invisibleacademia

[invisibleacademia]

i figured out what ails me. it is, in fact, less fun to learn math by doing "trust me bro this works" and then finding out later why it works, and more fun to learn math by building up to the theorems without already expecting them at the start, i think

[invisibleacademia]

reasons to do math

because it's beautiful

because it's cool

because it will scratch my brain right when i understand the thing

because i haven't understood the thing, and that deeply bothers me

the thing is looking at me from my whiteboard. it's mocking me. i can feel it

i'm gonna go back to the thing

[invisibleacademia]

In the 1700s, blood transfusion was used to treat psychosis. Oddly, sometimes it worked.

So a question for my followers: Give your best guess as to why this could have worked without looking it up.

I will answer tomorrow.

[invisibleacademia]

"you can use ai to improve spelling and grammar"

[invisibleacademia]

(through gritted teeth) sometimes what's good for your mental health isn't another do nothing day or a little treat sometimes what's good for you is putting in some of the work. Not all of it at once but sometimes you have to finish that essay or at least take the next step or you have to clean your room or at least dust the shelves or you gotta do the laundry or at least put it all in the hamper and it's not fun and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks but you have to because i read a post on the internet that told me that's what being nice to yourself is sometimes

[invisibleacademia]

^this

But also, as someone who has taught in higher education for 10 years (in the US), let's go behind the scenes a bit.

- Managing expectations: you will likely not see the person fired. There's a few reasons for this.

1. Anyone teaching a class at the college level has to have expertise in the field they are teaching (usually demonstrated by a degree). They have academic freedom to teach as they see fit based on what they perceive as relevant to the field. This is also why you can see 2 classes with the same name/course code taught VERY differently by different profs (except coordinated courses).

2. Colleges don't hire extra people to teach. They fire someone, they have to find someone to cover the course, which is much easier said than done. Academics plan their lives by the semester. Good luck finding someone qualified to start by the next class session. I was asked to teach a class "last minute" and that was 3 weeks before the start date.

3. if they are a professor, that's not really an option (for reasons). This happens with several classes, they typically just move them to teach upper division/grad courses instead. Lower level folks like lecturers have a contract. Adjuncts are literally paid just to teach a specific course. It's easier to just not renew the contract or not hire back.

I have only once seen someone fired (an adjunct) and it took A LOT.

- Don't go straight to the dean (of the college the class is housed in). They'll just send you away. Here's are the steps you need to follow:

1. Send a polite email to the prof asking for a reasonable accomodation. (E.g. I can't make your required in person meeting on such short notice. Can I meet with you another time to go over the material?) They say no or ignore you...

2. If it's a coordinated course, go to the course coordinator. Their contact info should be on the syllabus. (Most freshman/sophomore level courses with multiple sections or labs are coordinated - if your teacher is a grad student it's probably coordinated)

3. Go to the department head for the department the class is housed in (e.g. communications class in the communications department)

4. Go to the Dean of the college/school the class is housed in. They will ask if you have done the previous steps, and even if you have, may not talk to you directly (they'll reach out to the department head).

Don't feel comfortable with someone at any of these steps?

Go to the Dean of students office.

- What happens behind the scenes when a teacher gets a complaint?

First, they'll talk to the prof to get the other side of the story. They'll try to come up with some sort of fix or action plan.

What you, the student, will see:

- if its specific to you, you may get an email with some info (this is how that grade will be changed, this is how you can make up that assignment, etc)

- you may see changed actions by the prof. ( quicker grading of assignments, more responsive to emails, etc.)

- you may see someone visiting the class

What you DON'T see

- requirements to get materials approved before posting

- required meetings to discuss curriculum planning

- other types of corrective action

All profs have to follow policy and procedures. You should go to the coordinator/department head immediately if you see any of these things:

- the course starts early, starts late, runs later than the assigned course end date- this includes requiring you to take the final before finals week.

- the modality is changed (requiring you to attend a meeting at a specific time is changing the modality of an asynch course. Giving a 24 hour window is not, but it is considered bad form).

- the syllabus is not complete. That is your "contract" for the class. Universities have rules about what needs to be included at a bare minimum. Usually that includes basic course info, contact info, office hours, course materials and objectives, grading expectations, assignments, and statements regarding discrimination laws.

- they say anything about your grade in class (e.g. so-and-so got an A) or give other students access to info about your grade (e.g. have you pass around graded assignments to give back). That information is protected by federal law (ferpa).

- don't honor a university excused absence. Those are typically granted through the dean of students office for things like university sponsored trips or activities, extended illness, jury duty, emergencies of all kinds.

- say anything about or pry into a disability, or don't honor approved accommodations. They may ask about specifics for what accommodations you need and how to facilitate then in their class and require you to register with the schools disability office, but they should never require you to divulge your specific diagnosis.

- say/do anything that feels like harassment based on race, ethnicity, sex, national origin, religion, political affiliation, marital status, age and some others. These are protected by law (e.g. title VI and title VIIII). They should stick to the class subject. That should never be disparaging to any specific student.

- they are requiring a work load that is unreasonable for the amount of credits. Rule of thumb, for each 1 hour in class, you should expect to spend about 3 out of class.

