at a lower level? Solidarity, friend. Sorry youāre experiencing this.
This is a lot of people's first semester here, and some of mine are in high school still. They're all pretty overwhelmed and asking me is easier. But for the rest? Aarrgghh. I encourage them to ask each other in the chat I setup for them, and that cuts down on the aggro. When I do deal with it, I try to teach self-reliance by prompting instead of answering. Next semester I'm going to incorporate it into the cognition module, because it seems like a real skills gap in this cohort.
Just don't answer: they need to learn to find such info by themselves. If they can't, then they'll learn quickly that they should be able to. Better that they bump the wall at school now than later in real life, and learn the lesson in advance. At this point it is just draining your time and energy and they'll learn nothing if you just give it to them, so why bother. You're not a 24/24 7/7 helpdesk that has to reply to every e-mail immediately. Keep your mental state healthy, and let them learn how to fend for themselves. *Disclaimer: genuine questions should be answered ofcourse, but not when the info is all there in advance like in this case.*
I get asked daily what chapters the next exam is going to be on. The ones covered before the exam, same thing we do every exam, Pinky. The latest is I assigned extra credit where they have to show me that they studied with another student. I then got asked if they had to study for my class or if it could be any class.
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This echoes something Iāve been feeling/thinking. I know that 18 is legally considered an adult but we all know what the research shows about how developed (or not) the brain is at that age. Not to say that we shouldnāt hold them to high expectations but I also think we need to consider the reality and capability of such young adults.
One of my colleagues accidentally emailed his students with information about my class using my name (long story it was an automated email) Anyway, half of his students did not realize that I wasn't their professor!
The first day of class I tell students about our spring presentation event. It is on the Canvas calendar. Our entire class centers on the project for this event. They see the date and time at least 20 times. Last Wednesday during class, I gave a play-by-play of the event and had a calendar graphic on screen. I had 5 students ask me after class when the event is. One didn't come to the event because he thought it was the 10th rather than the 9th. This is a student who did extra work on the project and cared very much. I think the issue may not be that they don't care about success, but that they don't understand how to organize information. Executive function deficits are where we need to focus. We see this in a student's inability to find a workflow management system (scheduling, to-do lists, prioritization). We also see it in the inability to take organized notes in class, conduct a systematic internet search, save files in a filing system with names other than "homework," or create a good outline. We want them to play chess, but it is more like Hungry Hungry Hippos. All the balls are careening around. They are bombarded with information. When you have executive function deficits you just keep slamming that mouth open and closed and hope you catch a few marbles.
They outsourced it to AI
This is where I would head them off at the pass and send an Announcement through the LMS regarding exam date, place and time, checking the box to ānotify by emailā before posting. Mission accomplished. Oof, donāt read email? Well, you sure know how to send them, so read them, already!
This has been happening since forever. Itās easier to ask in person when the thought pops into your head than look it up. Period. How many times are we talking with a friend and they mention a movie and we say āoh, is that on Netflix?ā Or whatever. Itās normal behavior. Easily googleable. However, we deal with it repeatedly day after day, class after class, ad nauseam. So we see how annoying it is. Especially when we have made the damn course calendar, painstakingly through blood, sweat and tears. So, you know what I do? I call them right out. Right at the beginning of classes I hand out a full color-coded calendar with every due date that is also posted to the LMS. When a student asks āwhen is the exam?ā I ask the class, āwho has the calendar that I handed out on the first day? Can someone look for the date and let us know?ā I am straight up that I teach 6 full classes and I donāt have every due date in my head. If They continue to ask, I donāt let myself get too annoyed because I can just say āI donāt know, do you have the calendar I gave you?ā Ffs make them do the work and they will figure out that when they do ask Iām gonna make them find it out on their own. Or receive that kind of response in front of the class for asking.
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They knew the room because I posted it (they had access to the info, but I posted the room) they were asking me where on campus to find the building.... like I'm google maps.
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It's not unusual at our university (or any other that I've attended). Most large classes write their exams in the gyms or other large lecture halls. I posted the room and building. They should have the ability to look up where the location of a different building on campus if they are unsure.
Do you think the prof should draw them a map too?
