So last Monday my supervisor sent a mass email to all her adjuncts in various types of courses (at least the reading and writing ones) she oversees, thanking us for our efforts and telling us to expect a follow-up email later in the week to set up a time for her class observations visit. But as of 10 days, no such email has been received. I'm pretty eager to have her, because 1)I'd like her opinion of the campus expectations wrt student phone use, if, as I suspected, students still use it with her there, and 2)I really do think I'm doing a good job and want to get a good reference. But I'm wondering, should I email her to remind her to do this,or not?
My vote: a gentle reminder would be in order.
However, "a week" for many academics means "more than a day and less than a month", not 5-7 calendar days.
The woman emailed today saying she'll observe next Tuesday. I'm looking forward to it, but I guess I want to ask what I should expect? Will there likely be some sort of sit-down meeting afterwards? A written report? I have only gotten these things once, from the one chair I ever adjuncted for who ever observed a class of mine.
Probably differs by department and institution, so ask her. My guess would be that eventually a document about a page long will be produced, and that it will be generally descriptive, with some praise, since it will probably be filed away in the office of some dean whom the department wants to impress. If the observer thinks there's something seriously wrong with your teaching (which I would doubt), she'd probably mention it to you in person — "Hey, let's talk about how to handle situations like that student walking out, maybe come in and chat with me next week." Barring that, you're probably good. This kind of observation is generally different from the kind by people in your Teaching Center (or whatever your place calls it), who come in and video your class and have an in-depth discussion with you. I'd guess the current observation is more pro forma.
My last observation involved the dept chair sitting in on my class quietly, chatting to me a bit after about some of the ideas I had put out there, and writing a glowing report. It is helpful to remember that chairs look better when it turns out that their hiring choices are brilliant teachers.
Quote from: downer on November 06, 2019, 05:08:43 AM
It is helpful to remember that chairs look better when it turns out that their hiring choices are brilliant teachers.
Unless a crackdown is occurring and all the chairs have been told to make recommendations for improvement for everyone in their department so glowing reports will be held against the chair as not meeting expectations for observations.
The chair may also see some writing on the wall and be looking for people to shed to free up money for a consolidated full-time position for a long-standing adjunct.
The chair may be looking for something specific based on student complaints, but not urgent enough to observe and fire immediately.
The chair may be just checking a box because good enough is fine and glowing will be seen as weird.
We can't know from the outside.
Quote from: polly_mer on November 06, 2019, 05:31:05 AM
Quote from: downer on November 06, 2019, 05:08:43 AM
It is helpful to remember that chairs look better when it turns out that their hiring choices are brilliant teachers.
Unless a crackdown is occurring and all the chairs have been told to make recommendations for improvement for everyone in their department so glowing reports will be held against the chair as not meeting expectations for observations.
The chair may also see some writing on the wall and be looking for people to shed to free up money for a consolidated full-time position for a long-standing adjunct.
The chair may be looking for something specific based on student complaints, but not urgent enough to observe and fire immediately.
The chair may be just checking a box because good enough is fine and glowing will be seen as weird.
We can't know from the outside.
All true enough. It is a good idea to talk to other faculty in the program, be friendly with dept staff, to get a sense of which way the wind is blowing. The rumor mill is often helpful.
In the last 4 schools I taught at in the last 3 years, I have been observed just one single time.
Quote from: polly_mer on November 06, 2019, 05:31:05 AM
Quote from: downer on November 06, 2019, 05:08:43 AM
It is helpful to remember that chairs look better when it turns out that their hiring choices are brilliant teachers.
Unless a crackdown is occurring and all the chairs have been told to make recommendations for improvement for everyone in their department so glowing reports will be held against the chair as not meeting expectations for observations.
The chair may also see some writing on the wall and be looking for people to shed to free up money for a consolidated full-time position for a long-standing adjunct.
The chair may be looking for something specific based on student complaints, but not urgent enough to observe and fire immediately.
The chair may be just checking a box because good enough is fine and glowing will be seen as weird.
