What I Did on my Summer Vacation (2023 edition)

How was my summer? Busy--even busier than usual. So much going on.

As usual, I spend the majority of my time prepping for the next academic year. Sigh. Technical stuff: Manually converted all of my web pages to HTML5, and tried my hand at Inkscape to create vector images of the logos and graphics on my web pages. Hopefully, everything looks better on mobile devices now. Content stuff: Developed a new lecture topic on information design, which I should have done long ago. I got three books to get me up to speed (of course!).

🚙 In the spring, I got a new car: a Hyundai Tucson hybrid. I really wanted the plug-in hybrid but didn't want to wait 2 years (!) to get one. It often takes a while get comfortable with a new car, but not with this one. It's smooth and easy to drive, and it gets even better gas mileage than my old hybrid.

🔥 Then the wildfires hit--and kept on coming. So much destruction and chaos. My heart goes out to those disrupted and displaced by the terrible fires this year. Yeah, we had a lot of smoke to deal with in the city, but at least we were all safe. I hope the rebuilding goes swiftly.

🏖 Took the family to Aspen Beach on Gull Lake, as we do every summer. Chased butterflies and ate ice cream.

It's melting!

 

🦋 Then we headed to the Calgary Zoo for more butterflies. (Clearly, my wife and daughters are big fans of butterflies.)

So. Many. Butterflies.

🐱‍🐉 Next up: Drumheller. It's been five years since we were last at the Royal Tyrrell Museum; it's always worth the trip. And then: hoodoos.

Hoodoo?

 

🎬 There were a lot of blockbusters this summer. I didn't get around to doing the Barbenheimer thing. My mission, which I chose to accept, was seeing Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning (Part One). There's a lot of punctuation in that title.

Mission: Completed!

🎠 I got to spend time with my youngest daughter at K-Days. Thankfully, she's not into rides (me neither). It was all about the snacks and the petting zoo.

🌷🌸🌹🌺🌼 The highlight for us though was our first real holiday in five years, and the first real summer vacation we've taken as a family, going to Victoria. The Butchart Gardens! (Flowers, flowers, FLOWERS!) Victoria Butterfly Gardens! (Butterflies, amirite?) Craigdarroch and Hatley castles! Frickin' Delights Donuts! (Owned and run by ex-Edmontonians--given them a try!) Trans-Canada Highway Mile 0 and the Terry Fox memorial statue! (Got choked up a little bit.)

(This is a pretty good photo. 😎)

(You think these look good? You should try them. Frickin'!)

RIP, Terry. GOAT!

Whew! Lots of fun, and way better than last year when I broke my toe. Way better. Un/fortunately, I also had some good news and then some bad news. But that's another post.

Why aren't you studying?

The Toe

The broken toe, that is. Ugh, yes, I have a broken toe: distal metatarsal on the third toe of my right foot. I broke it exactly two weeks before classes. No, there's no interesting story. I'd like to say that it was run over after I grabbed a child out of the way of an out-of-control bus. Like something out of the movie Speed. But no. The real story is, well, pretty dumb.

I came home, took off my shoes, and took a step. Unfortunately, I happened to step with my full weight onto a sharp little rock. This came as a surprise to me, along with the intense pain it caused. I reacted by freaking out and sort-of jumping off the rock and sort-of kicking my leg out. No problem, except that there was a door frame occupying the space where my leg kicked out, and my foot smashed into it. The worst part of all this--aside from my broken toe--is that there was no damage at all to the door frame. C'mon, at least a crack? No?

(What was a rock doing in the house? My guess is that it was leftover gravel that was on the roads from last winter. The city does a lousy job of cleaning it all up in the spring in my neighbourhood, and there are piles of sand and gravel everywhere. Rocks get stuck in the bottom of running shoes and fall out onto the floor of the house. I found the rock and kept it as a "souvenir" but then my wife threw it away. It was pretty big. For a little rock.)

The X-ray showed it was broken, so I was off to the medical supply store to get my strappy boot. It's actually pretty comfortable. I may continue to wear it even after my toe heals.

The worst part was not the pain, but knowing that classes started in two weeks. That's not enough time to heal up. I'd have to hobble around campus. Even worse, one of my classes was in the Fine Arts Building--1 kilometre from my office, door-to-door. Ugh. I timed it: it took me 25 minutes to limp there, and another 25 to shuffle back.

