Edit: 12 assignments turned in (about half the class), every one of them was exactly like described below. 100% fail rate. Maybe I'm a sucker, but I gave everyone the opportunity to resubmit within a week for no penalty. This is exactly the same assignment I gave to this class last semester; in that class, I think two or three out of 25 did this. Ugh.

Oh. My. Gods.
I gave my intro psych students an assignment (they had 3 weeks to work on it) requiring them to find a news article and identify two concepts from our textbook in the behavior of people in the article. There were explicit instructions not to choose an article about a psychological concept. I explained in class (twice) that this would obviate the entire point of the assignment, which is for them to identify the concept, not for other people to do so.

Class is ~25 students. I've looked at half the submissions. Every. Fucking. One. is an article about a psych concept ("operant behavior helps dog owners train pets" "Summary of priming research", etc.).

My suspicion: Each of them found a principle in the textbook, then googled that. This is, of course, guaranteed to get them a list of ineligible articles. Worse possibility: they asked #AI.

This class refuses, by and large, to engage in lecture or activities, asks zero questions (seriously, we're at like ten weeks with zero questions or comments of any kind). Nobody has ever come to office hours or asked to see me about the class, their grades, etc.

It will get me serious negative attention from my chair and dean, but I will apply an honest grade of F to every one of these students if that's what they earn.

#professor #frustration #gripe