So this reading class has a biggish group project to do, and recall I'm stuck with the syllabus this semester, though I'm certainly leaning towards dumping the group work next semester. Tuesday as I was driving home something dawned on me, and I should like any opinions. In class that day, a kid asked me for additional details about the project, beyond what's in the syllabus and what I'd said two weeks earlier when I assigned the groups and passed out the assignments for each. Obviously I said then to make sure you meet as a group asap to divvy up work, make work schedule, budget time, etc...and I also said that I expected each kid to read the entire reading assigned to each group and make sure he pulls his own weight in the project, and woe betide any kid I find credibly was slacking on his groupmates. The whole time period between assignments given out and projects is one month. Thus, Tuesday was halfway through this. Then, this kid, who asked for additional details, upon questioning admitted he'd not yet done anything on it, either reading or confab with groupmates. I told him to get cracking. Then, when driving home, I recalled that he had finally gotten round at the end of September to giving me paperwork notice of his having gotten what seemed to be a pretty standard college accommodation notice, which I read over and had to sign... Interestingly he did not actually give me a copy to keep... Things in it were like extra time for quizzes, someone to read texts, etc. He told me that he wouldn't necessarily use all these all the time, and actually didn't do it on last week's quiz. So far so clear, but my question is, what is the intersection of such accommodations and group project assignments, especially given that this was not iirc mentioned in the accommodation letter. In any case, how might I avoid having any accommodations given to him create extra work obligations for his groupmates, and/or causing the overall group grade, given only to all group members equally, from being unfairly reduced?
1) Always keep a copy of the accommodation letter.
2) A good practice is to follow up with the disability services folks on what that letter means specifically for your class.
For example, I have never been told that I had to apply the extra time to assignments where the time was already several days/weeks. A 15-minute quiz did need to be doubled for some students and I routinely sent tests to the testing center because doubling the 2-hour time block to 4 hours was not on my shoulders. However, the weekly lab report was due at the same time for everyone and no one got two semesters to hand in the big project that spanned the whole semester.
I doubt there's an issue here. Some students have specific sorts of learning styles that make it hard for them to do exams in the normal amount of time. They don't need more time on everything, because with longer assignments they can plan out their own time schedules.
Quote from: kaysixteen on October 10, 2019, 06:56:22 PM
I recalled that he had finally gotten round at the end of September to giving me paperwork notice of his having gotten what seemed to be a pretty standard college accommodation notice, which I read over and had to sign... Interestingly he did not actually give me a copy to keep... Things in it were like extra time for quizzes, someone to read texts, etc. He told me that he wouldn't necessarily use all these all the time, and actually didn't do it on last week's quiz. So far so clear, but my question is, what is the intersection of such accommodations and group project assignments, especially given that this was not iirc mentioned in the accommodation letter. In any case, how might I avoid having any accommodations given to him create extra work obligations for his groupmates, and/or causing the overall group grade, given only to all group members equally, from being unfairly reduced?
I agree that, in future, you should keep a copy. I've never had to sign an accommodation letter, but, if I did, I would keep it between classes and photocopy it before I returned it.
I also require accommodation students to meet with me and talk through the letter. I point out things that will be easy (taking exams in the testing center) and things that aren't relevant (I don't teach labs). For things that are nebulous, I might say "I'll sometimes have people do X in class. If you need more time on that, signal to me / write me a note / [whatever is appropriate in the setting]." In this instance, I might say, "I can't give individual extensions on a group project, but these are some options we could consider
. What do you think will be most feasible for you and still the most fair for your classmates?" --and then I would find a way to meet with every group to explain irregularities of their project, and make sure that the group in question knew exactly which areas of the project were flexible [without, of course, mentioning the accommodation]. In my experience, "more time" almost always means "more time on timed work," not "have extensions on every deadline," exactly because--as Polly notes--no one gets to take two semesters to hand in the big project/final paper.
AR.
"Group Work, the Mess That Keeps on Messing"
There. I made a catchphrase. How do I attach an emoji... :)
Sorry, I could not help myself. I am very much sympathetic to Kay. I have had this problem myself.
Indeed, I have had so much of this problem in the past, I have removed virtually all group work (except for courses where the pedagogy requires it).
There's little question that I'm gonna ditch the group assignment as well as several other aspects of the syllabus for next semester, if they'll let me.
Having accommodations students meet privately with me would work better if I had access to an office and didn't have to clear out asap after class, and in order to get to my other job, however grunty that other job is.
As to the actual accommodations letter, there were no copies. It was merely a letter from the disability office listing the accommodations, with a line at the end for the kid's profs to sign! I was the third one to do so. There is actually a public copier in the room across the hall, and I had a brain fart by not telling him to go in there and make me a copy of it.