(Yeah, Google Maps says 850 m from building-to-building, but my Fitbit says 1.0 km door-to-door.)

The prognosis is 4 to 6 weeks for recovery. It's already been 4 weeks, and I am starting to feel better. I know this because the other day, on the way to that faraway class, I actually passed a couple of bros in HUB Mall. Sure, they were wrapped up in their conversation, but this was the first time I passed another human being in a month!

I'm actually supposed to be doing better than this, but my medical advice was to "stay off your feet." Ha! As if. Tell that to the people in Exams and Timetabling who assigned me a classroom on the opposite side of campus. Here's a typical result from my Fitbit:

(14,641 steps is not exactly "staying off my feet.")

Being temporarily disabled, however, has given me perspective on what mobility challenged people face every day. There are a lot of stairs on campus. North Campus is pretty spread out. And even just psychology courses are scheduled in buildings all across campus. It's really opened my eyes.

So if you see someone who has a mobility aid, or is just hobbling along maybe hold the door open for them. Some people may not want--or need--any help. But a limping guy in a fashionable boot would appreciate it.

Why aren't you studying?

(P.S. In a weird twist, I'm not teaching in FAB anymore. But that's another post...)

What I Did on my Summer Vacation (2022 Edition)

With COVID-19 on the decline, I was looking forward to my summer vacation this year! So my family and I...well, um. We did a bunch of things that we do every year. Home repairs. Calgary Zoo. (We were in Calgary during the Stampede--and we did not go to the Stampede. Kinda tells you a lot about us...) Cannoli from Sweet Capone's. Lake. Here's a photo from Gull Lake:

I mean, look at it. Wow, what beautiful...mud? And this photo has most of the beach/shoreline cropped out. Gull Lake is shallow to begin with, but I don't think I've ever seen it this low. Anyway, I'm not much of a beach person. I'm a sitting-in-the-shade-and-reading person. So that's what I did. No photos of that.

At least Bow Falls is same-old-same-old gorgeous:

But honestly, this photo could have been from any day over the past 20 years or so. Sigh.

Look, I'm trying to give you insight into my life and the things I do over the summer. At final exams in April, some students say "Have a great summer!" on their way out. That's nice, but first I have to teach a spring class. And then I end up spending almost every day of my actual summer catching up on improvements to my courses that I haven't been able to do for the past three years. (I think I made more changes/updates/improvement this summer than I've ever made before.) But do you want to hear about that? Probably not.

Okay, but! There is something new. My eldest daughter graduated high school, got three scholarships and is now a student at the University of Alberta!

Yeah, that's most definitely something new! (If you see her on campus, be sure to...not say anything to her. If you do, she'll complain that I put her picture on my blog without telling her. Shhh!)

Anyway, who has time to read (or write) a blog post when the new term has started?

Why aren't you studying?

I've Taught My Last PSYCO Course

So, that's it. I've taught my last PSYCO course--ever. I taught my first in 1994, and I just finished my last one, 28 years later. I've taught a bunch of them: PSYCO 104, PSYCO 105, PSYCO 258, PSYCO 233, PSYCO 267, PSYCO 282, PSYCO 323, PSYCO 354, PSYCO 365, PSYCO 403, and PSYCO 494. But, no more.

Wait--do you think I'm retiring? Nope, not me. Instead, the UAlberta Department of Psychology has "retired" the PSYCO designation for psychology courses. From now on, they're all going to be PSYCH. Psych!

It was felt that calling our courses PSYCO was too much like calling them psycho. This is not a good look for a department of psychology. None of us ever actually pronounced it like "psycho"; we all said "psych" anyway. So in Department Council meeting on February 12, 2021, we voted to change the designation (96% in favour with one abstention). Usually, change to things in the UAlberta Calendar take a loooong time to change, so having it take effect in Fall, 2022 is pretty fast in terms of University-level speed.

Etymology moment: in Greek mythology, Psyche was a mortal woman who became the wife of Eros (the Greek god of love and sex) and the goddess of the soul. The word psyche means "the human soul, mind, or spirit." None of this is what psychology is about.

Trivia moment: some psychology departments around the world have changed their names to "Department of Brain and Behavioural Sciences", or some variant thereof. But "psychology" is still #1 by a wide margin.

