I just lined up an adjunct class for this semester, at a suburban religious SLAC. This is 'reading for college'. This is actually exactly the sort of work I have been looking for for 2 years, since it was suggested to me by the expensive career counselor I hired. I have a reasonable set syllabus that I cannot change much this semester, though the head of the student success department, who hired me, is pretty psyched to have me develop it further going forward. The pay and commute both aren't great but the resume opportunity is, and she has also intimated that there may be more permanent work for me in the future as well. I have taught these skills in hs before and am eager to get going here this week. But here's my one question for the fora... This class is a remedial one, assigned to freshmen who scored below a certain threshold on a diagnostic test. It will be graded, appear on the transcript, and factor into GPA, but earn no college credit. This, combined with the text, demonstrates the class is essentially at an hs level. I would therefore like advice as to how to properly teach it so that I neither condescend or patronize the students, which I am really not that concerned about, or blow them away with excessive academics, as though these were honors upperclassmen at a high powered prep school, which, given my person academic experience and background experience, I am concerned I might well do.
You need to give your own diagnostic at the start. I do some of our own in-house placement, and my expectation is that faculty will double-check in either the first or second class meeting. You may well find that some students were not correctly placed, and should be in a different course. Moreover, you need data. What skills do they have? What do they most need? How can you most help them?
Expect some pushback. Students in these courses often resent it. Unlike HS, they are paying for it directly. It also sets them back a semester or more, depending on discipline. You'll need some good answers to the question "Why do I have to be here"?
I hate many aspects of the new Common Core, but I have come around to the idea that the ability to read, analyze, and discuss non-fiction is a pretty good indicator of general readiness for college work. I taught a section of Comp I to students who all had just completed the remedial course. I assigned a few New Yorker "Talk of the Town" readings. It was very revealing. If your students blow this away, raise the bar. But don't be surprised if at the end of an hour they cannot begin a summary.
Honestly, I think I'd go in with a version of your post: You've taught a lot of these skills before, and know the kinds of things that prep schools do. Don't over prep, follow the syllabus, and see how it rolls out. As long as the students think you know what you're doing, and that you are responsive, they will go along with a lot.
Good luck!
cd
Kay, the fact that you are eager to get going is in itself the most important factor. Students will tune into your attitude toward themselves and the class, and if you bring positive enthusiasm, they're more likely to get on board with you. I've worked with remedial and developmental classes for years, and I think this is the most key ingredient - a competent caring teacher.
There are a huge number of adults out there who do not read well. Their situation is common and nothing to be ashamed of. College-level reading is a high bar to reach, and your students can get there - they just need encouragement.
If I could fix one thing in our education system, it would be reading. Fix that, and so many other things fall into place. You're doing crucial, important work. Good luck! Check in often this semester, and let us know how it's going.
Quote from: wareagle on September 02, 2019, 07:52:26 AM
Kay, the fact that you are eager to get going is in itself the most important factor. Students will tune into your attitude toward themselves and the class,
I agree with this very much. Last week, I told my class (honestly) of beginning freshman, I love coming to work, I love teaching you guys, and I hope you also love coming to school. Some looked surprised. Some looked pleased. None looked hostile. A good start.
The students you're teaching have not been super successful thus far, or they wouldn't be in that class. Treat them with compassion; some of us do our best and just don't get very far, and some just don't know how to give it their best.
This is all attitude advice.
You also need to figure out where they are (advice given by dr_codex). They may need you to break down assignments (heavy scaffolding), they may need a little extra coaching on time management. There may be more going on than just low reading scores.
About grades, find out what is standard at that school. If it's a grade inflation place, get out the pump.
Good luck. I hope you love this gig and your students love you back. Check back in.
Thanks all. After three classes so far I have several observations. In no particular order of importance, these would be...
