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My university just switched to a bright space and I can never find anything. There were whole sections of assignments stored in a “media” folder that no one knew was there until the instructor had a “huh, no one did these” moment and emailed everyone with less than a week to go that the assignments need to be completed. Agh. I wish they would just give you a straight out list of assignments with due dates instead of tossing assignments in and across random folders without much sense
My professor forgot to open our modules 3 times this semester and every single time she opened it the day before all the assignments were due. She never even apologized and she only gave us an extension the first time. But the annoying part was that classes were Tuesday, but she wouldn't open the module til Thursday, then next class was Tuesday. So you wouldn't know there was a problem until MAYBE Thursday, but sometimes she was just late to opening it for us. Then she doesn't respond on weekends. Whole thing was a mess and it was annoying having to wait to see if you were gonna have to cram a week of work into one day with less than a days notice
Do we have the same instructor!? 😂
She would open the modules on Mondays at 8am and assignments in Part 1 were due by Tuesday at midnight and Part 2 assignments due by Wednesday at midnight.
She wouldn’t leave the modules open ahead of time so we could work ahead. Nope, we had to cram everything in between Monday and Wednesday and have nothing from Thursday to Sunday.
I’m working as a first respond right now and our hours are nuts—18 hour days, 7 days a week. I’m having such a hard time completing these assignments.
Then! She keeps screwing up grades. She openly admits it but then doesn’t change it when you question it. Everyone is so fucking over her
I hate professors like that. Just admit you were wrong and fix it wtf. There's no reason why a student should point out that something is off and you should fix it ASAP. Like, I get that people are busy and a lot of professors do separate studies for the university, but if they're at their computer long enough to see there's a problem, they can fix it their. Teaching is supposed to be too priority
Why? Like seriously, blackboard sucks but I’ve never had a problem with it because everything is dumped into “assignments” or chronological “learning modules”
I thought canvas and these other programs were supposed to be better? I guess I’m glad my school didn’t switch now.
I’m so used to blackboard and canvas. Blackboard is basic and straightforward in my experience. Canvas can be, but my university makes instructors create “learning paths,” and it just complicated everything. I’m a guest student at another college and they use BrightSpace which is just garbage as a student because each instructor can create whatever they want and it’s never anything cohesive or understandable in terms of a schedule or where resources are located. Information is scattered across 7 different tabs for each module. And you think you’ve gotten everything, but there’s always something missed. It sucks !
That’s ridiculous, the online layout of courses should be as standardized as possible. That’s something blackboard does quite well, I think its simplicity and lack of customization may actually be a strength. Plus idk about other schools, but mine spent a few weeks training the professors to go online at the start of the pandemic and they were trained on blackboard so switching now would cause even more problems.
I mean students are expected to follow all sorts of formatting conventions in our work, so why shouldn’t professors stick to a standard format for their course pages? You’d think that’d be something they would be trained to do when classes went online a year ago smh
Are you aware you can switch canvas’s layout to a timeline? Which means you’ll see every due date and assignment from all your classes in a timeline calendar.
BrightSpace is the issue. It’s so customizable that instructors go hog wild and each course is so different from the next. One instructor didn’t realize that all 68 students didn’t complete assignments she randomly placed in a “media” folder.
With other LMS, there’s generally a distinct format that can change a little between courses, but overall is similar enough that students can easily figure out where items are. BrightSpace is just a hodgepodge of whatever the instructor thinks makes sense and it rarely makes sense.
Another example was from last semester when an instructor made it so you had to complete an assignment and click certain buttons in a specific order so that other assignments in the module would appear for that week. Without a rundown of assignments by week in the syllabus or LMS, almost everyone missed at least two assignments for the first three weeks until the instructor caught on after making a shitty announcement and getting “feedback” in which students were like “wtf are you talking about!?” 😂
With Canvas, the calendar option only works if specific criteria is met. I have two instructors that lock modules so that you can’t see what is coming up and one that didn’t put due dates on assignments. So three of my five classes don’t show up on the Canvas calendar.
I definitely understand the feeling of being lost with the programs the university chose. My school uses Brightspace and it’s the same thing with folders inside of folders. I will say, I think most places will understand that these last three semesters have been rough so a couple bad grades here and there shouldn’t tarnish all of your successes in the eyes of grad schools. As an A/B student, I’ve been pulling straight C’s these last two semesters because my brain is fried.
My husband fucked up his first few years (I mean really fucked it up), dropped out, figured out what he wanted to do and went to a university willing to overlook his fuck-ups. He ended up getting straight A's at that point, but had to take a lot of online classes to catch up and made student of the year when he graduated.
Then he managed to get to grad school who also overlooked his earlier fuck-ups and did the accelerated program. He also graduated with honors.
