ugh.

Update: 2 hours at -5 and bro finally came. He didn’t come to me mind you, waited for me to go walking around the block calling Jaaaassssspppppeeeerrrrrrrrrrr like an idiot. When I came back home, he was sitting by the door wailing and lamenting. Jerk. 🥶

In my 300 and 400 levels I do more traditional writing assignments, but I also include presentations and require meeting with me 1-on-1 to talk about their essays before they write them. I do a short paper, then a long paper. They can (are encouraged to) expand and revise the short into the long.

In my critical thinking class, I also started doing online m/c quizzes in place of homework last semester. I think it worked OK, but I must say, those quizzes took an enormous amount of time to write. By the 5th week of the term, I couldn’t keep up with that. Perhaps each term I’ll add a few more.

For writing, I’m using a low-stakes reading response template that they fill out as they read. I’m finding the responses are pretty good and I’m only getting one or two per class that are pretty clearly written by AI.

This is in my 100 and 200 level courses.

My approach this year has been to design lower-stakes writing exercises. I figure the urge to use ChatGPT is driven in part by fear. I’m actually more worried about declining reading skills, so I’m trying to redesign my lectures to be centered around showing students how I engage with a text.

We should all be so smoove and unthinky

Whenever you say or hear "It is what it is" uttered in a way where people walk away saying, "you know what? that's right, that settles it," an angel in Plato's heaven gets its wings.

to one of the hardest academic disciplines. You've got to have your two feet planted firmly in at least 3 different disciplines. Grade: A

Brilliant plan. Build housing too expensive for people with kids and you don’t need schools. They’re just getting two birds stoned at once.

Season 2 is still in the works, but I’m told the title is settled: “Law & Order Toronto: The shit winds blow”

It’s a tale of moral trauma perpetrated by the crushing weight of poverty and cultural institutions that drive racidivism, but also holds onto the hope that there is sweetness in the world.

Every academic experiences the funny phenomenon that eveyone in their circle is interested in what they're interested in. The selection effects are real! That an academic finds all roads of interest in their work lead to inappropriate fantasies... OMG.

In England, and I believe in France, too, they had a "gentleman's agreement" that they would publish whatever they got; they would assume, at least initially, that everything was a good faith attempt to discover the truth.

From the beginning, there was always a load of malarkey published by the Royal Societies. But I think the snakeoil was lower because the readership was always small. If you're selling snakeoil, you wouldn't waste your time writing it up for the Phil Trans, for example. Why bother?