1. I am pretty much expected to use the syllabus and text provided... There are three other sections of the course being taught this semester, though I have never met the other professors. My syllabus is a barely tweaked version of one of the other teacher's one, given to me by the head of the ' student success program', who is our supervisor and who hired me. This woman does want me to be able to learn and experiment for the future, for next semester, but I am pretty much stuck with this syllabus and text for this semester. The class has a heavy class participation requirement slash expectation, though I did reduce the grade percentage for this from 25 to 20. Thing is, even this level is shaping up to be an annoyance whose pedagogical value is also deeply dubious to me. I always have a CP req in hs classes, but at that level you can do several things,, most especially contact parents, to enforce this, teachers are expected to do that, and at strong prep schools parents and at least some pf the kids do too. Also, in courses such as the foreign language ones I often have taught, participation really is essential. But in this remedial college reading class, where the students are not going to get actual college credit, are required to take it, etc., and where I as prof have little if any power to compel participation *during* the semester, being a hard ass seems more trouble than it appears to be worth. Quite frankly, being a cop ain't my calling. That said, the students do need to bring the required readings, text and handouts from me, and they should be taking notes too. Indeed, though it wasn't on the syllabus, i spent most of Thursday teaching notetaking and precis writing skills, quite correctly assuming, upon my asking, that most of these kids had never been taught such things before. There is a lot to cover in the syllabus, and I am also going to have to have the students retake their freshman orientation reading diagnostic test at the end of the semester, to see how much their reading skills have improved. If the students do not have their materials and try to participate at least somewhat, they will not get much out of the course. I am thus conflicted and would appreciate any tboughts, especially taking into consideration the remedial non credit nature of the class.
2. Related to this, two other points have presented themselves after the first two weeks. First, the students seem to be adjusting to the different atmosphere of a college class vs a hs one. The first day one kid seemed to ask whether he could go to the bathroom. I told the class that one need not ask for bathroom permission in college, but mrrely could. Get up and go. This seemed to have inadvertently opened up the floodgates, and several students are quite frankly abusing this in terms of the length and frequency of their trips something which is sadly greatly exacerbated by the extremely cozy classroom size, with the one door being right up front. Should I attempt to set some limits here? Similarly, cell phone use and chatter, while not excessive, is perhaps ramping slightly up, and I do want to nip this in the bud, especially since the syllabus language I inherited also contains strong expectations that part of the expectations of this class are to teach college class 'etiquette'.
3. Lastly, a thorny question has arisen which has taken me unawares. Several of the students, one in particular, are not native speakers of English, who speak with thick accents and have limited, obviously limited, English reading skills. This one young man the first day, when I asked the students to pass in index cards listing their names, email address, and majors, actually asked me how to spell 'engineering', and observing him listening to me lecture also makes me wonder how much he is getting. I really am at a loss as to what to do here...
I think the unspoken rules for leaving class to go to the bathroom are that you plan ahead so that you go before or afterwards if at all possible, and you only leave to go during class if you are having some kind of stomach attack or situation where going is urgent. And you recognize that you are disrupting the class by leaving and coming back, and so you do so as unobtrusively as possible. Students should leave class to go to the bathroom maybe once during their college careers, if that often. (Extra allowances for girls to go, for biological reasons you need not elaborate on, but they should also recognize that it's a stroll-out-any-time-you-wish situation.) So do make that clear to them. Future professors may not be as relaxed about it as you have been.
As for the foreign students who may speak little English — it sounds as if you should find out what kind of provision your place has for supporting them academically — an institute, an office, an administrator, a series of remedial classes? And then you can judiciously direct them to those resources, while making as many allowances and the situation warrants, providing they are working diligently.
Kaysixteen,
If you'll pardon the phrasing, #1 is a solution to #2. That is, students don't just get credit for showing up; if they take 30 minute bathroom breaks or spend half the time texting, they cannot be participating. Once they've dropped 20-25% of the possible grades, they cannot pass the course. Which is fair: if they aren't "there" in any meaningful sense, they aren't taking the course. (I'm assuming, here, that you are asking them to actually do things in the class -- take notes, read, discuss, question, respond....)
#3 is a different issue altogether, and a problematic one. Ideally, English New Language students should have their own course sequence. They need radically different skills, and range widely in their fluency. Some, for instance, will have very strong grammar skills, but almost no aural/verbal ability. Others vice versa. Even relatively strong non-native students can struggle in college-level classrooms. We had an articulated agreement with another country, part of which included some ENL teaching; however, the students had no accommodation in their other courses, and often really struggled. One coping strategy was to read everything on Wikipedia in their native tongue. As I say, problematic. As Hegemony suggests, your institution may well have resources that these students can access, and you can and should make reasonable adjustments to the curriculum for them. There's no point asking for a critical summary from a student who cannot reliably identify a verb tense, but there's lots that you can offer.
Did you do your own diagnostic (dx in my world) test suggested above?
What were the results?