Be careful not to confuse PSYCH with PSYCI (Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry psychiatry) or PSYCE (Faculté Saint-Jean psychologie) courses.

I hope you're as psyched for the change as I am!

Why aren't you studying?

The Comments: Winter, 2022

Wow, it has been a long time since I last posted responses from teaching evaluations. Partly that's because the Department of Psychology paused the Teaching Honour Roll about 4 years ago and hasn't started them up again. (Why? The criteria for being put on the Honour Roll require that a certain percentage of the class must respond to the end-of-term evaluations. Since moving USRIs online in Fall, 2014, response rates have plummeted from 80% to just over 50%. And that's where everything has been stuck since 2018.)

During the first term interrupted by Covid, there were no formal USRIs. (I still sent out a Google Form to my class because that feedback is important to me--especially during the difficult shift to remote teaching.)

Anyway, here are written comments provided by students this past Winter term from my PSYCO 282 course. Enjoy--but remember that my responses (in parentheses and in bold) to these comments may have an extra dash or snark and a pinch of sarcasm!

- Probably best prof I've had so far

- It's clear that Dr. Loepelmann cares about teaching and his students. He makes every lecture enjoyable on top of being well organized, well spoken, and overall a great professor.

- Psyco 282 with Professor Loepelmann was one of the most enjoyable and well-organized courses I took this semester. Whether it was online classes at the beginning of the term, or in-person classes later on, Professor Loepelmann made the lectures clear, interesting, and easy to understand. The self-management project was engaging and applicable to our daily lives. I have already recommended this course and instructor to multiple other students and will continue to do so.

- It was a pleasure being in Karsten Loepelmann's class this semester. He was engaging, knowledgable, and funny in a cheesy way. His lectures were often thought-provoking and made me think critically about why people behave the way they do. Overall, I enjoyed his class which made me more knowledgeable in the field of psychology.

- Instructor was equally enthusiastic in both online and in person lectures.

- I love u leopelmann <3

(C'mon, tell me how you really feel! 😊)

- this professors conduct was completely unacceptable. Regardless of ones views on class matters, I don't believe that for a PSYCH course a professor should be so vocal about their political and social views. This professor even went to the extent of trying to enforce his own mandates in a public university. Now I don't disagree for or against policy as I understand this is a difficult time, the way he went about sending multiple emails and constantly giving his opinion made this feel like a political science course rather than being about behaviour change. At the start of the semester he was an average prof doing his best but towards the end he constantly made people feel uncomfortable and even made scenes during class regarding mask debates. I know many people that didn't attend class including myself for his antics. For a tenured and self proclaimed "great" professor, he should understand how to conduct himself in a professional manner and focus on course content.

(Just to be clear: I am not tenured, and I do NOT--and never have--declared myself to be "great." In certain circumstances, the real world invades into the classroom. I did not give my political views; I commented on how the UCP government overreached itself by secretly demanding that post-secondary institutions follow its policies to remove mask mandates. (Yes, it was the government. No, I won't tell you how I know--but I do know.) The governments of other provinces did not meddle like this; most other universities across Canada kept their mask mandates in place--some of them until June 30, 2022. My classroom is my workplace. I resent anyone telling me what to do or how to do it. The fact that the extremely well-paid people who work in central admin did not step up and support front-line workers is appalling. Like it or not, my political and social views seep into everything I do (and they, clearly do the same to you, judging by your comments). It's too bad that my "completely unacceptable" conduct upset you. It's important to me to keep myself safe and healthy, and students in my class, too. I will never apologize for doing that.)

- instructor was slow at times when back in person.

(Slow? Like, speaking slowly? Or, like, in the pejorative sense?)

- No feedback on the student’s performance on the course. Need to learn from our mistakes on the midterms. When TA asked for clarification during the midterm viewing, he did not offer any assistance. Not familiar with the material? Told to refer to Prof.

(Wha-? No feedback? You mean the ExamVis for midterm 1 and the in-person exam viewing for midterm 2 were not feedback? How about the feedback you got on the quiz questions after every lecture? How about the feedback on each assignment? As for the TAs, I wish they could have been more prepared, but I did answer any questions that were referred to me.)

- Lack of enthusiasm from the instructor, especially when we went back in person

- Class lectures were basically a regurgitation of the textbook - we all know how to read - please make it come alive.