Indeed, this is one of the several things about this place, pleasant and religiously simpatico to me though it may be, that have begun to smack of at least a wee bit of lack of professionalism or perhaps competence, such as the sad fact that my last paycheck, due last Thursday, still hasn't been given to me, either in paper form or via direct deposit, because payroll somewhere screwed up the routing number off of my voided check. If I haven't gotten it by the time I go back in Tuesday, I will have to directly insist that they give it to me in person then, just two days ahead of the next regular paycheck date, no matter how much I realllllly don't want to do that.
Quote from: kaysixteen on October 11, 2019, 09:59:53 PM
As to the actual accommodations letter, there were no copies. It was merely a letter from the disability office listing the accommodations, with a line at the end for the kid's profs to sign! I was the third one to do so. There is actually a public copier in the room across the hall, and I had a brain fart by not telling him to go in there and make me a copy of it.
Go to the disability office and ask nicely for a copy. Have a discussion on the spot regarding what the accommodations mean for your class.
Quote from: kaysixteen on October 11, 2019, 09:59:53 PM
Indeed, this is one of the several things about this place, pleasant and religiously simpatico to me though it may be, that have begun to smack of at least a wee bit of lack of professionalism or perhaps competence, such as the sad fact that my last paycheck, due last Thursday, still hasn't been given to me, either in paper form or via direct deposit, because payroll somewhere screwed up the routing number off of my voided check. If I haven't gotten it by the time I go back in Tuesday, I will have to directly insist that they give it to me in person then, just two days ahead of the next regular paycheck date, no matter how much I realllllly don't want to do that.
They owe you money that you need and deserve. No system is 100% perfect, which is why they should have a mechanism to fix it in a timely manner when the foreseeable blips happen. Don't let their foolishness continue to hold up your money.
Kay, I can relate to your paycheck woes.
Long ago, when I was hired on my second adjunct contract at BucolicEliteU, my paycheck still hadn't come in after six weeks. (And I had filled out all the forms as required, on time; and besides, they had my info from the previous year.) My husband had lost his job, and my measly funds were the only thing keeping our family of four going. I went to the payroll office and politely asked for my money, explaining the situation. The woman refused, telling me I had to wait until the next payday two weeks away (which is what they had told me the last time). I sat there, and kept repeating, like a broken record, "It's my money, I earned it, and I need it now." Finally, she capitulated, and I walked out of there with a check.
I am normally a shy and unassertive person, so anyone who knows me would have trouble imagining me doing such a thing. And really, it was almost an out-of-body experience, as if I were watching someone I did not know being confrontational. Desperation does strange things.
So good luck at the payroll office, Kay! I hope you get the money you have earned. The error was theirs, and you should not have to suffer, or even be mildly inconvenienced, for it.
I did at least finally get the back pay from 2 weeks ago, and then today the direct deposit for today's check did go through, so that's one problem dispensed with. And the car insurance appraiser called today to set up appointment to look at car, as other driver's company is going to accept responsibility. Another problem solved.
That said, this group project is setting itself up to be a budding nightmare. The assignment, taken directly from the previous professor's syllabus (which I was pretty much told not to change), required me to split the class into groups, 3, based on student majors, and assign each a reading about reading for that discipline/area. The group then has to pass in a book report based on it, give a 10 minute class presentation, and then submit to questions. These were assigned three weeks ago and the presentation date is next Thursday, so a full month. I made it clear they must not put this off till the last minute, something all the more important for a group project, and I have reminded them several times, as well as given chances to ask questions about it. Still, i got a plaintive email from one kid, who's clearly trying in class but just as clearly pretty gosh darn underprepared for college, saying she really didn't understand what she was supposed to do on it. I emailed back saying I would talk about it in class extensively today, and answer any additional questions then. I did this, as well as reiterating the need to get cracking if you haven't yet done much, and noting that, as per the syllabus, I would be meeting with students about their efforts Tuesday, ahead of the presentation date Thursday. I clearly didn't care for the obvious whining and clear lack of work done on the project to date, but I'm not really all that surprised given the nature of this class, and I'm pretty much expecting even more last minute-ism on the individual book reports due in December (i also repeated spiel on getting going on them today as well, and also reiterated the need to read the extensive syllabus directions). Thing is, as I've mentioned on the fora here already, I'm really genuinely terrified that potential student complaints about academic rigor will cost me this job, as they did the last two adjunct positions I held. I am also very keen not to overwhelm these kids in this remedial class, but, dammit, these skills I'm teaching are clear and important for college success, and I'm very experienced at this sort of class, and I know I'm doing a good job at it. I hated, however, the obsequious apologetic tone I found myself taking in class, and in an all class email sent afterwards, but, again, I'm terrified.