If you get clear feedback from the test that there are clustered issues around English, socialization, and, say, test-taking issues, you might subdivide the class, based on those findings, and have the groups research and present on their topics: "How do US norms differ from those in other places?" " What types of tests does one encounter in college, and how can one study for them?" "If your native language is something besides English, what are 5-6 strategies you can use to become an effective learner?"
Have a set time slot mid-class for group work, with very clear task subdivisions that you oversee, walking from group to group.
Keep pushing them for that day's task: "OK, what 5-6 strategies does this group have? Who's going to cover #1? #2? I want to see your list of topics and names at the end of the group time; please get that ready to hand in."
Go to the next group, same spiel.
Second meeting, you want a three-bullet-point outline from each presenter: what are they going to emphasize? All turn those in on a single page (rotate group scribes) at the end of the time.
Etc.
Keep close oversight, turn into the little English sheepdog, nipping at their heels, about each stage in the work.
This can be done jovially, but with intent: they will enjoy the energy while catching onto the seriousness with which you mean each goal is to be met on time--"so you uphold the respect of your teammates."
After 6 weeks, they do presentations.
It's really about getting them to talk,read, write, and recite to each other--looping them all in as the commentators on understandability, logic, and responding to new social cues, while creating a sense of urgency and interest around their work.
I'm basing this on a Saturday math program I once taught in which I had kids from 8 different school systems: some were ready for pre-calc, others were struggling with geometry and hadn't had algebra II yet.
I turned it into a one-room-schoolhouse, had the more skilled working to develop lesson plans to teach the less skilled, as well as to expound on their more advanced topics by doing transparencies for the class together.
Wed do 1/3 same-skill groups, 1/3 paired-off helpers' groups, 1/3 shared presentations.
I'd subdivide your groups with a balanced number of those less-skilled in English in each group, etc. (based on what your dx test finds); maybe mix it up in other ways by doing 1-on-1 conversations on current events with reports back to the class in 3-4 sentences, and pairing them up in different ways for that each time.
Takes some advance planning, and I was dead but delighted after every class.
I stopped teaching for this group when, in response to a new all-state testing program, we were given packets of (really insipid) old ditto-master-type exercise pages to use each week instead....and we had to use them. Yuck.
M.
On the phones, I tell them bluntly:
Cell phone use is not allowed in class. If you use your phone in class, I can see--you may imagine that I can't, but you're wrong. And, you put me in a really awkward position. I have two choices: I can warn you, which is embarrassing and makes us both feel bad, you feel like I called you out, and I feel bad for doing it. So that's a bad choice. Alternatively, I say nothing, and quietly give you a zero for participation for that day. That also seems awful, since wouldn't it be better for me to let you know?
It's just not good, either way.
So, please don't use your phone in class.
About stepping out for a "biology break": treat class like work, or like a business meeting. The reason you don't have to ask if you're allowed to go potty is that I assume you're a responsible adult and won't step out to be excused unless you're really very uncomfortable. Part of being a responsible adult is planning ahead, going before class, and not stepping out to go unless you really must.
I would tell the class that unfortunately, there has been a disruptive amount of wandering in and out of class, and if it doesn't stop, you're going to have to downgrade the college policy to a high school policy.
It is late at night and I am not phrasing this well, but basically you need to help them understand that they get these privileges because they are (pre-)adults, and that with privilege comes responsibility of acting like adults. You're not responsible for them now, they are responsible for themselves, and for the effects their choices have on their learning, their classroom environment, and their instructor. Phrased right, this can be a very significant and inspiring lesson. Phrased wrong, it is just more blahblahblah.
I am so envious of the TV/film portrayals of college where the professor collects everyone's' cell phones and places them on his desk during class.
I think it is a really good point made earlier that the class participation grade can include refraining from cell phone usage during class, refraining from wandering in and out of class for bathroom breaks, etc. Perhaps now is a good time in the semester to discuss the concept of class participation as something more than the number of times a student participates in discussion. Contributing to a good class environment is important. CP includes attendance and the quality of that attendance.
In terms of attendance and phones, you can use the lost points model. In this, they all start with the maximum number of points and then lose some portion of the total for things like absences or phone violations. I usually give them a freebie absence or two, and one warning on the phone. I keep this column in the gradebook and start will the max number of points loaded in. Then you just adjust the points when they do something wrong. It REALLY gets their attention because our system pings them an email every time the grade book changes.