- I also really enjoyed his obvious enthusiasm many of the topics and I thought the supplementary videos he provided were both interesting and informative. Cheers!

- Personally, I really like how Professor Loepelmann actively engage in this class. I can easily understand his teaching and he is accessible outside the class even when we're online. I will definitely recommend his class to anyone who is interested in this subject.

(*Sigh* Just, *sigh*)

- I found in his feedback he was overly condescending and as a result I had no desire to seek extra help.

- I wish I saw more compassion from him. It did not seem like he was ever happy to answer questions from students. This is why when I was unsure of something, I would resort to a classmate or even Google because I would get too anxious to ask him anything, afraid that he would be snappy with his answer (as he often was when answering questions on the discussion board). Wish he was more approachable in this way.

(I'm sorry if that's how I came across to you. It was probably the most difficult term I've ever had in over 25 years of teaching. Posting videos online while also teaching in person was immensely draining, to say nothing about the existential threat of Covid and the war in Ukraine. If you're referring to my responses in the discussion forum, I tried to answer questions as quickly and concisely as possible. It can be frustrating if someone is asking--yet again--a question that I've answered before, or is answered in the syllabus. I would never be "snappy" with any student in person. Here are some other perspectives:)

- Dr. Loepelmann is an incredibly passionate professor and made this course extremely engaging and enjoyable. He treats all his students with respect and it is evident that he knows this course inside out. I would recommend both him and this course to everyone.

- His presentations are clear and interesting, he never goes over the class time , and shows a clear respect for his students. I took this course as an option and I am so glad I did. I would 100% recommend this course and Dr. Loepelmann to anyone and everyone

- This class was absolutely phenomenal. The content itself was all extremely interesting and I was never left wondering how it would be applicable in the real world, as research and examples were consistent throughout. Although we did watch many videos and interpreted plenty of graphs, it never felt excessive. The self-management project was the perfect assignment to aid in course knowledge. Each section of the project felt appropriately spaced, and no part of the assignment felt too big to comfortably complete within our busy schedules. It truthfully felt like a learning opportunity rather than a tedious project with no purpose. Finally and perhaps most importantly, Professor Loepelmann was absolutely fantastic. Although we began the semester online (where many professors tend to flounder) Karsten made every effort to make the content enjoyable and accessible. And he exceeded all my expectations. He continued to post online resources even once we moved online because he understood that with COVID people’s situations readily change. Our abundance of resources (ePoll quizzes, and textbook quizzes) that we were able to access at any point throughout the semester were irreplaceable. It is very apparent that he genuinely cares about the quality of learning we receive. This has honestly been the greatest class I have ever taken at the UofA. Give this man another teaching award please!

(Thanks!) 

- I wish we were given some practice midterms and finals to prepare better for the exams. Also, not being to able to get our exam copies back was a horrible experience.

(You got:
 - dozens of poll questions based on lectures
 - five worksheets
 - multiple-choice questions from the textbook posted on eClass
 - dozens of practice tests, quizzes, and application/misapplication exercises from the textbook
But you still want more?
No, you did not get midterm 1 back. Sorry if that was, er, "horrible." But you did get extremely detailed feedback from ExamVis--more feedback than students have ever gotten in person. And there were multiple exam viewings for midterm 2.)

 

- Dr Loepelmann was literally my favourite prof this entire term. He's enthusiastic about this subject and it shows in his lectures and interactions with students. I will forever remember hearing Dr. Loepelmann screech when he got Big Mac sauce on his keyboard during a Q & A for this class. 100% comedy gold.

(That's your takeaway from the course? *sigh*)

Why aren't you studying?

The Remote Exams

I’m coming down to the last remote exams I’ll ever have to do. (I hope. I really, really hope.) If you’ve been in any of my remote classes, you’ll know that I have closed-book exams and use exam proctoring software and exam integrity software, and you’ll also understand the reasons why (I won’t go over them again here).

I don’t go through all of this hassle because it’s peaceful and relaxing. It is super stressful for students, but even more so for me. There is a lot that I have to do to prep, and I feel the weight of responsibility for each and every student on my shoulders. Here’s what’s involved behind the scenes.