And that was before arriving home after retail drudgery late this evening to find an email from the super-disengaged young lady i mentioned earlier this evening, saying she did not understand what was going to be on Tuesday's quiz (it will be exactly like the first 2, as i explained for the last two classes she essentially zoned out of, and I also said exactly what topics would be covered). That didn't impress me much, but then she added that she and her groupmates didn't understand their reading, because there were pages missing. I'm all but certain that's a lie, because I remember passing out the stuff and asking every kid to ensure that each had all his pages, but, again, that was three weeks ago, and how can I possibly prove that this is not true? And, if course, she cc'd the email to my supervisor. As I'm not going to be back to campus till Tuesday, I felt the need to reply immediately, cc'd back to the supervisor as well, reiterating not only the quiz directions and that i had given them in class for the last week, but also expressing my clear displeasure that after three weeks with these photocopies, this is the first I have heard of any problems, adding that I'd doublechecked the completeness of the copies the day they were handed out, but that they should bring them in Tuesday and I will recheck them, and for now they should just read the stuff they have and report on this. I think I'm being played by unprepared kids who are angling for an extension, but how the hell do I demonstrate that to my supervisor? It ain't like I chose this assignment, and in issuing it I also had to hunt up appropriate readings and photocopy them for kids, lots of extra work pour moi, but of course it also means I can't prove it wasn't I who bleeped up here, and, again, ahem, well, err, I'm just plain terrified my supervisor will blame me, and I'll lose this job, one which also pretty much appears to be my last chance to eventually get some permanent ft teaching work, whether k12 or higher. AARRRRGGGHHHH!!!!!!
Oy Kay, this seems like a mess...
1. Do these students have any contact with your supervisor normally? It is a weird move to CC them. I certainly wouldn't have kept them in the loop on some boring class matter by ccing them on the reply.
2. You are being way too defensive and anxious about the whole pages thing anyway. Perhaps you did make a mistake. I screw little stuff up all the time. Part of the problem is that I gather you are still not using the CMS? That really helps with stuff like this because you can check on the issue right away, see if the student is correct, and fix the problem without waiting for the next class. Regardless, I probably would just let them have till the next week to do the presentation. Which gets to...
3. I'm not sure that your problem is academic rigor, as much as it is inflexibility and attitude. You don't need to be "obsequious." Just be nice. You don't need to express your "displeasure" to students about their procrastination. If fact, there's really no need to have all these feelings about it. Students do stuff at the last minute, that's just what they do. You can point out that this isn't a good plan, you can remind them in class about it, but many of them will do it anyway. Thus it has always been. You don't need to have a lot of personal feelings about it all. Either decide that you're going to be flexible about extensions are decide that you won't, and you don't have to angst about this kind of normal stuff.
Because the young woman ccd my supervisor, I felt I had to cc her in reply, lest she think I was hiding something. Neither she nor the student has responded to my reply, so methinks I wikk be ok. That said, I did decide to postpone these presentations till next Tuesday, largely because I decided having a major quiz and presentation two classes in a row, which hadn't been on the original syllabus anyhow (we're running behind) was probably overkill for this bunch. It really is important that I not blow these kids in this remedial class away. That I'm also still pretty darn afraid of complaints is probably besides the point?
One more presentation question for the fora: because I had to reschedule the thing till Tuesday, i seem to have avoided one problem, but something like this could nonetheless arise. One young woman, easily the best and most conscientious kid in the class, emailed me yesterday saying she wasn't going to be in class tomorrow because she's going on a class field trip for another class. What if this had been the actual group presentation day? One doesn't want to be unnecessarily uncolleagial towards a colleague, but....?
It's incumbent on the student to make arrangements much farther ahead. Field trips outside of class time aren't generally sprung on students with less than a day's notice.
The question then is what policies a professor has for students who can plan ahead and have a conflict that can be resolved easily with advanced planning. Some professors plan multiple days of presentations so that the group simply shifts to accommodate the field trip. Other professors open a second presentation time as necessary or make arrangements for a special one-off make-up session for everyone at some time convenient for the professor (e.g., Wednesday before Thanksgiving for all misses in the first half of the semester; study day or last day of finals for all misses in the second half of the semester).
I've heard of people making students do a recording and then submit that to the professor, but that's less common if the point was to present in front of a group and respond to audience feedback.
Again, having policies and deciding if you're the hardest of hard asses (e.g., all make-ups are the last day of finals week) or helping each student succeed (shifting the presentation for the one group on short notice) makes the individual decisions easier. I did indeed record the F one term for the student who emailed with essentially no notice that he wanted to move his slot from the first day to the last day and thus was not in class for his assigned time. This was a student who had made almost no effort during his second trip through the course so I felt no guilt in letting him fail again, especially since even an A+++++++ on that presentation would not have been sufficient to earn a D in the overall course.
Another reason to hate groupery. All the presentations are going to be on the same day, and I'm just not gonna let one group do it later and thus get more time to prep it. I'd probably well deserve any complaints made to my superiors if I were to do that.