Bathroom breaks from college classes are really a thing now? Wow. I honestly can't recall a single time the issue came up during my years as a grad teaching assistant in the 1990s. It's like people 18 and up just knew better then, without having to have it pointed out to them. I saw and heard about students pulling some egregious stuff, but they had at least sorted out the potty break thing during their K-12 years.
It is instructive to observe students leaving other people's classrooms during class.
There's bathroom breaks and "bathroom breaks." All involve using phones I expect, but the latter can involve long conversations or texting interactions. They may also involve vaping or inhaling substances.
Again, thanks all, and thanks especially for the ongoing offers from several of ye to continue to ask questions as I wend my way through this actually rather new endeavour. Now that I'm three weeks in, and have had some graded work to ponder as well, I can raise a few more points and questions, again in no particular order of importance... Please forgive me, it being late.
1. I haven't given my own diagnostic test, as there's really no time in class to do so, and, perhaps more pointedly, and honestly, I'm just not currently qualified to write such a test. I do wish I had seen the diagnostic test the school gave these kids in orientation, and seen the students' scores, but truth be told I am not even sure the dept head would give them to me and I'm not sure I want to pester her.
2. That said, I have now seen the results of two written homeworks and one quiz, and several things are standing out. First, the remedial nature of the class and why they're assigned to it, is sadly obvious. Three students out of 9 passed the quiz, none with a grade higher than 74, and it just wasn't that hard. Lack of study time may be the answer in aome cases, but methinks that ain't the big reason. Indeed, despite the fact that the quiz was mostly on study skills, notetaking, reading context clues, and test taking strategies, they seemed not only not to have used these skills in studying, but in several cases not to have understood the points I was teaching about them. This was a high school level assignment, but, recalling my own experiences teaching these things in high school, these kids are very much behind. In some cases this is due to their limited English proficiency, and/or decidedly crappy high schools they've graduated from( all of these kids did attend hs in the U.S., but mostly in crappy inner city ones). However, in an actual hs class, I would go over the thing tomorrow and requiz Thursday, but here I'm handicapped by the set syllabus I'm stuck with this semester, and will have to move on. I don't like th is but don't have much of a choice, as I am expected to cover all these topics, use the inappropriate textbook as much as i can minimally justify (augmented by the right to pass out supplimentary photocopies), and use the assignment structure I inherited. I will be able to make significant, perhaps wholesale, changes, for next semester, but I can't this one. It's true that the kids clearly weren't putting in as much effort on their written hw last week as the should, but nonetheless I still have major concerns as to how well many of them were understanding it. I can remediate some of this in class, and use carrot and stick approach somewhat, but I'm less sure about what to do about the nonnative speakers?
3. I am even less convinced now about the overall value of significant class participation grade component for a class such as this one (let alone how to assess this fairly). This also doesn't even consider the large individual and group project class presentations that I'm also stuck with doing this semester, but I gotta do 'em so any advice or feedback about how to induce/ evoke maximum performance and effort here would be most appreciated. Me, at least for now, I think most of the teaching should be coming from me as the 'sage on the stage', and/or facilitating individual students' answering of homework based reading questions. Btw, it has also been proving very difficult to get students to volunteer answers to randomly posed class questions, such as 'what is context?'... I'm not sure whether regularly posing such questions rather than just telling them the meaning of such terms directly myself is worth it, but I'm eager to hear your thoughts and strategies here nonetheless.
4. Lastly, and this is more than a little bit embarrassing, because this school is just not paying me very well, as in maybe 2 thirds a course (and of course I'm only teaching the one this semester) as much as I was paid to adjunct at the other two local unis here 3 to 5 years ago (current commute is twice as long too), I realized I was simply unable to appreciably reduce the hours i have to work my pt retail job. I really have little choice. This means, however, that I just can't hang around campus after class. I'm not required to do office hours, though the dept will schedule someplace to meet kid for appointments if any actually ask for one, but this is not ideal. I am probably spending about two hours prepping for each class, and could do somewhat more, maybe even double this, but I do wish I could do more, and would eagerly do much more next semester if the school is able to offer me mire than just the one class. Indeed, dissatisfied with the current text and also eager to generally revamp the syllabus significantly for the future, I have also begun to order various texts and other books on collegeg reading skills and on teaching these skills from the library, and, as resources allow, from Amazon 3d party vendors, and am eager to spend as much time as I can this fall reading 'em.
