I'm snowed under with TMA marking right now and truthfully, it's massively demoralising.
I tried to really sell the importance of attending the 'Group Work and Practical' tutor group tutorial this year - by the way, the title was not decided by me - I suspect it puts off the socially anxious students. I tried to tell them it was a succeeding at TMA3 tutorial.
I had one student (out of 20) show up from one of my tutor groups. And it shows now in the TMAs.
The number of huge mistakes that they wouldn't have made if they'd at least watched the recording is really frustrating.
My students are having the same issue with the electron orbitals question. I ran a module-wide tutorial on it the week before the TMA was due, I told all my tutees that many, many students come so unstuck they end up with zero marks. That attending/watching the tutorial would be really helpful. The same massive errors.
I know I'm not alone in this. We ALs in the OU talk about poor attendance regularly. And like, I realise these people have complex lives and disabilities and all sorts of issues - that's why they've come to us. So attending a tutorial may not always be possible. And it's easy to fall behind. And you don't have to look very far to realise that this is an industry-wide problem. Lots of students don't bother to attend tutorials or lectures, young or old, face-to-face or distance learning.
It's concerning to me that a significant proportion of students are clearly not trying to engage with the materials we provide as tutorials (let alone the feedback I spend hours producing). But it's also massively concerning because what's the point in employing me to run tutorials if no one is going to show up. When I was an undergraduate I had very few tutorials - just one a week for the whole of physics. I went religiously, so did everyone else in my tutor groups. I took Politics from Imperial's Humanities department in the final year, which was by the way, a complete blast. I really, really enjoyed it. We had one lecture and one tutorial every week in the Politics class. For the first week 20 people showed up for the tutorial. Come the second week there were 5 or 6 of us. And it was like that for the rest of the year.
So I realise that lots of people (probably most) aren't like me - feeling that they have to engage and always attend and do all the reading. I've seen it first hand. But I am shocked that there is so much less interaction with me than I saw in those Politics tutorials.
Lots of universities are struggling right now. Many are making teaching staff redundant and closing courses. Am I safe? On a course where in all liklihood I will one day have no attendees for a tutorial. Where it's not just me but all my peers are struggling to get their students to just engage. I shouldn't think so.
You can lead a horse to water...
I'm snowed under with TMA marking right now and truthfully, it's massively demoralising.
I tried to really sell the importance of attending the 'Group Work and Practical' tutor group tutorial this year - by the way, the title was not decided by me - I suspect it puts off the socially anxious students. I tried to tell them it was a succeeding at TMA3 tutorial.
I had one student (out of 20) show up from one of my tutor groups. And it shows now in the TMAs.
The number of huge mistakes that they wouldn't have made if they'd at least watched the recording is really frustrating.
My students are having the same issue with the electron orbitals question. I ran a module-wide tutorial on it the week before the TMA was due, I told all my tutees that many, many students come so unstuck they end up with zero marks. That attending/watching the tutorial would be really helpful. The same massive errors.
I know I'm not alone in this. We ALs in the OU talk about poor attendance regularly. And like, I realise these people have complex lives and disabilities and all sorts of issues - that's why they've come to us. So attending a tutorial may not always be possible. And it's easy to fall behind. And you don't have to look very far to realise that this is an industry-wide problem. Lots of students don't bother to attend tutorials or lectures, young or old, face-to-face or distance learning.
It's concerning to me that a significant proportion of students are clearly not trying to engage with the materials we provide as tutorials (let alone the feedback I spend hours producing). But it's also massively concerning because what's the point in employing me to run tutorials if no one is going to show up. When I was an undergraduate I had very few tutorials - just one a week for the whole of physics. I went religiously, so did everyone else in my tutor groups. I took Politics from Imperial's Humanities department in the final year, which was by the way, a complete blast. I really, really enjoyed it. We had one lecture and one tutorial every week in the Politics class. For the first week 20 people showed up for the tutorial. Come the second week there were 5 or 6 of us. And it was like that for the rest of the year.
So I realise that lots of people (probably most) aren't like me - feeling that they have to engage and always attend and do all the reading. I've seen it first hand. But I am shocked that there is so much less interaction with me than I saw in those Politics tutorials.
Lots of universities are struggling right now. Many are making teaching staff redundant and closing courses. Am I safe? On a course where in all liklihood I will one day have no attendees for a tutorial. Where it's not just me but all my peers are struggling to get their students to just engage. I shouldn't think so.
I don't know what to do.