We can't know from the outside.
Anything is possible, but based on the information we have, none of this seems very likely. Observations are stressful, but anything where you get a formal evaluation from someone is usually a good thing. It makes you less vulnerable to complaints from disgruntled students, weird eval comments and angry people on rate my professor.
It should also encourage your chair to see you as a colleague. Most people who teach are going to be pretty sympathetic observers of a class as long as they can see that you are a reasonable, conscientious person trying to do a good job. And yes, asking for advice on some of the challenges the chair might observe is a great idea. The feedback might be quite helpful, but it also allows you to demonstrate that you are someone trying to improve and open to suggestions
Thanks. I do wish I had more time on campus to meet other faculty, etc., and if I'm going to be around next semester, I'll try to facilitate that happening. As it is, I will ask the woman when I see her what the procedure is, and do so whilst emphasizing that I indeed am very eager for her feedback, and for the chance to have an in-depth follow-up conversation. Btw, the woman is not an academic, but a former hs teacher--I don't know what her educational background is save that I know she has no doctorate of any kind and is not listed on the www site as a faculty member, but rather is a full-time campus staff officer.
Quote from: kaysixteen on November 06, 2019, 10:08:08 PM
Thanks. I do wish I had more time on campus to meet other faculty, etc., and if I'm going to be around next semester, I'll try to facilitate that happening. As it is, I will ask the woman when I see her what the procedure is, and do so whilst emphasizing that I indeed am very eager for her feedback, and for the chance to have an in-depth follow-up conversation. Btw, the woman is not an academic, but a former hs teacher--I don't know what her educational background is save that I know she has no doctorate of any kind and is not listed on the www site as a faculty member, but rather is a full-time campus staff officer.
This suggests that oversight of the very remedial welcome-to-college basic skills course you are teaching a section of has been dumped onto the student life, admissions, or "professional advising" side of the organization.
The woman is a former k12 public and charter school teacher, with specific experience with the population demographic served by my class, and she did teach a section of this class at least once in the past. She's also newly promoted to the top position in this department. She begged off of observing Tuesday's class, said some sort of emergency meeting arose, but does promise to come Thursday. Still, i got another depressing email today from her that I also had to deal with, and I'm torn between being unimpressed and realizing I messed up somewhat. Thursday will start two days of student 'articles presentations', a low value, think 2,5 percent of total course grade, this assignment being completely cut and pasted from the syllabus I inherited. The task is simple, choose an article on the topic of 'source selection' and write a short 2pp, report on it and give it to the class. This assignment is keyed to follow several days of lectures on the topic of critical thinking and propaganda awareness. I told the students to have chosen their article by Halloween, and gave several reminders to do just that, and i also said that anyone having a harx time finding an article should take then syllabus to the reference librarian for help. Today my boss emailed to say that several students had come to her to say that the librarian couldn't figure out what I wanted her to do, which I believe, because one young man in class today showed me two articles given to him by the librarian, and asked me to choose one of them for him. Neither were appropriate, both were confusing the assignment for the group presentation done 2 weeks back, I let the kid do one of the articles anyhow, because, well, he ain't responsible for the librarian failing to understand what an article on the general topic of 'source selection', something that should be right up a reference librarian's alley, was. It honestly never dawned on me that the librarian wouldn't be able to understand the what is to me clear syllabus language. I don't like this assignment and plan to essentially dump it going forward, but it was in the syllabus I got. So, in response to my supervisor's email, I clarified the assignment as best I could, reminded her how many times I had told students to select an article by Halloween and to go to the ref desk for help, etc, and how none did it on time and only three had done it even by today, and, more importantly, reminded her that I didn't write the assignment in the first place. I also offered to delay the presentations till next Tuesday if she thinks that best. We'll see what happens, but I would very mu h like your thoughts, especially on the question of whether the librarians should have figured out the tbing based on the syllabus, or whether I should have given more specific instructions sheets to the kids to rake to her? In any case, I'm really beginning to realize just how much that seems so clear and obvious to me, appears nonetheless to be nigh onto incomprehensible to the students. .. What's harder is to discern when which is which?