Quote from: Aster on September 17, 2019, 10:12:54 AM
I am so envious of the TV/film portrayals of college where the professor collects everyone's' cell phones and places them on his desk during class.
I offer a miniscule amount of extra credit if students put there phones on my desk when they come in. It seems to work really well. The students are delighted to get extra credit for "nothing" and I'm delighted that I don't have to deal with them.
Quote from: chemigal on September 24, 2019, 07:36:07 AM
Quote from: Aster on September 17, 2019, 10:12:54 AM
I am so envious of the TV/film portrayals of college where the professor collects everyone's' cell phones and places them on his desk during class.
I offer a miniscule amount of extra credit if students put there phones on my desk when they come in. It seems to work really well. The students are delighted to get extra credit for "nothing" and I'm delighted that I don't have to deal with them.
Interesting idea. I tell the students to put their phones away, and they generally do. If someone does not, I call them out and we move on. Some days we get them out to do cool internet stuff as a class, so I don't want to ban them entirely. If they don't have a phone (very rare at my institution, but it has happened), we work around that. Have you had students complain that because they don't have a phone, they are not eligible for the extra credit?
Quote from: kaysixteen on September 23, 2019, 10:37:51 PM
Again, thanks all, and thanks especially for the ongoing offers from several of ye to continue to ask questions as I wend my way through this actually rather new endeavour. Now that I'm three weeks in, and have had some graded work to ponder as well, I can raise a few more points and questions, again in no particular order of importance... I have now seen the results of two written homeworks and one quiz, and several things are standing out. First, the remedial nature of the class and why they're assigned to it, is sadly obvious. Three students out of 9 passed the quiz, none with a grade higher than 74, and it just wasn't that hard. Lack of study time may be the answer in aome cases, but methinks that ain't the big reason. Indeed, despite the fact that the quiz was mostly on study skills, notetaking, reading context clues, and test taking strategies, they seemed not only not to have used these skills in studying, but in several cases not to have understood the points I was teaching about them. This was a high school level assignment, but, recalling my own experiences teaching these things in high school, these kids are very much behind. In some cases this is due to their limited English proficiency, and/or decidedly crappy high schools they've graduated from( all of these kids did attend hs in the U.S., but mostly in crappy inner city ones). However, in an actual hs class, I would go over the thing tomorrow and requiz Thursday, but here I'm handicapped by the set syllabus I'm stuck with this semester, and will have to move on. I don't like th is but don't have much of a choice, as I am expected to cover all these topics, use the inappropriate textbook as much as i can minimally justify (augmented by the right to pass out supplimentary photocopies), and use the assignment structure I inherited. I will be able to make significant, perhaps wholesale, changes, for next semester, but I can't this one. It's true that the kids clearly weren't putting in as much effort on their written hw last week as the should, but nonetheless I still have major concerns as to how well many of them were understanding it. I can remediate some of this in class, and use carrot and stick approach somewhat, but I'm less sure about what to do about the nonnative speakers? . . .
Might it be possible to offer them the opportunity to retake the quiz to improve their grade? You could point out the fact that the skills tested will be essential for the rest of the course, and you want to give them another chance to learn the material. They may be more willing to study after tanking the first round.
I'm not allowed to ban phones. Our college has some sort of poorly articulated rule that a personal phone is a U.S. citizen's right to have on their person at all times. The rule exists in some magic place that we can never directly look up or locate. We are just told that we can't put anything on our syllabi that specifically bars phones.
I can only require that students not use them during class, and I can require that they put the phones on a silent mode. I can't even tell them to turn off the phones. Turning off the phone would restrict the student's "rights" to receiving real-time emergency notifications.
I went over the quiz extensively in class today, but have to move on. I am already a day behind in the syllabus and am stuck with doing the stuff on it, so I cannot justify moving further behind.
One thing became crystal clear today as well. The two young men who sit in the first row, and have been chatty, are not being deliberately disruptive. Both are native speakers of Spanish, whose written performance is actually comparatively strong, but when I wrote the hw assignment on the board, one of the young men was actually translating it into Spanish for the other. Obviously I can't do that myself, and I don't know what if anything I should do about it.
Quote from: kaysixteen on September 24, 2019, 10:01:55 PM
I went over the quiz extensively in class today, but have to move on. I am already a day behind in the syllabus and am stuck with doing the stuff on it, so I cannot justify moving further behind.