Honest question: why do you keep putting yourself in these situations? Group projects are always a disaster when they are not scaffolded around assignments that carry individual accountability (grades), students frequently claim to have disability accommodations when they don't and it's easy to verify this, legitimate accommodations never involve changing deadlines made known to the student at the start of the semester, etc.
Quote from: kaysixteen on October 24, 2019, 10:00:14 PM
Another reason to hate groupery. All the presentations are going to be on the same day, and I'm just not gonna let one group do it later and thus get more time to prep it. I'd probably well deserve any complaints made to my superiors if I were to do that.
What happens when people are sick?
What happens for that student who has a genuine conflict and your class will not be the normal choice by someone who can prioritize?
These are typical situations that happen very frequently so one is best served by having a policy in place before being put on the spot. You can have a no-makeups-ever policy...if your administration will support that. I can think of many chairs who would rather deal with the occasional complaint of "X got more time and that's not FAAAAAAIIR!" than the legitimate formal complaint from a good student that no flexibility was given to be able to attend both the really important field trip and the group presentation that will drop a letter grade.
If this presentation is worth practically no points, then that's a different problem in motivating students to take it seriously and do good work.
Quote from: polly_mer on October 25, 2019, 04:16:58 AM
Quote from: kaysixteen on October 24, 2019, 10:00:14 PM
Another reason to hate groupery. All the presentations are going to be on the same day, and I'm just not gonna let one group do it later and thus get more time to prep it. I'd probably well deserve any complaints made to my superiors if I were to do that.
What happens when people are sick?
What happens for that student who has a genuine conflict and your class will not be the normal choice by someone who can prioritize?
These are typical situations that happen very frequently so one is best served by having a policy in place before being put on the spot. You can have a no-makeups-ever policy...if your administration will support that. I can think of many chairs who would rather deal with the occasional complaint of "X got more time and that's not FAAAAAAIIR!" than the legitimate formal complaint from a good student that no flexibility was given to be able to attend both the really important field trip and the group presentation that will drop a letter grade.
If this presentation is worth practically no points, then that's a different problem in motivating students to take it seriously and do good work.
A few thoughts, in no particular order...
1. One university's guide for instructors was to avoid "cliff policies": anything that triggers an automatic fail, no exceptions. You can die on that hill, but you'd better be willing to take a lot of flak. And you're not going to have fun when the pregnant mom and the veteran with PTSD register for your course. I'll admit that group work is the one circumstance in which I'm likely to trigger such policies (I say on the first day that the one thing students cannot do in my courses is bail on their group), but I would never write up an assignment that allowed for no emergencies. Stuff happens.
2. Making up policies on the fly is a recipe for complaints. Reasonable responses to circumstances are not, especially when you're picking up somebody else's course, but whenever I do this I request unanimous consent from the class -- this forces me to come up with something that does not disadvantage anybody, and the students have had to provide affirmative consent. They never complain, mostly because I present it as a set of choices.
3. The only times that I got significant pushback about my grading was when there was a disconnect between the grade and the tone of my comments. It didn't actually matter what the grade was; students with A's were puzzled by some brutal critique, and students with C's were puzzled by some encouraging feedback. Apologetic emails about assignments are going to generate the same kind of confusion. Blaming the syllabus is going to make students wonder who is in charge, and they will be much more convinced by your passionate conviction that the work really is crucial to their college success.
4. If your supervisor won't rehire you because of a student complaint, your supervisor sucks. As others have noted, some kinds of student complaint are timeless, and anybody who has ever taught will know this.
5. Part of what your course is designed to do is demonstrate the vital nature of some academic skills. Some students need to fail at something in order to change how they approach the task. Scaffolding is one way to both allow for some such failures, and to ensure that there is some mechanism for correction. There are other reasons to scaffold large assignments, especially in this level of course. Even if you cannot rewrite the syllabus this time, you can break down the work into manageable chunks.
6. Breathe. Take a step back. Look at the big picture and re-affirm what it is you want to do in this course. If you cannot meet students one-on-one, for logistical reasons, take a chunk of class time to present a "systems check" or "status report", explaining what will need to be tweaked for the class to continue, and getting student buy-in. Yes, there's a risk that a riot will start, but if you frame it in terms of student success, most of them will listen. Right now they probably want to know what is happening, and how they should approach the rest of the course.
dc
I need to remind y'all that the syllabus in all its glory was dictated to me, and as an adjunct I ain't gonna become a rebel and start significantly altering it. I was told I could do yhat for next semester and am looking forward to yhe chance to do so, but
That chance will only accrue to me if I don't get sacked because of student complaints, WHICH HAS, LIKE IT OR NOT, HAPPENED BEFORE.
I do not whine about the syllabus to the students. I'm not an idiot.