At the start of term, I have to register the dates and times of my remote exams with eClass support so they can arrange to have support staff available. A couple of days before the exam, they’ll also check my Smart Exam Monitor (SEM) and ExamLock settings to make sure everything is okay. SEM is the proctoring software that uses AI to monitor students’ cameras and mics. It uses really, really bad AI. Shockingly bad. It flags almost every student for a violation. It takes an excruciatingly long time to go through each flagged student and make sure they are not actual violations. ExamLock is exam integrity software that takes screenshots of students’ screens to make sure they’re not running Google searches in another window. ExamLock is crashy, but seeing students’ screens can often help me troubleshoot problems--which are frequently caused by: ExamLock. It also flags around half the class for (nonexistent) violations, which means even more time clicking and clearing flags. It takes 2-3 hours overall to go through the software and clear all the flags.

A month before the exam, I have to coordinate with my wife. Yes, with my wife. She and I share parenting duties, including picking up and dropping off our kids at school. Well, schools actually--two different schools, which is why it takes both of us. This family coordination is required because some of my students have academic accommodations, most commonly that they receive extra time on exams. So even though an exam might start at, say, 2:00pm, it is possible that some students will still be writing their exam at 5:00. I’ve had a student who got 7 hours to write a 2-hour final exam. That’s right: 7 hours. This is why I have to coordinate schedules with my wife. She’s a family doctor, so she has to change her schedule and end her workday early enough to pick up both of our kids while I’m staring, sweating, at a computer screen. It’s hard enough for her patients to get an appointment to see her, but if I have a lot of exams, it’s even harder for them because of all the child-picking-up. So online exams require a lot of planning in my household. (Oh, and that 7-hour student? They didn’t show up for the final exam. So we had to rearrange our lives again around the 7-hour deferred exam. Which the student didn’t show up for either.)

First, I have to create an exam, for example a multiple choice exam, using my exam management software. I have to export the exam, then import it into eClass. For some reason, eClass does not keep the order of questions intact, but instead sorts the questions alphabetically. Yup, alphabetically. Questions that start with “A person experiences...” come first, and “Zookeepers demonstrate...” come last. (Why...just why?) I have to spend 20-60 minutes manually rearranging questions, depending on the number of questions on the exam.

Each student, though, gets the exam questions in a random order. Why do I have to rearrange them? In order to keep track of which questions are from chapter 1, chapter 2, etc. This lets another piece of software in eClass called ExamVis produce a detailed visualization of each student’s results. Without the proper sorting, nothing will make sense and ExamVis is useless.

Next, I have to set up a session for ExamLock, and another one for Smart Exam Monitor (SEM). Actually, I have to set up two SEM sessions: a regular one, and a backup in case someone encounters problems or accidentally closes out of the exam.

Then, I have to send out instructions to everyone on how to take the exam, even though I’ve made a video on how to use SEM with ExamLock. (This video is now used by eClass support in their knowledgebase article as a how-to. It’s my most popular video, with almost 5,000 views. I’m a YouTuber!) For those students who only have access to a ChromeOS device, I have to send out a different set of instructions, as ChromeOS cannot run ExamLock.

On the day of the exam, I have a whole checklist of things to do:
   _ have phone ready (a shared, on-call phone--not my personal cell)
   _ open SEM session (done manually, about 20 minutes before the exam is to start)
   _ hide lecture videos in eClass (no cheating!)
   _ remove lecture notes from my website (no cheating!)
   _ check eClass status (see below)
   _ check AWS status (Amazon Web Services is a cloud service that provides back-end storage and processing for eClass)
   _ check Shaw status and outages
   _ check Telus status and outages
Those last two are to see if there are any local internet outages. They are surprisingly frequent. Unfortunately, this only helps me see if there are local students who have problems. Some students are overseas with sketchy internet connectivity.

eClass never goes down, amirite? Cough. There was a major outage on December 11, 2020 that affected one of my classes. eClass was down for so long, the exam was eventually cancelled. Helpfully, every single student in the class emailed me to inform me that eClass was down. There is a protocol on what to do, given an exam disruption. Basically, the Faculty will move the exam to a Saturday. Needless to say, this is not a popular choice--with students, or with me. In the case of my class, each student was given an option to either retain their term mark and skip the final, or go ahead and write the final. In the end, 14 of 123 students actually decided to write the final exam.

