Right Wing Nation

I saw this on Photon Courier:

But parents are not simply shirking their own responsibility, they are encouraging kids not to take any. “There is a tutor culture [of] parents who don’t let their children fail once in a while. They’re scared it’ll look bad on their record,” says Caleb Rossiter, a professor at American University, who has noticed this trend even on the college level. This semester, he gave a failing grade to a lackadaisical student. The girl’s mother, a lawyer, immediately phoned: “She said, ‘We want to challenge this grade. My daughter can’t afford to flunk.’” When Mr. Rossiter declined to change the girl’s grade, the family asked about finding a tutor. “I said, ‘I am her tutor,’” he laughs. “I have office hours. You’re paying $40,000 a year, and yet your daughter has never once come to see me.”

You’ll find that overall, there is a lot less hand-wringing about helping students at the university than the secondary school. Students are taking their first steps as adults, after all.

You get the full spectrum. Extremely bright students who work hard. Extremely bright students who don’t work much. Extremely bright students who don’t work at all or come to class, and feel that they’re entitled to an A. You get their fairly dim counterparts. And you get the counterparts from the middle of the intelligence range, students who aren’t the brightest bulbs in the chandelier, but aren’t at the low end, either.

My least favorite students–and that’s the understatement of the decade–are the extremely bright students who do nothing and don’t come to class, then invariably complain about their grade and demand that you change it. You can spot them the first week of classes: They’re the ones with the Attitude (that capitalization was intentional), crossing their arms and rolling their eyes. You usually don’t see them after the third week of classes, which is a Good Thing (that capitalization was also intentional).

I feel sorry for the dimmest students, no matter how hard they work. They just don’t belong there, and no matter what they do, they’re going to fail. I don’t let them drop by the side of the road. I do as much for them as any of my students. But semester after semester, it just gets sad. I often wonder why they’re on campus (then, I think of the disasters in the first round of American Idol auditions, and understand that nobody has ever sat them down and tried to guide them into something they could do).

My favorite students are the average to not too far above average intelligence students who are motivated and work their butts off. I’ll do anything to help those students succeed. They know they’re not at the top of the intelligence curve, they know what they want, and they’re willing to work extremely hard to get it. They were the reason I went to that classroom day after day.

These are the students that in many classes fall through the cracks. Many faculty tend to focus on the brightest students and teach to them. The result is that the average, motivated student has to work harder than he should. Most of these students won’t go to graduate or professional school, but they will carry that motivation and work ethic out into the world when they leave the university, and I feel obligated to do what I can to help.

These are the students who come to office hours, and not just before an exam or assignment due date. They have no sense of entitlement, and even when they don’t understand something fairly basic, they really want to understand. So here are some ways I’ve helped them.

Never discuss other students with students

Make no remarks about other students, even in passing. And certainly never make remarks about any student’s intelligence, be it one specific student or the whole class. It’s disrespectful, it’s unprofessional, and it’s disrespectful.

Do refer to problems students are having, and do so frequently. Make it known that if one or two students are having a specific problem, the odds are that many more are as well.

And while I’m on the topic, never discount or dismiss a student’s question, no matter how stupid it is (and of course there are stupid questions–we hear them all the time). Answer all questions clearly, plainly, and respectfully.

Students who aren’t bright know it. They don’t need you to remind them.

Office hours are paramount

It depends on the department, but most require expect ask faculty to hold 2-3 office hours a week. Expand them to 4 hours a week. And if students show up right at the end of office hours, don’t look at your watch and say, “Sorry! Come back next time!” Welcome them in, and work with them as long as they need.

That shouldn’t need saying, but believe me, it does.

Pay close attention to the problems your students have

Use your students’ problems to diagnose what you’re doing. If your students are having trouble understanding, say, Chi-square, ask yourself how you could address it in class to better help them understand. If something works in office hours, start using it in class.

Listen closely to your students when they explain what they don’t understand. Sometimes, what they don’t understand is more fundamental than they realize–or you would realize if you just answered the question. If that’s the case, address the fundamental problem, then work your way back to the original question.