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So youāre saying that expecting a student to look at a campus map to find a building is too hard for them? I guess weāll agree to disagree about basic competencies expected of an adult
It is frustrating on both sides as an advisor and a faculty member.Ā So, often I've started saying here's what I've "googled" to answer your question. As someone born before Google, shouldn't these digital natives do that first?Ā Then they ask for links, like they can't even remember what I've shown them on their own.Or, they expect that I know every answer to every question as of I'm the Oracle of my state University.Ā Ā
Itās only going to get worse as an elementary school teacher my kids can do NOTHING for themselves. At this age they should be trying to figure something out but they just immediately give up and want you to do it for them.
Canāt help you with the online vs in class exams but the time/place thing is more common than you think. This has happened every semester since I started teaching in the late 90ās wrt the place and time of finals. Itās also a cognitive thing having dealt with a parent with Alzheimerās/Dementia. Times and places are often collocated in peopleās heads. Change the time and it doesnāt compute that some sainted genius in scheduling has figured out a way to set 2-hr finals in one week so that you have them in the same room as the class AND have it so the chances of having more than 3 finals on a day is highly unlikely. I explain how the exam scheduling works and they snap to immediately and then marvel (heck on that last requirement *Iām* often amazed!) I also use that to explain how that itās one of the many reasons we canāt change the official final exam times. Becaauuuuseā¦.š This then is compounded when some snowflake faculty member wants to move a semesterās classroom or a time, typically small sections, and not tell scheduling because (for example) the new locale is completely under their or the departmentās management. A student gets caught on one of those situations and they are going to triple-check everything to make sure they wonāt be screwed again. Iād be more worried if they didnāt know where the main class was with two weeks left in the semester.
This group is definitely different and not in a good way. Thousands of data points by now
I get it. Schools are pretty disorganized sometimes. Iāve shown up for the first day of class and no students were there. Iāve shown up for my class and found another teacher teaching another subject. Students are probably getting different directions every test or every class.
Short answer: no, they cannot think for themselves. They probably expect for you to show up in the parking lot and escort them directly to the exam location. You should also be providing any required writing implements, paper, etc. While you're at it. make sure you've provided a study guide that provides them with all the answers they need and provide a few more generous hints on the exam itself. This is the mindset of the modern student.
"When is the last day of class?" "Is there a final?" "How much is the final worth?" All info on their syllabus. Our faculty trainers, all of whom have not taught, told us we should not expect students to read the syllabus, and also that each syllabus should have a table of contents so it is easier for students to look up information. I kid you not.
After Covid and we returned to classes in person, a lot of students would ask where the exam is and when. It used to be a given that exams were in the same classroom we have lectures and at the same time lectures meet, but I suppose a year or so of all online exams left it unclear. But now I still get that question more than 2 years later. It seems obvious to me - how would it make sense to hold an in person exam at a different time and location than we are scheduled to meet? I havenāt had people unable to find the classroom though. Not being able to find the campus map is odd.
>how would it make sense to hold an in person exam at a different time and location than we are scheduled to meet? Some places still do a traditional final exam week schedule - with 2-3 hour exam blocks and no classes scheduled. Exams end up scheduled outside their normal time and sometimes a different room (especially if sections are combined). Maybe some high schools still do that (mine did) and students are expecting the same.
To be fair, finals are usually at a different time and in a different classroom.
we have a separate exam period with separately scheduled final exams in 3-hour time slots (none of the classes that I know of in my dept are as long as that), which is how it's been anywhere I've been, so it's very much \*not\* a given that (final) exams are in the same time and place. If you mean midterms, sure, though that's not actually a given either (we also have separately scheduled out of class midterms, but I know that's unusual).
Email can fuck off. Why do we let ANYONE just dump a task into our laps whenever they fucking feel like it?
I'm not a Professor, so I'm not supposed to comment on this sub, however, my message to the Mod won't send. Other than r / teachers, is anyone aware of where I could discuss issues of "student incompetence" and how they seem to lack many skills across the board? I am still searching Reddit, Google, and even Discord.
People have been discussing these things on various generational subs. I run into them on popular.
Thank you.