I think librarians, and anyone, benefit from more information rather than less. I myself have no idea what "source selection" is. Of course I'm not a librarian, but I can also imagine that they deal with different faculty members having very different ideas of what the phrase might mean (some of them correct, some of them less so). So the librarian probably asked the student, "What exactly does your professor mean? What kind of article are you looking for?" And the student said, "I have no idea." So the librarian made a guess, maybe based on some other prof who had an assignment with a similar title, maybe on who knows what. And obviously didn't guess correctly. Rather than trying to figure out who to assign blame to, I think the best way forward is probably to make things very very clear when you can. And of course to dump this assignment in the future.
The assignment really is deficient, and if I held the students to exactly what the thing originally held to each kid would have had to choose a different article, on a first come first served basis, so each kid could lead a different article discussion, i did cut out that part, which seemed like a nightmare to have to plan out.
That said, 'source selection' is a pretty standard topic MLS students deal with in reference librarian and bibliographic instruction classes, and being an MLS myself, I guess I assumed my colleagues would have been able to glean the assignment's meaning, especially since it was a cut and pasted assignment the reference staff might well have encountered before. But I certainly presumed too much comprehension on the students'parts. This assignment will certainly be retired, but I will come up with something better to do on this topic, which is and will remain a vital part of the syllabus'topics.
Quote from: kaysixteen on November 12, 2019, 10:37:04 PM
That said, 'source selection' is a pretty standard topic MLS students deal with in reference librarian and bibliographic instruction classes,
Your students are not MLS students. Like Hegemony, I have no idea what a "source selection" is in this context.
Googling the term brings up a lot of hits related to procurement for government contracts, as I'm accustomed to using the term. Even adding "MLS" or "reference librarian" doesn't turn up something different in the first few hits. Are you really making your study skills students get articles on government procurement processes?
The librarians are MLSs, and they know, or should know, what is meant by this assignment. They do it everyday, and teach kids to do so. It literally never crossed my mind when I cut and pasted this assignment from the prior prof to elaborate on the 'source selection' nature of the thing, especially since the assignment comes right after several days lectures and work on critical thinking skills, propaganda recognition and evaluation, etc. I still know I am right to expect the librarians to know how to get the kids appropriate articles, especially since they've almost certainly seen this very assignment before, but what I have done is vastly overestimated the current capabilities of my students. I will have to figure out how to better evaluate and then accommodate this reality.
Quote from: polly_mer on November 13, 2019, 05:04:34 AM
Quote from: kaysixteen on November 12, 2019, 10:37:04 PM
That said, 'source selection' is a pretty standard topic MLS students deal with in reference librarian and bibliographic instruction classes,
Your students are not MLS students. Like Hegemony, I have no idea what a "source selection" is in this context.
Googling the term brings up a lot of hits related to procurement for government contracts, as I'm accustomed to using the term. Even adding "MLS" or "reference librarian" doesn't turn up something different in the first few hits. Are you really making your study skills students get articles on government procurement processes?
In this context, I'm pretty sure "source selection" refers to how students should identify credible, relevant sources of information for researching a topic. (If I'm wrong then, yes, I can see why the librarian would have been confused.)
Quote from: Hegemony on November 12, 2019, 10:17:24 PM
I think librarians, and anyone, benefit from more information rather than less. I myself have no idea what "source selection" is. Of course I'm not a librarian, but I can also imagine that they deal with different faculty members having very different ideas of what the phrase might mean (some of them correct, some of them less so). So the librarian probably asked the student, "What exactly does your professor mean? What kind of article are you looking for?" And the student said, "I have no idea." So the librarian made a guess, maybe based on some other prof who had an assignment with a similar title, maybe on who knows what. And obviously didn't guess correctly. Rather than trying to figure out who to assign blame to, I think the best way forward is probably to make things very very clear when you can. And of course to dump this assignment in the future.