I get the idea about emergency accommodations, and I don't have a no make up policy, as many fora posters over the years have bragged about having, but group work is different, and even solo class presentations are pretty different too. If student x doesn't show, he strongly penalizes his groupmates, and if even a solo presentation is allowed to be rescheduled,it does give those who get it rescheduled extra time others don't have, virtually guaranteeing complaints... How are such complaints likely to be dealt with, something almost impossible for someone in his first semester working at a given school to figure out.
How many of y'all, btw, have experience teaching a college class where you are given a set syllabus and told to do it?
Quote from: kaysixteen on October 25, 2019, 10:54:02 AM
How many of y'all, btw, have experience teaching a college class where you are given a set syllabus and told to do it?
I'll be honest - not much. The only thing similar was when I worked as a test prep tutor and the company had very strict expectations about our performance (to the point of dictating what we wrote on the whiteboard and what color highlighters to use to annotate our notebooks). I was not a fan.
At my current university, we always allow for discretion on the part of the instructor. At minimum, we have a set of learning objectives that need to be met for a given class and it is up to the instructor how to meet them. More often, we will have specific texts or key assignments that we need to include for consistency across sections and assessment purposes. We give sample syllabuses to adjuncts for guidance but not mandatory adherence. Even when we had an adjunct walk away from a class mid-semester, the person picking up the pieces had some latitude to renegotiate the course requirements with the students - in that case there was probably an explicit expectation not to make any changes that would further penalize the students, but still not rote adherence to the original syllabus.
If that has not been your experience, I'm sorry.
As far as group work goes, it is a necessary evil in many of my classes because it is a requirement for our discipline's accrediting body. If I am likely to split presentations across multiple class periods, I have students turn their slides into the LMS before the start of class. While groups that present the second week have more time to practice and prepare all of the other aspects of their talk, they don't seem to notice this advantage. There's usually a sufficient mix of "I just want to get it over with" students and "please don't make me go first" students that they don't complain about the scheduling and any absences just blend into the fray.
In other classes, I take a "the show must go on" approach and the group must be ready to present on the due date. This comes with lots of advance warnings that they need to know each other's parts and be able to pinch hit in case of emergency. In those cases, I also give them an opportunity for peer review to ensure that everyone does their fair share. I still hear complaints about dud group members, but giving them an outlet for their dissatisfaction through the peer reviews (which do affect their grades) has kept the complaints from escalating to my boss. When students have had a genuine emergency, the peer reviews are usually very supportive and they describe all the things their group member did to prepare the presentation even though they weren't there to say the words.
Quote from: kaysixteen on October 25, 2019, 10:54:02 AM
How are such complaints likely to be dealt with, something almost impossible for someone in his first semester working at a given school to figure out.
Go talk to your chair or coordinator. They know what will be acceptable at your institution in terms of student complaints and how to handle the very common situations.
Being non-renewed early at a place where one doesn't fit is a gift, even if it's a pain in the wallet.
Quote from: kaysixteen on October 24, 2019, 10:00:14 PM
Another reason to hate groupery. All the presentations are going to be on the same day, and I'm just not gonna let one group do it later and thus get more time to prep it. I'd probably well deserve any complaints made to my superiors if I were to do that.
This doesn't really make that much sense to me. When I give an out of class assignment, I try to make sure that time isn't a factor. Everyone should have plenty of time to do the thing. Obviously, some students might spend more time, some less, but basically I want people to have the space and room to make those decisions without time pressure imposed by me. Within that context, I don't really think of it as "unfair" if I give an extension to a student because of some circumstance. Everyone had plenty of time to get the thing done, so if I decide that some circumstance warrants giving someone some extra time, they aren't really getting an advantage. It is more like they are getting some time back that was taken away from them by some circumstance out of control. That isn't unfair, unless you have unclear extension policies or apply them unevenly. I've also never had students complain about something like this.
It boggles the mind that students are given group assignments all the time, but are not supported in these endeavors. Somehow they are all just supposed to figure it out. To me these kinds of assignments are just laziness on the part of instructors (10 team presentations is a lot less grading than 40 papers).
As an instructor, I rarely have problems with group projects. Why? Because we start out with a team agreement, where students lay the ground rules for how they will interact, deal with conflict, make decisions, etc. They talk about who likes to get things done early and who is a procrastinator. Then we spend time in class planning the project: if you have to do a presentation on x date, what needs to be done and when? Then I give some class time (about 10 minutes at the end of class) on a periodic basis for them to touch base regarding the agreement (do you need to change it?) and the plan (are you on track? If not what adjustments have to be made?). It is never perfect--they are still learning after all--but it is very rarely a disaster.
If the group assignment is important enough to assign, then it is important enough to help them manage the process to fulfill the requirements.