Actually, anything that you think is unfair follow the steps above (teacher, coordinator, dept head, dean). It is more common for students to report things going wrong too late to do anything substantive to change it. But know, if it is legitimately unfair, they are doing something about it if they know about it.

Now let's talk books. Yes, the teacher can rewrite a book every semester and make you buy the new version (academic freedom). Your recourse is to drop the course. What you can do is take the class with a different prof. If there isn't someone else at your school that teaches it? Look for online versions or other local colleges and transfer that credit in.

Hope this helps! Please forgive any typos. I wrote this whole thing on mobile. 😅

I'm sorry, professor, I consider publishing your course a day late, having a mandatory live zoom meeting during business hours to stay enrolled for an asynchronous class, and requiring students to use a $60 ***pdf*** that you wrote as their textbook to be exceptionally unprofessional and since I've still got 14 days to get a refund I'm totally not paying $150 to take your class.

Also, for all the newbie professors out there: a syllabus is not just a greeting and a list of assignments. If you haven't given your students AT LEAST your office hours, your late work policy, and your preferred method of being contacted, then you have not given your students a syllabus it's just sparkling announcements.

But really. Sir. SIR. You teach Speech 100. This is one of the most basic classes with like, 20 of the most widely available accepted textbooks and you want me to pay sixty dollars for a pdf of a book that you rewrite every semester so that there are no previous editions?

Buddy this is interpersonal communication, not introductory rhetoric. Why is one of your *four* total assignments about Socrates?

Maybe it's the fact that I've taken Spch 100 interpersonal communication three times already, maybe it's the fact that I grew up with somebody who taught Spch 100 interpersonal communication from 1981 to 2018, but buddy what the fuck are you doing?

"Some of our lectures will only be available for 24 hours so it is up to you to stay on top of it."

Friend, you are teaching an asynchronous online 100-level class at a community college during a pandemic. Get off your high horse, a third of your students are probably parents. There is no reason whatsoever to limit access to course materials to 24 hours unless you are doing it to be a controlling asshole.

Also YOU published your class a day and a half late! You don't get to publish your class late with an incomplete syllabus and tell students to "stay on top of it." Especially not since that means that people have two fewer days to buy your PDF textbook and only one full day to prepare for your mandatory 1pm on a Tuesday zoom meeting!

Why do you require me to have access to a printer for an online class? Oh yeah it's because you expect me to print out and draw on sections of your $60 ebook.

SIR. No thank you.

Kids, new students: this is a level of bullshit and disorganization from a professor that you do not have to put up with. This is a neatly ordered series of red flags that say "this professor is going to be absolutely unbearable."

Also *any* humanities class where your whole grade is 4 assignments should get serious side-eye. You should be able to pass most 100 level humanities classes by just turning in weekly assignments. 4 assignments means that by the time you figure out how the professor grades you're probably close to halfway through the class. Look for classes that require weekly participation as a major chunk of the grade because that way, even if you fuck up a project in a major way, just showing up can save your ass.

[invisibleacademia]

Go look up the map of the cholera outbreak on broad street.

[invisibleacademia]

Coral grows on sea floors completely independent of where humans build roads, thus coral-ation does not necessarily imply causeway-tion.

[invisibleacademia]

i have a folder dedicated to "bad math memes" i made on mspaint in 2022. a friend of mine said tumblr would eat them up? but you know... i'll post one just to test the waters

[invisibleacademia]

Astrology doesn't seem to work.

[invisibleacademia]

An embroidery of the Wikipedia page for embroidery.

[invisibleacademia]

"these researchers published a paper on something that literally any of us could have told you 🙄" ok well my supervisors wont let me write something in my thesis unless I can back it up with a citation so maybe it's a good thing that they're amplifying your voice to the scientific community in a way that prevents people from writing off your experiences as annecdotal evidence

[invisibleacademia]

i think a really funny project that a statistics professor could have their class do is like. put a bunch of random, patently untrue demographic statements into a hat. "the most popular tv show among white men ages 24-27 is Bluey." "the majority of business majors are middle children." "bisexual women love hot chips." and each student picks one out of the hat and you gotta like. design a whole study and survey a group of people to specifically achieve that result. you have to prove it true. by whatever means necessary. you have to construct the most biased study possible and wrangle in your exact demographic to make that statement a statistical reality. i think people would learn a lot.

[invisibleacademia]

working in labs will get you used to specialized equipment slowly but surely until you’re searching stuff online like “can i use an autoclave to disinfect makeup brushes” and “used autoclave cost”

[invisibleacademia]

dear fbi agent. me suddenly laughing maniacally and having disney villains manneurisms is not out of insanity, i just figured out the math problem

[invisibleacademia]

So any math nerd or anyone who studies/teaches math has probably had this type of interaction:

Random person: so what do you do?

Mathematician: I study/work with/teach math.

Random person: Oh I HATE math.

And I, my fellow nerds, have found the perfect response: You hate math? You think you even know what math is? Have you ever had to prove that numbers are real? Or that shapes exist?? Have you ever had to sit in a topology class listening to a professor and watching the students literally lose their minds??? You haven't? Then stfu, I donzt wanna hear you say a word about math.

[invisibleacademia]

my fave writing reminder

honestly, this phrase has been on my mind more times than i can count. i've kidnapped it, taken it as a hostage with no ransom money because i need it to live permanently in my head.