One thing became crystal clear today as well. The two young men who sit in the first row, and have been chatty, are not being deliberately disruptive. Both are native speakers of Spanish, whose written performance is actually comparatively strong, but when I wrote the hw assignment on the board, one of the young men was actually translating it into Spanish for the other. Obviously I can't do that myself, and I don't know what if anything I should do about it.
This is what I was discussing, above. EFL students will use their own resources to cope. In an actual foreign language course, you could impose a "language of instruction only" rule, which I'd expect if I took a Spanish course. In a remedial reading course, you might be better off letting it go, at least for the instructions component. For comparison, would you cut off a student who was explaining an assignment to a classmate, in English? I do appreciate that it's a concern for a comprehension course, and a big flag about how well some students are able to process information in English, but I'd say pick your battles, unless you are going to implement a ban on other languages in the classroom.
Quote from: kaysixteen on September 24, 2019, 10:01:55 PM
I went over the quiz extensively in class today, but have to move on. I am already a day behind in the syllabus and am stuck with doing the stuff on it, so I cannot justify moving further behind.
Can you include (possibly extra credit) review questions on future quizzes?
Or, allow them to do some kind of re-take to raise their grades?
The "raising grades" is the incentive. The goal is for them to learn that important material.
And, whatever you do, tell them that over and over, sincerely: I want you to learn, I want you to do well, I want you to succeed.
Well things continue to progress and now that I recognize the linguistic challenges, I can monitor the students to help try to ensure their ongoing comprehension. I made a what I think is a very easy quiz for tomorrow, much easier than the first one, although it does require the students to have done a good job memorizing a lot of basic facts regarding reference books, how to read a dictionary article, how to scope out the main ideas of a passage, etc, all of which topics were given to me on the syllabus and all of which are indeed vital aspects of the skills needed for college reading success. I have also discovered some excellent college reading textbooks which I can use for supplemental readings now and pne of which I will adopt as the main text for next semester. So we'll see how it goes.
Now one more confession... I'm afraid of the potential consequences of negative student feedback or complaints, and of their ending up not being seen by my supervisor as not having adequately improved their performance on the diagnostic reading test when they retake it at the end of the semester. My previous adjunct experiences, and indeed on 2 prior k12 ones as well, has engendered this, like it or not. I do not know what to do about this. But I cannot lie about its clear reality nonetheless.
Quote from: kaysixteen on September 30, 2019, 08:50:41 PM
Well things continue to progress and now that I recognize the linguistic challenges, I can monitor the students to help try to ensure their ongoing comprehension. I made a what I think is a very easy quiz for tomorrow, much easier than the first one, although it does require the students to have done a good job memorizing a lot of basic facts regarding reference books, how to read a dictionary article, how to scope out the main ideas of a passage, etc, all of which topics were given to me on the syllabus and all of which are indeed vital aspects of the skills needed for college reading success. I have also discovered some excellent college reading textbooks which I can use for supplemental readings now and pne of which I will adopt as the main text for next semester. So we'll see how it goes.
Now one more confession... I'm afraid of the potential consequences of negative student feedback or complaints, and of their ending up not being seen by my supervisor as not having adequately improved their performance on the diagnostic reading test when they retake it at the end of the semester. My previous adjunct experiences, and indeed on 2 prior k12 ones as well, has engendered this, like it or not. I do not know what to do about this. But I cannot lie about its clear reality nonetheless.
Another thought is open-book, open-note quizzes that are low-stakes. Students who know the material have it easy. Students who at least know where to look or double-check their ideas are also going to be fine and build confidence.
Quote from: Aster on September 24, 2019, 01:07:44 PM
I'm not allowed to ban phones. Our college has some sort of poorly articulated rule that a personal phone is a U.S. citizen's right to have on their person at all times. The rule exists in some magic place that we can never directly look up or locate. We are just told that we can't put anything on our syllabi that specifically bars phones.
I can only require that students not use them during class, and I can require that they put the phones on a silent mode. I can't even tell them to turn off the phones. Turning off the phone would restrict the student's "rights" to receiving real-time emergency notifications.
I'm on your administration's side on this. It isn't reasonable to not allow phones at all in the classroom. Phones are a basic tool of modern life. It would be like telling students they couldn't bring their wallet to class, or have it in their pocket. And nobody really turns off their phone anymore. This isn't really about addiction to technology, its just that it is inconvenient.