Quote from: summers_off on October 26, 2019, 11:33:35 AM
It boggles the mind that students are given group assignments all the time, but are not supported in these endeavors. Somehow they are all just supposed to figure it out. To me these kinds of assignments are just laziness on the part of instructors (10 team presentations is a lot less grading than 40 papers).
As an instructor, I rarely have problems with group projects. Why? Because we start out with a team agreement, where students lay the ground rules for how they will interact, deal with conflict, make decisions, etc. They talk about who likes to get things done early and who is a procrastinator. Then we spend time in class planning the project: if you have to do a presentation on x date, what needs to be done and when? Then I give some class time (about 10 minutes at the end of class) on a periodic basis for them to touch base regarding the agreement (do you need to change it?) and the plan (are you on track? If not what adjustments have to be made?). It is never perfect--they are still learning after all--but it is very rarely a disaster.
If the group assignment is important enough to assign, then it is important enough to help them manage the process to fulfill the requirements.
I'm in a field where group projects aren't necessary, but this is basically why I don't assign them. You really have to devote a lot of time and thought to it to make it work well and, frankly, it doesn't really play to my strengths as an instructor. Sadly, those strengths are definitely not in organization or time management.
"If student x doesn't show, he strongly penalizes his groupmates,"
This isn't always a big problem. If the group presentation consists of a powerpoint presentation, others can just read off the missing student's slides. Sure they might not know as much if questioned, but is each student here really doing something that the others won't understand? Seems like they all did the same reading.
I'm more concerned with basic fairness, making the other groupmates do more work because someone misses without an A-plus level excuse. Irrespective of potential complaints, I think that this would be unacceptable. This is also why I'm firmly opposed to allowing one of the groups to postpone its presentation. I get that they've had a month and should already be ready to go, but reality being what it is, kids will put it off. They all have to have the same amount of time.
Another question for ye: part of the assignment was to have each group pass in a single 2ish pp book report on the group article, written essentially by committee. I emphasized that I wanted them to do exactly this, divvy up the article and each one write part of this report. I did this because, again, all groupmates should do an equal share, and the syllabus requires one group paper, graded with one grade for all. I confess I'd never seen such an assignment before... Anyone have any thoughts or experiences?
Quote from: kaysixteen on October 26, 2019, 07:45:55 PM
I'm more concerned with basic fairness, making the other groupmates do more work because someone misses without an A-plus level excuse. Irrespective of potential complaints, I think that this would be unacceptable. This is also why I'm firmly opposed to allowing one of the groups to postpone its presentation. I get that they've had a month and should already be ready to go, but reality being what it is, kids will put it off. They all have to have the same amount of time.
Another question for ye: part of the assignment was to have each group pass in a single 2ish pp book report on the group article, written essentially by committee. I emphasized that I wanted them to do exactly this, divvy up the article and each one write part of this report. I did this because, again, all groupmates should do an equal share, and the syllabus requires one group paper, graded with one grade for all. I confess I'd never seen such an assignment before... Anyone have any thoughts or experiences?
It is hard to get students to really share the load. Heck, my department is writing a self-study, and while we are almost all responsible for a section, inevitably somebody has to do a lot more of the work to pull it all together.
One of the reasons that people actually work in groups is to leverage strengths. Somebody might be better at reading, somebody at extracting key ideas, somebody at distilling, somebody at proofreading, and more. Maybe doing different work isn't so bad.
In your case, since the goal of the assignment is probably at least as much process as product, you'll want to find a way to ensure that everybody does everything. You could as them, point blank (Which section did you write?), or, as others have suggested, use peer review. I don't know how much of this is baked into your canned syllabus, but see where there might be some flexibility.
When I assign performance projects, I make sure that one part of the written component could only be done by each performer (What did you do to prepare for your role? etc.). I'm less intrusive for senior capstone projects, in part because I'm really interested in the product at that stage; they should have been practicing team project skills in lower-division courses. Occasionally somebody flakes, somebody is hit by a bus, somebody drops out of the program. I work with the students to make sure that the group has a fair shot at completion, and we deal with it. Almost never is this "extra time" for the team; indeed, they always wind up doing more work as a result. Because I'm in charge of my grading scheme, I make sure that there's a significant component for individual performance. The jerk who cut off his own members to answer all questions got an earful from me later, and a significantly lower grade on that part of the project.
Just to add that I don't pretend to have all the answers here. I struggle with the Capstone group project, for all of the same reasons that you do, and will be rethinking its evaluation scheme in light of a few incidents last year. I use them in part because it means fewer assignments, not for my grading, but because individual presentations of any length eat up an enormous amount of class time, especially when they are supposed to generate discussion. And if they don't generate discussion, or cover material crucial to the course, then other students in attendance see them as irrelevant, and drift away. 'll be curious to read other ideas.
dc
Quote from: dr_codex on October 27, 2019, 05:48:35 AM
One of the reasons that people actually work in groups is to leverage strengths. Somebody might be better at reading, somebody at extracting key ideas, somebody at distilling, somebody at proofreading, and more. Maybe doing different work isn't so bad.