The librarian was trying to conduct a reference interview, asking the student questions to clarify the assignment. The student, not understanding the assignment or what was wanted, and probably unable even to make a fair guess, couldn't give the librarian anything to go on. The librarian tried to wing it. We're not mind readers--hence the need to attempt a reference interview. Maybe the assignment started out as something familiar from library school, but when dealing with students who aren't familiar with academic jargon, and are starting from less than square one in learning how to use the library, there are all kinds of ways for things to get lost in translation.
I told the students to bring the syllabus with them to show the librarian. And there are 9 students in the class. And this is a recycled assignment that the staff librarians have almost certainly seen before. IOW, there was no need for the librarians to have to intuit what I wanted by conducting a blind reference interview. If I had the time, I'd have trooped the kids over to the library and done this myself, but they're ft staffers eho have the time, not adjuncts who need to jump in the car to go work their retail job.
Of course, it dawned on me today that there may well be 'librarians' manning the ref desk there who are paraprofessionals lacking the MLS.
Flyingbison is absolutely right, and any qualified librarian would know this. It literally forms a substantial part of their education, and they do it professionally on a regular basis.
Maybe it is time to talk to the librarian directly, instead of trying to guess where things went wrong.
Quote from: Hegemony on November 13, 2019, 07:36:16 PM
Maybe it is time to talk to the librarian directly, instead of trying to guess where things went wrong.
That would be a great idea! There's some kind of misunderstanding here that needs to be settled. I saw a number of such misunderstandings in my university library days. We were glad to talk to an instructor to get things cleared up. It usually helped a lot. It also helps to remember, as one of my colleagues there used to say, that "people usually aren't
trying be be stupid."
As kay notes above, it's possible the student never even got as far as an actual librarian. To a lot of people anybody they see working at a library is a "librarian," and that's very much not the case. In extreme cases the "librarian" might even have been a student assistant warm body.
It was explained to me by my supervisor that the former professor eho came up with the assignment meant something entirely different by it, and the campus librarians were used to her interpretation. I read the cut and pasted assignment on 'source selection' as an assignment to get and article on how to discern propaganda, fake news, etc., vs sound sources, whereas apparently she had meant that every kid would get an article on a specific controversial issue, such as abortion, gun control, etc., and then vet that article based on what they'd learned in class about source selection. Hence the real disconnect. The prior prof also assigned5 the articles to the kids herself. Problem was none of this was on the prior syllabus. Ah well. I like my take on the assignment better, myself. But i showed kids how to find articles on the fake news discernment topic, and then, from a good uni library's website article listing articles on this topic, chose one for each kid myself. This was an excellent website which was the first hit I got on the "discerning fake news" Google search, from Cal St U's library. I am thus guardedly optimistic that the presentations will go well, though I'm going to take my supervisor's advice and email class a 'scaffold' 4 step direction for how to do said 10 minute presentation.
Quote from: kaysixteen on November 14, 2019, 09:38:33 PM
I am thus guardedly optimistic that the presentations will go well, though I'm going to take my supervisor's advice and email class a 'scaffold' 4 step direction for how to do said 10 minute presentation.
Why is this an email instead of part of the lecture with demonstrations on how to do each step?
Again, this looks a lot like assuming the students already have the skills that are supposed to be taught in the class. I bet 500 quatloos that the presentations will not go well because these students need much more guidance and feedback on their presentations than a written handout to follow.
I was in a communications workshop recently with practicing professionals (i.e., everyone had a bachelor's degree, if not graduate degrees in their respective fields) and the first presentations following the distributed written scaffold were pretty painful to watch. The presentations at the end of the week after all the feedback and polishing were much less painful to watch, but some people never got up to successfully following all four steps on the handout as well as the guidance to speak loudly at a reasonable speed with hands doing something useful or at least non-distracting.