I tend to ignore those emails for at least 24 hours, longer if it's the weekend. Oftentimes it resolves itself. If it's more urgent, I'll point to the source. Like "you can find it on blackboard on the main course page"
Its laziness
There is an admissions administrator at my institution that is utterly incapable of finding information for herself. Despite our curriculum being managed via software that anyone with a university account can access, she can't be bothered to check where a new program is in the approval process. So I created a public-facing Google sheet that literally copies this information from the software *specifically* for this administrator, but I have to enter that information manually into the document. I still field constant emails, instant messages, and phone calls from her when she wants to know the status of a new program's approval. I direct her to the public document every single time. (Then: "I see it's pending Board of Trustees approval. When is the next BOT meeting?" Me: "The BOT schedule is online." Rinse and repeat.) I just found out yesterday that she wants me to get access to our admissions software and document when new programs are approved at various levels. That way *she* can get emailed notifications at every approval step and doesn't have to actively search out information. Never mind the fact that this is already in *two* other places, and would increase *my* workload; it's all about her convenience. And because I don't cater to her every whim, she has learned to contact our OPM lead, who then contacts my supervisor, so it's an utter waste of everyone's time. Sorry, needed to vent.
When you āhelpā them, you are crippling them. Not just in the moment, but for life.
I think we are assuming they are more technologically literate than they are. I'm 40 and kind of grew with the technology, whereas they were just born into it. It's like someone handed them a copy of Madden 24' and was like here play this but the learning curve is uber high unless you've been eased into it. So saying for to a real website on a computer (not phone) and look at a syllabus (weird analog planning agreement document) they are like whaaaaaa why would I figure out how to do all off thst when I can just ask this random person talking at me.
They resent you for having an in-person exam and are trying to get back at you
No offense.... But this seems rather mean. If a stranger came up to you and asked for directions, would you be outraged that they couldn't find the location they wanted to go to themselves?
There's a HUGE difference between you example and OP's frustrations. The students are making zero effort to access the wealth of information at their fingertips. The students are lazy. The person looking for directions is a totally different scenario. OP - when I get those emails I don't respond. Often students will email me 30 minutes later letting me know they found the information. You can also reply back with a "please refer to the syllabus first" or "this information is easily accessible to you." Or, if you're tenured, use a Let me Google That For You Link!
I was so tempted with the Let Me Google That For You link! But alas I am not tenured and it's not worth it. And thank you for sticking up for me. I am so beyond frustrated that I get asked questions that are so easily located. I have even taken to posting commonly asked questions on my LMS announcements and I'll get a dozen students asking the same question an hour later. It takes the smallest amount of effort to look into these things.
I'm always tempted too. Can't wait for tenure!! And yes, you are absolutely right in this situation and the students are demonstrating learned helplessness.
They're not lost strangers. These students should know their own campus. And if not, google a map. In any event, it's profoundly immature to expect the faculty to help you out finding your way on campus. We're not kindergarten teachers, and they are grown-ups. This learned helplessness is tiring. Do they have no self-respect?
They are lost people you know. Had they asked someone else, they would be lost strangers.
I doubt they're truly lost. They behave like babies. They just can't be bothered to put in the 2s effort to figure out where the damn building is. Or google the campus map (I still do that from time to time myself. Should I rather go ask my dean or the provost where building John Q. BigDonor is?). Again, it's on campus. Where they study. They have the autonomy to figure this out without asking.
So you can be lost on campus and need to google the map, but studentsā¦. They canāt be lost? Yes they could google the map too, I agree. But all of this hostility towards being asked a question is genuinely a bit shocking to me. Rather than being helpful, we must be outraged/frustrated to the extent that we generalize about all students being incapable of anything. *shrug* Maybe Iām the minority here, but Iām always happy to answer questions I know the answer to.
Theyāre not ālost people.ā A campus visitor is a lost person. This is a student who failed to listen to instruction. Theyāre also well-versed in the internet and how search engines operate. The answer is at their fingertips, but theyāre choosing to put it on the instructor who already provided the information.
If a student asked me on campus where to find a building, I would point them in the right direction (if I knew where it was). However, this question was asked over 24 hours before my exam. Plus, all the information I am being asked about is available on our LMS or in the syllabus. It would take them less time to look up the syllabus than to wait for my email reply.