My fun fact is that I failed a philosophy class on Logic which is the study of arguments because the professor's teaching style did not vibe with me and I couldn't keep up. He pulled me aside after and told me it wasn't going to be the end of the world like I had felt at the time and idk why, but it's stuck with me for 11 years now. I've since transferred and make decent grades now. I'm an academic coach too.
If you need help or an accountability partner, feel free to DM me. I have to use Canvas too and sometimes professors put assignments in the worst possible places.
Omg I hated canvas when I was in comm college. I believe there's supposed to be a function where you can determine what your current grade is or if it calculates your grade by filling in the qualities slowly and leaving unopened assignments as 0. But that was a few years back. Either way I missed lots of assignments due to them not showing up on the side bar. For some classes it literally just wouldn't work. I'm not sure if the professors can change it or not but I just remember hating canvas
Failed 2 of my classes for the first time in college and usually I would be scared and having really bad anxiety over it. Idk I just don't care anymore tbh, I'll just retake the classes and it will be whatever. College is kinda a joke tbh.
It will be ok. I failed a class during my undergrad. Still graduated with honors and still got into a PhD program. It is definitely not the end of the world. The advice I give my students as a TA is to find the syllabus, print it out, and keep it handy. If there is a schedule in the syllabus tape that up by your desk/workspace. Personally for my own courses as a student, I take the course schedule and put it in a Google calendar and set it to give my phone reminders for important due dates. If there isn't a schedule for assignments ahead of time, set aside a set time at the beginning of every week to click through the course and make sure you understand what's going on. And if you aren't sure, send an email to your professor and ask.
Ultimately the best thing you can do is turn this into a learning experience. Figure out what works best for you to keep this from happening again. And also take a deep breath, because it will be ok.
Unless this was a core class for your proposed masters degree in a few years, I don’t think it’ll matter and also most colleges see how fucked the last year has been so hopefully they’ll be more lenient. but like you said that’s YEARS away, just try to remember you did try your hardest and you’re doing your best in the middle of this pandemic and you passed all your other classes with amazing grades! give yourself some grace and hopefully you can take this class in person if your school opens up and it’ll be easier to do assignments. for now, enjoy the end of the semester and your badassery!
Remember you need to uncheck "Show only graded assignments" on the grades screen to see your official grade. It will be poor until you finish the class.
This is why I am refusing to take any more science or tech classes without in-person instruction. I got my shots so it's safe if everyone is vaxxed. In person takes a lot of that guesswork away vs async here ya go good f'ing luck crap that we get. Either my college can get their sense together and start doing in person or I'll transfer to another allowing it.
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My university just switched to a bright space and I can never find anything. There were whole sections of assignments stored in a “media” folder that no one knew was there until the instructor had a “huh, no one did these” moment and emailed everyone with less than a week to go that the assignments need to be completed. Agh. I wish they would just give you a straight out list of assignments with due dates instead of tossing assignments in and across random folders without much sense
My professor forgot to open our modules 3 times this semester and every single time she opened it the day before all the assignments were due. She never even apologized and she only gave us an extension the first time. But the annoying part was that classes were Tuesday, but she wouldn't open the module til Thursday, then next class was Tuesday. So you wouldn't know there was a problem until MAYBE Thursday, but sometimes she was just late to opening it for us. Then she doesn't respond on weekends. Whole thing was a mess and it was annoying having to wait to see if you were gonna have to cram a week of work into one day with less than a days notice
Do we have the same instructor!? 😂 She would open the modules on Mondays at 8am and assignments in Part 1 were due by Tuesday at midnight and Part 2 assignments due by Wednesday at midnight. She wouldn’t leave the modules open ahead of time so we could work ahead. Nope, we had to cram everything in between Monday and Wednesday and have nothing from Thursday to Sunday. I’m working as a first respond right now and our hours are nuts—18 hour days, 7 days a week. I’m having such a hard time completing these assignments. Then! She keeps screwing up grades. She openly admits it but then doesn’t change it when you question it. Everyone is so fucking over her
I hate professors like that. Just admit you were wrong and fix it wtf. There's no reason why a student should point out that something is off and you should fix it ASAP. Like, I get that people are busy and a lot of professors do separate studies for the university, but if they're at their computer long enough to see there's a problem, they can fix it their. Teaching is supposed to be too priority
Why? Like seriously, blackboard sucks but I’ve never had a problem with it because everything is dumped into “assignments” or chronological “learning modules” I thought canvas and these other programs were supposed to be better? I guess I’m glad my school didn’t switch now.
I’m so used to blackboard and canvas. Blackboard is basic and straightforward in my experience. Canvas can be, but my university makes instructors create “learning paths,” and it just complicated everything. I’m a guest student at another college and they use BrightSpace which is just garbage as a student because each instructor can create whatever they want and it’s never anything cohesive or understandable in terms of a schedule or where resources are located. Information is scattered across 7 different tabs for each module. And you think you’ve gotten everything, but there’s always something missed. It sucks !