This is often the problem with randomly assigning groups in a college classroom for projects that don't actually require multiple people with a variety of skill sets to get the work done. As summers_off wrote, good teamwork is a skill that must be taught. That's why my employer will fill out any survey of needed skills with teamwork high on the list.
What we need are the hard parts of teamwork:
a) establishing the problem or goal
b) figuring out what skills are needed
c) doing the recruiting of people with the necessary skills and adequate time/energy/resources to meet the deadline for the overall goal
d) doing all the coordination and communication among people who have different backgrounds, different personal priorities, and different times they need to be working on the project because not all the skills are needed at every step
e) ensuring the continuity of a project that extends for possibly years and having processes in place to ensure that all the currently necessary skill sets are still covered as well as bringing new team members in and up to speed quickly
The easy part of classroom group work is working from an assignment that could be done by one person who sighs heavily and just does it for the month or three that has been allocated.
13 hours to go. We'll see what happens.
Polly's points are well-taken, but this sort of advanced groupwork skills training/ development is almost certainly unnecessary and a waste of time in a remedial reading class.
I get that my strong biases against group assignments are shining through and may well be coloring my views towards not letting kids shirk out on their groupmates, but I don't much care about that. I'm going to be asking questions of each group after their presentations, as well as opening the floor to their classmates to do the same, and I'm going to make sure that each kid says at least something.
Quote from: kaysixteen on October 28, 2019, 07:26:12 PM
Polly's points are well-taken, but this sort of advanced groupwork skills training/ development is almost certainly unnecessary and a waste of time in a remedial reading class.
What are your students supposed to be getting out of this course? I ask because I just came from the thread where they didn't pick articles and apparently can't use the library.
From what's been described, this looks like your section is supposed to be supporting a freshman comp section by filling in some gaps and yet nothing is being done that could help the students do much of anything.
What are the learning goals for the class and why is everything seeming to be based on the students already having the skills instead of actual instruction in being a student or in reading?
Quote from: kaysixteen on October 28, 2019, 07:26:12 PM
I'm going to be asking questions of each group after their presentations, as well as opening the floor to their classmates to do the same, and I'm going to make sure that each kid says at least something.
This is good pedagogy, of course, and not just for group presentations. It almost instantly reveals who understands the project, and who did the lion's share of the work.
I usually describe the Q&A as an opportunity for students to speak about material that they did not have time to work into the presentation, intimating that they both made conscious choices about what to include, and were scrupulous about observing time limits. These may or may not be Jedi Mind Tricks, but they cut down on complaints about the process, which I know is one of your concerns. It's a conscious teaching style, and I'll admit that some students produce better work in the courses run using the old school pedagogy of my colleague the Catholic nun.
Good luck today -- hoping they knock it out of the park.
dc
Well here we go... Could have been better, but probably could have been worse. In no particular order of observation:
1) one of the groups, a 2-man one (remember I had to group students according to major) just simply did not show. I emailed them afterwards saying they could do it Thursday if I get a valid excuse note from doc or campus admin, otherwise it's a zero. We will see what happens.
2) One group was substantially better than the other one in terms of actually trying to engage with its assigned article, whereas the other one really just gave a 'what is social science' Wikipedia-style presentation. That said, when I reread the chapters Wednesday in preparation, it dawned on me that the chapters really were likely too hard for these kids in this course. I used this book in a hs course twice, and never had anything resembling the lack of understanding and interaction with it in hs as I had here. I'll go real easy in grading.
3)paradoxically, the much better presentation had a different issue. In it, 3 of 4 students, all nonnative speakers of English, spoke with such thick accents that I just didn't get everything they said, nor do I think they always knew the exact English phraseology to use for what they wanted to say. I ain't gonna penalize them for this either.
4) all in all, I can and will do a much better job choosing assignments for myself next semester.
As to Polly's comments on library use, there's just no reason to waste class time bringing a librarian to the class. I gave them much morethan library skills training in this class than the schedule even called for, because of my own MLS background, but they can go to the reference desk to get articles selection assistance, and one of the goals of this class is to build college-ing skills in any case. IMO, pretty much all of these kids, save one or maybe two, are taken as a whole currently ready for college work, and it's my job to try to teach them skills to get ready, at least in the reading and study skills areas, and I'm doing a very good job teaching these skills.
Quote from: kaysixteen on October 29, 2019, 10:05:03 PM
it's my job to try to teach them skills to get ready, at least in the reading and study skills areas, and I'm doing a very good job teaching these skills.
Not by any report you've given here. From the reports you give here, someone else should be employed who has the specialized skills and interests to help these struggling students.