One thing needs to be said. Every teacher’s private hell is when he can’t comprehend why the students doesn’t understand. It happens. Sometimes, you can eventually get over the problem by using a shotgun approach and just randomly trying different explanations. Other times, you can’t. But never assume that’s the situation you’re dealing with unless you have evidence. Probe. Ask. Dig.

Cover high school if you have to

More and more over the last ten years, students have been having problems because they lacked basic math skills. The real problem wasn’t that they couldn’t understand what a NPV was, but that they didn’t have the basic math skills and understanding to understand it.

If that’s the problem, then you have to become a remedial math teacher (or whatever). If your students lack the algebraic skills necessary to learn in your class, you have to teach them those skills. I have had to stop and quickly run through the basic order of precedence because of course Excel does the same, and students won’t know how to do it in class if they don’t understand it in the first place.

And yes, it is your job. It’s certainly also the job of the teachers they had before, but that’s past, and they’re your students now (and if you need to be angry, then be angry at the school system, not the student). Do what you have to do.

Collaborative office hours

If you have several students who want to see you, don’t see them one at a time (unless, of course, the students would prefer to see you alone). My office hours were one big party, with the howling wolf candy dish full of Hershey’s Kisses, M&Ms, Snickers bars, and of course, a big jar of cashews. I’d have them all into the office and encourage them, as I addressed questions, to interrupt with either questions or solutions. You’d be surprised how much insight students have into other students’ heads.

Sometimes, they’ll surprise you by coming up with the best explanation you’ve encountered. Other times, they’ll suddenly put their finger right on the core problem when you didn’t see it.

A secondary advantage is that students appreciate a personable, friendly faculty member who shows that he cares about them and wants them to succeed. Having everybody into the office for office hours and encouraging them to participate sends that message.

Guide!

Student participation and cooperation in office hours works so well because you are there to guide them. I’m a big fan of collaborative and cooperative work in class, provided that it’s applying something they’ve learned and not “discovering” it on their own, but provide guidance.

Students at the top of the intelligence curve don’t do badly with unguided collaborative work. Students at the center and below are not going to gain much unless you are there to guide the collaboration. If you assign group work, don’t sit at your desk and watch them. Migrate from group to group, listen, and respond. If they’re on the wrong track, guide them back.

The problem is that while extremely bright students can usually perceive when they are on the right track, most other students cannot. That’s why you’re there. If you’re doing collaborative work, it should be a lot of work for you. If it isn’t, you’re wasting your and their time.

Hold help sessions

Reserve a room and hold help sessions. How often depends on how much your students are struggling. But you shouldn’t just have help sessions only right before exams or project due dates, because doing so reduces the help session to a practice session for that exam or project.

Hold those help sessions before exams, too. Just call them something else, like exam practice sessions.

Teach to the middle

Yeah, I know, this is going to make people howl, but I’m talking about the university. Students at the low end of the curve are going to either flunk out or drop out. Also, if you’re teaching a grad school seminar, this obviously doesn’t apply.

You (should) want as many of your students as possible to succeed, and in order to accomplish that, you have to teach to the center. When you craft your classroom rhetoric–not what you teach, but how you present what you teach–think of the center, and not the high end of the curve. As those bright students progress through their classes, they’ll get plenty of chances to be the center of attention.

Give your class continuity

Start every class by recalling something you learned earlier that relates in some way to what you’re going to introduce. Provide overt connections; don’t rely on students to make them. As you introduce new material, keep referring back to relevant concepts they’ve already learned. Your presentation of the material should be recursive, repeatedly referring back to previous concepts and using them to explain current ones.

By doing so, you provide your class with continuity and cohesiveness, you reinforce earlier concepts, and you make learning new concepts easier.

Always work from the familiar to the unfamiliar

When I reworked the materials, one of the things I changed first was the pattern used for introducing new material. Yes, it’s a business class, and yes, eventually we’ll get to the business. But you can’t assume that a classroom of freshmen know what NPV is, much less how to calculate it.