When it comes to remote exams, some students are fully prepared--they’ve watched my  explainer video, set up the software, and tested everything by running the proctoring trial (for which I typically give a 1% bonus mark). If these students encounter an issue, they know what to do and can handle it well. Other students are not so prepared: they haven’t watched the video, set up the software, or tested it out--but they manage to successfully complete the exam. The issue for me is the small number of students who don’t know what to do or how to do it, are not prepared--and run into problems. What do I click? Where is it? What software? Who do I call?

I want to ensure a smooth process for everyone--even if they are a mere 1%. So I have given IST/eClass support some pretty harsh criticism over the past two years. There are problems like the “Black Screen of Death” that they say affects only 1-2% of students, so it’s not a big deal (this issue was not even described in any of their troubleshooting documentation). They got quite an earful from me about that. If you can’t fix a known problem, at least acknowledge that it exists and how to handle it.

The recent (and, sadly, continuing) brutal budget cuts have had negative effects across campus; the IST/eClass support team has not been spared. They have lost a great number of people. I get it. To be fair, they have responded to my complaints, even going so far as to set up Zoom meetings with me, and reaching out to my students who were affected by software problems in order to understand them better.

I know students don’t like proctoring software. I don’t either. I hope we’re all done with it for good.

Why aren’t you studying?

The Zero Textbook Cost

There's "free" as in speech, and there's "free" as in beer. Or, according to Wikipedia, gratis versus libre. This post is about free as in beer. (Sorry, no free beer will actually be made available. 🍺)

You might be familiar with the UAlberta SU's Be Book Smart initiative; this grew out of a national campaign years ago, protesting the high prices of textbooks. ("Grew" is probably not the right word, as the current initiative is much smaller in scope than the ambitious national campaign that kind of sputtered out.) Be Book Smart helps students know their options when it comes to textbooks (e.g., sharing books with friends, or looking for textbooks in the library). But it also provides information to instructors to raise awareness about the high costs of learning materials, and suggests lower-cost alternatives (e.g., using coursepacks, putting textbooks on reserve in the library, etc.).

Textbooks, however, are only one cost borne by students. Other learning materials also have a price. For example, some instructors require students to use online homework systems hosted by a commercial publisher. Of course, students have to buy an access code--just to do required homework! This strikes me as a bit of an over-reach.

I am mindful of the high cost of education. For 20 years, I have been using low-cost or no-cost alternatives in many of my courses. For example, instead of for-pay publisher-hosted online experiment websites, I have managed to find free alternatives like the American Psychological Association's Open Psychology Laboratory, which lets students run experiments and gather data--completely free. In some of my other courses, there is no required textbook, just a collection of readings in a coursepack. Even better, due to recent changes in copyright, I can make pdfs of these readings available to students for free.

An idea in academia that's gaining traction is that of Open Education Resources (or OERs). According to Wikipedia, these are "freely accessible, openly licensed text, media, and other digital assets that are useful for teaching, learning, and assessing as well as for research purposes." OERs include things like, well, Wikipedia. Completely free and open, and you can learn things from it.

In educational circles, however, OERs are most frequently brought up in the context of textbooks. Some people, out of the goodness of their hearts, have written textbooks--and have given them away, free. I have used one of these, by OpenStax, in my introductory psychology course (PSYCO 104). Although students were very happy to have a free textbook, I was disappointed in its quality. Sure, under the terms of the Creative Commons licence it was published under, I could have rewritten it--if I had a spare year or three. And although there are OER textbooks for introductory psychology, developmental psychology/lifespan development, abnormal psychology, research methods, cognitive psychology, and social psychology, OER textbooks are not available for all courses and topics. An increasing number of my colleagues are adopting OERs instead of commercial textbooks, and I'm on the lookout for high quality OER alternatives in the courses I teach.

Recently, the Office of the Registrar contacted instructors about a pilot project for the 2021-2022 academic year. They want to indicate to students in Bear Tracks which courses offer Zero Textbook Cost. I went through all six of my upcoming courses, and surprised myself to find that all of them qualify as ZTC. I do not require any paid online homework systems. I have coursepacks instead of textbooks as much as possible. And any required commercial textbooks in my courses have print copies on reserve at the library, or have ebooks available via the library website.

My hope is that by working towards Zero Textbook Cost I can help make education more accessible, and decrease financial strain on students. Do you have any other ideas that I can implement to save students money?

Why aren't you studying?