If my phone is on "do not disturb" while I teach, then I don't have to boot it up again afterwards. If my phone is off, anybody who calls will go to voicemail. If they don't leave a voicemail, I won't know they called, and if they do, I find that kind of stressful. Plus there is the emergency notifications issue along with personal emergencies. I have a young kid and my do not disturb is set so that if certain people call me multiple times it will buzz me and I'd be reachable if there was some emergency. I have students who have kids or are caregivers for other family members.
It is perfectly reasonable to ask that phones not be in use during class, or out on desks, but turning them off doesn't make much sense.
I confess I have not been able this semester, and it's been a month now, to get the students to put away the damn phones. After several classes where I told them to put em away, without really any success, i told them last Thursday that I wouldn't be saying that again, but I would simply give a zero for daily class participation grade to anyone I saw with phone out. And this accomplished pretty much exactly nothing. Several repeat offenders just brazenly have been keeping em out right on desk using them, literally right in front of my eyes. If I do go through with the zero class participation marks, this would likely tank several of their ultimate course grades. Thing is, despite the fact that I find this behavior very disrespectful.... Maybe i am just old..... But if I weren't genuinely afraid that those who are doing this will fail to learn the stuff they'll need not only to improve their scores on the reading test, but more bluntly just won't learn to read well enough to succeed in college (several clearly do not yet have those needed reading and stuxy skills, and this is a noncredit, high school level course) and I will have failed in my duties, whether or not I get blamed by my superiors. Thus I remain perplexed and in a quandary....
Btw, what exactly is the pedagogical goal and likely useful assessment potential of an open-book, open-notes quiz?
Quote from: kaysixteen on October 01, 2019, 09:48:50 PM
I confess I have not been able this semester, and it's been a month now, to get the students to put away the damn phones. After several classes where I told them to put em away, without really any success, i told them last Thursday that I wouldn't be saying that again, but I would simply give a zero for daily class participation grade to anyone I saw with phone out. And this accomplished pretty much exactly nothing. Several repeat offenders just brazenly have been keeping em out right on desk using them, literally right in front of my eyes. If I do go through with the zero class participation marks, this would likely tank several of their ultimate course grades. Thing is, despite the fact that I find this behavior very disrespectful....
I go back and forth about the phones. Some days I think that plenty of students have always been disengaged, and the phones are just a visible manifestation of disengagement. The students who pay attention and contribute don't generally stare at their phones in the middle of the class, so maybe this is just one of those things that bothers me more because it wasn't a thing when I went to school.
Other times, it bugs me more because its so visible and that so many students seem to feel like going to class is basically like standing in line at Wendy's-a perfectly fine time to zone out on your phone. I don't buy into all of the doomsayers about screen time-perhaps because I'm a historian and people always say the same things about young people and their technologies. I dunno, maybe we are just in a transitional moment with smart phones where they've become ubiquitous but cultural norms around their use and abuse haven't fulled formed yet.
Quote from: kaysixteen on October 01, 2019, 09:48:50 PM
Btw, what exactly is the pedagogical goal and likely useful assessment potential of an open-book, open-notes quiz?
IMHO a student either knows the material or they don't. They have read the book and know where to double-check a concept or they are scrambling through the glossary seeing if they can find the term.
So the open-book open-notes quiz lets it look more like a cooperative endeavor, with the students more relaxed about the assessment.
And you get to ask more complex questions that allow for critical thinking. Like "In Jane Eyre, compare Jane's experience at Thornfield Hall to the hero's narrative described on page 342 of the text."
For the really obstreperous ones, it reinforces the basic actions of bring the right book to a class and opening it.
I always give open-book/open-notebook tests.
As noted above, it's only efficacious if they have organized their notes and notebooks (and I give a 5-point optional extra-credit opportunity to submit an organized notebook before the final, to be graded on completeness and any good ordering of the contents; the syllabus includes a page with suggestions for this). I maybe get 2 or 3 out of a class of 50 art history students;, so it's not an onerous addition to my work.
It also provides a sort of deniability for exam grades: you had this chance, and you didn't take it; your score reflects your engagement in the class and your attention to the details you were told about that could help you.
M.
Quote from: Caracal on October 01, 2019, 08:13:49 AM
Quote from: Aster on September 24, 2019, 01:07:44 PM
I'm not allowed to ban phones. Our college has some sort of poorly articulated rule that a personal phone is a U.S. citizen's right to have on their person at all times. The rule exists in some magic place that we can never directly look up or locate. We are just told that we can't put anything on our syllabi that specifically bars phones.
