Post #2211073

2026-05-06 18:38 UTC

Feeling pretty devastated. The vast majority of my first year students failed their second midsem test, with over half of the submissions having compile errors. This is for a _second_ programming course, where they&#39;re given and recommended to use IntelliJ. I&#39;m racking my brain to see if I could have done anything differently. I don&#39;t think the test had too little time, it took tutors 25 minutes to complete (100%) and I gave the students 90 minutes. I gave them a practice exam that was the same format and structure (and very similar content) to the actual exam. I gave them homework exercises that are for nominal marks but primarily designed for programming practice and nearly half of the students have never even forked the repo to start homework 1, which came out 10 weeks ago. My class of over 100 students gets lecture attendance of around 10. Why do I even bother?

Replies (8)

@phil444@mastodon.org.uk 2026-05-06 18:43

@liamoc@types.pl I feel your pain. Was an academic for a long time.... My feeling over time became "I'll help, teach and encourage the students who turn up... the ones who don't, too bad". I don't know how academia is in your bit of the world, but the view of student as customer is a big chunk of the problem.

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@TerryBTwo@ohai.social 2026-05-06 19:05

@liamoc@types.pl Assuming that computer exams aren't in some unpredictable way different from other tests the next step is to analyse the point(s) of failure and also ask the students what they were thinking.

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@TerryBTwo@ohai.social 2026-05-07 10:52

@carlozancanaro@aus.social @liamoc@types.pl Good point

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@foxy@blahaj.zone 2026-05-06 19:45

@liamoc@types.pl My class of over 100 students gets lecture attendance of around 10.I am struggling with low attendance, too. As a teaching assistant, I moved to a different academic system recently, where I was told turnouts have been in the toilet for the past few years. I know that mandatory attendance is more of a thing in soft sciences and humanities, so I have never heard CS/Maths professors express an opinion on the matter. How do we feel about it? I would like to form an opinion. Out of curiosity, does your system also pressure you to pass almost everybody taking the course? As in, learning is not really a necessary condition to get a passing grade?

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@ah@goto.boserup.eu 2026-05-06 20:10

@liamoc@types.pl oof. I don't have any advice, but plenty of sympathy!

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@mio@shrimp.mio19.uk 2026-05-07 12:35

@liamoc@types.pl This is related to my experience. Similar situation happened when there were some education system level failures. I was in a place where some students didn't want the current major but choosing a different major was impossible. Some other students seemed don't want any study but staying in university was beneficial to them for other reasons. No one wanted to turn up and when people did turn up, people were minding their own businesses.

Open ##2304939
@mio@shrimp.mio19.uk 2026-05-07 12:36

@liamoc@types.pl This must be very depressing

Open ##2304941
@janeishly@beige.party 2026-05-09 23:05

@liamoc@types.pl That sounds really demoralising. It also sounds like there's nothing *you* could do, because you've led the horse to water. How much of a problem is this going to cause with your employer, and are your colleagues dealing with the same levels of shit?

Open ##2316769