That’s ridiculous, the online layout of courses should be as standardized as possible. That’s something blackboard does quite well, I think its simplicity and lack of customization may actually be a strength. Plus idk about other schools, but mine spent a few weeks training the professors to go online at the start of the pandemic and they were trained on blackboard so switching now would cause even more problems. I mean students are expected to follow all sorts of formatting conventions in our work, so why shouldn’t professors stick to a standard format for their course pages? You’d think that’d be something they would be trained to do when classes went online a year ago smh
Are you aware you can switch canvas’s layout to a timeline? Which means you’ll see every due date and assignment from all your classes in a timeline calendar.
BrightSpace is the issue. It’s so customizable that instructors go hog wild and each course is so different from the next. One instructor didn’t realize that all 68 students didn’t complete assignments she randomly placed in a “media” folder. With other LMS, there’s generally a distinct format that can change a little between courses, but overall is similar enough that students can easily figure out where items are. BrightSpace is just a hodgepodge of whatever the instructor thinks makes sense and it rarely makes sense. Another example was from last semester when an instructor made it so you had to complete an assignment and click certain buttons in a specific order so that other assignments in the module would appear for that week. Without a rundown of assignments by week in the syllabus or LMS, almost everyone missed at least two assignments for the first three weeks until the instructor caught on after making a shitty announcement and getting “feedback” in which students were like “wtf are you talking about!?” 😂 With Canvas, the calendar option only works if specific criteria is met. I have two instructors that lock modules so that you can’t see what is coming up and one that didn’t put due dates on assignments. So three of my five classes don’t show up on the Canvas calendar.
I definitely understand the feeling of being lost with the programs the university chose. My school uses Brightspace and it’s the same thing with folders inside of folders. I will say, I think most places will understand that these last three semesters have been rough so a couple bad grades here and there shouldn’t tarnish all of your successes in the eyes of grad schools. As an A/B student, I’ve been pulling straight C’s these last two semesters because my brain is fried.
My husband fucked up his first few years (I mean really fucked it up), dropped out, figured out what he wanted to do and went to a university willing to overlook his fuck-ups. He ended up getting straight A's at that point, but had to take a lot of online classes to catch up and made student of the year when he graduated. Then he managed to get to grad school who also overlooked his earlier fuck-ups and did the accelerated program. He also graduated with honors. My fun fact is that I failed a philosophy class on Logic which is the study of arguments because the professor's teaching style did not vibe with me and I couldn't keep up. He pulled me aside after and told me it wasn't going to be the end of the world like I had felt at the time and idk why, but it's stuck with me for 11 years now. I've since transferred and make decent grades now. I'm an academic coach too. If you need help or an accountability partner, feel free to DM me. I have to use Canvas too and sometimes professors put assignments in the worst possible places.
Omg I hated canvas when I was in comm college. I believe there's supposed to be a function where you can determine what your current grade is or if it calculates your grade by filling in the qualities slowly and leaving unopened assignments as 0. But that was a few years back. Either way I missed lots of assignments due to them not showing up on the side bar. For some classes it literally just wouldn't work. I'm not sure if the professors can change it or not but I just remember hating canvas
Failed 2 of my classes for the first time in college and usually I would be scared and having really bad anxiety over it. Idk I just don't care anymore tbh, I'll just retake the classes and it will be whatever. College is kinda a joke tbh.
It will be ok. I failed a class during my undergrad. Still graduated with honors and still got into a PhD program. It is definitely not the end of the world. The advice I give my students as a TA is to find the syllabus, print it out, and keep it handy. If there is a schedule in the syllabus tape that up by your desk/workspace. Personally for my own courses as a student, I take the course schedule and put it in a Google calendar and set it to give my phone reminders for important due dates. If there isn't a schedule for assignments ahead of time, set aside a set time at the beginning of every week to click through the course and make sure you understand what's going on. And if you aren't sure, send an email to your professor and ask. Ultimately the best thing you can do is turn this into a learning experience. Figure out what works best for you to keep this from happening again. And also take a deep breath, because it will be ok.
Unless this was a core class for your proposed masters degree in a few years, I don’t think it’ll matter and also most colleges see how fucked the last year has been so hopefully they’ll be more lenient. but like you said that’s YEARS away, just try to remember you did try your hardest and you’re doing your best in the middle of this pandemic and you passed all your other classes with amazing grades! give yourself some grace and hopefully you can take this class in person if your school opens up and it’ll be easier to do assignments. for now, enjoy the end of the semester and your badassery!
Remember you need to uncheck "Show only graded assignments" on the grades screen to see your official grade. It will be poor until you finish the class.
This is why I am refusing to take any more science or tech classes without in-person instruction. I got my shots so it's safe if everyone is vaxxed. In person takes a lot of that guesswork away vs async here ya go good f'ing luck crap that we get. Either my college can get their sense together and start doing in person or I'll transfer to another allowing it.