I can only require that students not use them during class, and I can require that they put the phones on a silent mode. I can't even tell them to turn off the phones. Turning off the phone would restrict the student's "rights" to receiving real-time emergency notifications.
I'm on your administration's side on this. It isn't reasonable to not allow phones at all in the classroom. Phones are a basic tool of modern life. It would be like telling students they couldn't bring their wallet to class, or have it in their pocket. And nobody really turns off their phone anymore. This isn't really about addiction to technology, its just that it is inconvenient.
If my phone is on "do not disturb" while I teach, then I don't have to boot it up again afterwards. If my phone is off, anybody who calls will go to voicemail. If they don't leave a voicemail, I won't know they called, and if they do, I find that kind of stressful. Plus there is the emergency notifications issue along with personal emergencies. I have a young kid and my do not disturb is set so that if certain people call me multiple times it will buzz me and I'd be reachable if there was some emergency. I have students who have kids or are caregivers for other family members.
It is perfectly reasonable to ask that phones not be in use during class, or out on desks, but turning them off doesn't make much sense.
And here we have a fundamental difference between the United States and the rest of the world. In other countries it's not only reasonable to bar phone use in certain public and private buildings, but its encouraged.
But in the U.S., access to cell phone signals seems more enshrined than the right to carry firearms.
Oh wait, I forgot that abuses with the latter are the primary reason that the U.S. feels it needs to mandate unrestricted access to the former. Ha that's right. Wow.
I'm puzzled by "If my phone is off, anybody who calls will go to voicemail. If they don't leave a voicemail, I won't know they called..." You can check under "Recent" and see anyone who has called, whether or not they left a voicemail.
I certainly don't let people in my classes keep their phones within sight, or answer them, and I'm in the U.S.
I get the potential to use open book type tests to spend time testing higher order material, but this ain't that type of class. This is after all a remedial class prepping kids with the minimum floor of reading skills needed for college success going forward. There are no higher order skills in this class, but what there is is a boatload of information and basic skills competencies to learn, and memorize/ internalize. Kids who don't yet knowhow to identify the main idea of a paragraph or know what things are in a dictionary entry are not yet on track for the dean's list. And I'm the guy who's keen to teach these skills and competencies so that they'll be set to focus on those higher order things in major courses in the future. It's pretty much the same thing I have to do when teaching Latin 101. Students have to memorize the first declension, so it just ain't enough for the kid to have the text in class and know it's in chapter 2, turn there, and copy down the declension on the quiz.
Btw, for those familiar with schools who require students who don't score high enough on a standardized placement test to take such a class in their first semester, what is the usual practice for those students who fail that class?
Quote from: kaysixteen on October 07, 2019, 10:38:09 PM
Btw, for those familiar with schools who require students who don't score high enough on a standardized placement test to take such a class in their first semester, what is the usual practice for those students who fail that class?
Get shunted into the last-chance class and then dismissed from the college for inadequate progress after enough semesters not passing anything.
At my school, you'd just have to keep taking that class until you move on.
Quote from: kaysixteen on October 07, 2019, 10:38:09 PM
I get the potential to use open book type tests to spend time testing higher order material, but this ain't that type of class. This is after all a remedial class prepping kids with the minimum floor of reading skills needed for college success going forward. There are no higher order skills in this class, but what there is is a boatload of information and basic skills competencies to learn, and memorize/ internalize. Kids who don't yet knowhow to identify the main idea of a paragraph or know what things are in a dictionary entry are not yet on track for the dean's list. And I'm the guy who's keen to teach these skills and competencies so that they'll be set to focus on those higher order things in major courses in the future. It's pretty much the same thing I have to do when teaching Latin 101. Students have to memorize the first declension, so it just ain't enough for the kid to have the text in class and know it's in chapter 2, turn there, and copy down the declension on the quiz.
Btw, for those familiar with schools who require students who don't score high enough on a standardized placement test to take such a class in their first semester, what is the usual practice for those students who fail that class?
Here, you'd be taking the course until you could pass it. We put in a "3-strikes rule" a few years ago, for other courses and for other reasons, but I'm not sure if anybody would apply it to a pre-College, non-credit, course. My hope is that we would not, after a few kicks at the can, keep taking their money.