Teaching stats provides an excellent example of my point. When introducing descriptive stats, use grades, grade scales, and grade curves. Students are intimately familiar with all of those contexts, so use them. It’s much easier to explain standard deviations in terms of exam scores than revenue stability.

Once students understand the concept, then move outward to the unfamiliar. But always provide familiar contexts when explaining new concepts. Always.

Never suppress students from asking questions or challenging you

If you teach in primary or secondary school, at least the first part of this shouldn’t be news, but you’d be surprised how many university faculty discourage questions in one way or another. Some do it by setting up a highly rigid class format. Some do it by maintaining an overly formal, distant relationship with their students (remember, I said professional, not unfriendly or distant). Some mow down students when they ask questions in class. But however they do it, the result is less learning than could have been.

Make sure students know you want to hear their questions, whenever they have them. Undergrads, freshmen particularly, find the university classroom intimidating, and you need to do whatever you can to relieve that.

Also, make sure students know they can challenge you. Students respect professors who not only respect them, their learning, and their opinions, but encourage discussion and yes, even dissent. Let’s face it. If you’re so insecure about your own knowledge of the topic, you shouldn’t be teaching it.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Treat your students with respect, and they’ll treat each other and you with respect.

Never lie to your students

If you don’t know the answer to a question, say that you don’t know. Tell the students you’ll research it and get back to them–then research it, and give them an answer. Never try to weasel your way out of a question you can’t answer. Students always know you’re lying. Always.

I’ve seen faculty members who didn’t know the exam date give a date off the top of their heads–the wrong date–when students asked when the exam was. The result of that particular stunt can only be described as disastrous.

Carry office hours and help sessions into class

Helping students is a learning process. You learn what works and what doesn’t, and with what types of students. Just because you understood a particular example or definition doesn’t mean your students will; use them, and not your own experience, to judge how comprehensible your classroom (and office hours) rhetoric is. Don’t view office hours and help sessions as “class for dummies,” but take what you learned and apply it in your classroom. The more you teach, the more you learn from students, and the more of that knowledge you can apply to make your teaching more effective.

Use the explanations, examples, and definitions that worked best with students in the middle of the curve. That way, you’ll get the maximal comprehension.

If students still need help, give it to them

University faculty are salaried employees. We get a specific salary, with no overtime, no calculation of hours, and no sick leave. We are expected to do however much work it takes to get the job done (and thankfully, the academy has so far rejected the “union mentality” as unprofessional). We do not get extra pay for service to the university, the department, the school, or helping students.

If you have students who come to class, work their butts off, come to office hours, and are still struggling, set up additional hours to help them–even if they are students at the low end who will probably drop out before the end of the year. It’s why you’re getting paid, after all. I’ve had students I had into the office after class every day, on top of office hours, because they needed it.

Give frequent assessments

Assessments are more than just grades. Assessments let students know how well they understand the material. Yes, students will often groan, but assess them as frequently as you can, and get them graded and back to them in very short order.

Students often think they understand something when they do not. Frequent assessments make it obvious to students that, in fact, they do not understand, and encourage them to get help.

Don’t handhold, but . . .

Freshmen, and to a lesser extent, sophomores aren’t upperclassmen. Upperclassmen know how the university works, and tend to be jaded. Freshmen and sophomores, especially freshmen, have been plunked down in a completely different learning environment from what they’re used to. The classes often number in the hundreds. They don’t go to class every day, or see the professor every day. They often (more often these days) have to deal with a sudden, marked increase in class work and reading assignments.

Freshmen are unsure of themselves or what’s going on. They need to be eased into the university classroom.

Do everything you can to show your students you care. Students aren’t idiots. They know you’re human, and you have bad days. But always be personable, friendly, welcoming, respectful, and yes, professional. If students know you care, they’re more likely to come to you for help when they need it. If they know you want them to ask questions, they’re more likely to come to you for help. If they know you graciously and professionally respond to challenged and never lie to them, they’re more likely to come to you for help.

I’ll leave you with this thought: You’re not being paid to teach classes. You’re being paid to do everything you can to help your students learn. If helping your students isn’t “in your job description,” you have no business being allowed anywhere near a classroom.