I am an expert in these reading and study skills subjects, having taught them for years, mostly at the hs level. I possess a humanities PhD an an MLS, and have also taught three humanities subjects in college. I'm doing the best job possible given the low level of literacy, whether due to ESL status, bad hs preparation, etc, low level of student preparation, and subpar text and syllabus expectations I'm stuck with using. No one could be doing a better job. You, otoh, are an engineer who nonetheless seem regularly to blather on about humanities subjects, hs competencies, etc, of which you know next to nothing, despite having taken some humanities courses in college.
Quote from: kaysixteen on October 30, 2019, 09:43:54 AM
No one could be doing a better job.
If you can't teach the students because they aren't ready, then that's a strong argument for better preparation before the students get to college and eliminating remedial work at the college level. If no one could be doing a better job, then let's have the students go do something elsewhere they can be successful and eliminate the college-level faculty job to free up a highly qualified person to go do something where they can be successful. If the student need is middle school/high school, then that's where those faculty jobs should be.
ESL for adult learners is its own thing and should be a special program separate from remediation of people who graduated high school, but aren't actually educated through a high school level. Being really great with study skills is a different expertise than knowing how to assist smart people who are acquiring proficiency in an additional culture and language. Teaching foreign language is not the same as the cultural assimilation for daily tasks.
My biggest frustration is faculty who don't know the actual research on education at any level, but are sure their experiences generalize enough that research doesn't matter. If only the graduate-trained humanities folks can understand higher education through their personal experiences, then the rest of us truly don't need general education at the college-level that is so heavily focused on the humanities and should be allowed to specialize.
This particular case has nothing to do with humanities and everything to do with mismanaged K-12 education resulting in students in college who are not at all ready for college. Insisting that a humanities education trumps actually knowing the research (i.e., the work product of highly educated people who study this particular problem) just underscores the problems with assuming that a college degree is generalizable to all areas of human knowledge because smart people who went to school for a long time can do anything.
As a follow-up, a couple of additional queries:
1. The young man with the accommodations letter is supposed to get double time for quizzes, etc., but he's supposed to invoke that right when/if he wants to use it, so today, on the quiz, when it was clear that he was not close to being done when everyone else was but that he was also going to pass it un anyhow, I took him out into hall to ask him whether he wanted to use accommodations... He decided to do so. Now I've not yet graded quiz, but am wondering, whether you all think i should have done this, when he clearly wasn't done, had several questions unanswered, etc, but just as clearly was not going to exercise his accommodations righrs without my prompting?
2, related to this, two more students sent 'I'm sick and can't come to take quiz'emails today. One, the best student in class, said she'd been to hospital and would bring documentation, but the other, a much less conscientious student with 2 prior absences, merely claimed illness (though I believe him), and our campus infirmary and dean of students offices BOTH will not write health excuse notes. I'm going to let both make up quiz, though I don't know about the third student who wrote no email at all, but the question I have is, is it worth it to even set ostensibly rigid syllabus dates for quizzes, presentations, etc., when students often won't show claiming health issues, AND there's no campus mechanism for verification of such claims? And if I were to jettison such dating requirements, what/how, to do in their stead?
3, lastly, is the pretty demonstrably immature, high schoolish behavior my students are for the most part regularly demonstrating likely to be due to the remedial nature of the course, or just incidental?
1. Don't let people invoke accommodations at their convenience. Check with the disabilities office as to whether you can send the quiz to them to have it proctored for the appropriate time or whether you need to set up for the full time yourself as part of preparation. This guy can leave early if he finishes early, but plan from the beginning for him to have the maximum time. That makes your life easier.
2. Pick a policy and stick with it. Again, it makes your life easier to have a standard process (e.g., drop N assignments in each category for everyone and a missed quiz counts as one of the drops, make ups for anyone who notifies, final exam replaces all missed quizzes/exams, all work for the semester is due by 6 pm on the very last day before finals, no late assignments ever) where you don't have to make any case-by-case decisions.
At the level where droves of students are disengaged from their own education, do whatever is easiest for you and stick with it. The person who misses one quiz or paper will be fine, regardless of your policy. The person who misses substantial fractions of work will not pass as long as you have any reasonable policy and record the grade earned. That person also won't have a leg on which to stand for a formal complaint as long as your policy is written in the syllabus and you stick to it for everyone.
3. The behavior you observe is likely a reflection of the institutional culture. Students who are fully invested in their education and have enough bandwidth to make classes a priority are different from students who desire better lives through a credential, but have complicated current circumstances or students who are merely going through some motions because they think school is where they ought to be. This may have nothing to do with age so much as why the students are in your class and what they hope to get out of it. Again, ESL students are likely to be very different from the students who are underprepared, don't want to learn if that requires effort, and are just waiting out their dismissal so they can quit school.