I had to laugh....the 'hands doing something non-distracting' immediately brought to mind a member of our second-grade class (not Hiram Elam)* who used to stand up to give a book report at the front of the class, fiddling with his glasses (to keep them up on his nose) and his zipper (presumably to be sure it was already up, too...) in an almost hypnotically repetitive rhythm...glasses....zipper/zipper/zipper... glasses.....zipper....for the whole length of time it took to deliver his usually very well-written, well-thought-out report.
We were in a small school system, and many of the same kids ended up in the same one or two classes each year, so I know this continued at least up through the beginning of junior high school (i.e., 7th grade...."middle school" was still a gleam in some educational administration theorist's eye, then...).
He must have gotten over it at some point, because I'm pretty sure he doesn't testify on his research to the Department of Energy while adjusting his eyewear and checking his fly every three seconds anymore...
M.
* interthreadual reference....
Quote from: mamselle on November 15, 2019, 04:27:58 PM
He must have gotten over it at some point, because I'm pretty sure he doesn't testify on his research to the Department of Energy while adjusting his eyewear and checking his fly every three seconds anymore...
M.
You might be surprised to watch some of those presentations. There's good reason behind the regularly offered communication workshops for people who must make those presentations. The extensive feedback and dry runs sometimes last for weeks before the actual presentation to fix some of those presentation problems by well-established scientists.
Oh, dear!
I'll re-phrase that.
"I hope he's gotten over adjusting this glasses and checking his fly every three seconds..."
M.
I'll see your 500 quatloos and raise you 500 more.
This is not a communications class, andnthe point of this very minor 2.5 percent of the term grade is not to teach or evaluate public speaking or other public presentation skills. It is to learn about source selection and evaluation skills, and have the students each read a different article on some aspect of this subject, having them then give short summations of them and then lead the class, with me as facilitator, in further discussion on said articles. The 4 points I told the kids in an email to spend those ten minutes on are simple: 1. Give a summary of the article, 2. Tell us the article's strongest point, and why, in your opinion, 3. Do the same for its weakest point 4. Recommend when we should use the stuff in the article. This is a very basic assignment I'd have had no qualms about assigning to an 11th grader.
One more point, the class observation by my supervisor went pretty well, and our follow-up conversation was generally profitable. Otoh, where, in my opinion, it broke down somewhat was when she noted (what i had already told her about via email), that some of the kids went onto their phones. I told her point blank that this has been a longstanding issue and asked for her advice. She told me that i was talking too much during the class and as a result did not engage the students enough, thereby inducing boredom in some that they alleviated with phones. She even added that the students needed to get out of their seats....? I confess I am less impressed with this aspect of her analysis....thoughts?
Well, no phones are allowed in any class of mine, so I am not sure why you are allowing them in yours. But if I had no officially banned them, any time someone was on their phone, I would immediately call upon them to answer a question on whatever I was talking about at the moment. "Your resume should not just be a list of job descriptions, but under each job you should list your important achievements. Derek [who is on his phone], why would you think it would be more effective to list achievements?" And so on.
I don't hold with the idea that if you just make class interesting enough, they won't get on their phones. Companies have spent millions of dollars making phones and the internet addictive; no class on some required subject is going to outshine that. That's why it's important to hold the line and to show them that classes are not a place for phones. I confess I am baffled as to why you would allow them — Rule No. 1 of Effective Teaching 101 is "No phones."
Nothing you've reported so far indicates your students are at a readiness level of 11th grade. I am sad that I'll be on travel out of electronic contact for much of this week and will have to wait until Saturday to collect those quatloos.
Quote from: kaysixteen on November 15, 2019, 10:05:39 PM
One more point, the class observation by my supervisor went pretty well, and our follow-up conversation was generally profitable. Otoh, where, in my opinion, it broke down somewhat was when she noted (what i had already told her about via email), that some of the kids went onto their phones. I told her point blank that this has been a longstanding issue and asked for her advice. She told me that i was talking too much during the class and as a result did not engage the students enough, thereby inducing boredom in some that they alleviated with phones. She even added that the students needed to get out of their seats....? I confess I am less impressed with this aspect of her analysis....thoughts?
As Hegemony wrote, Rule No. 1 of Effective Teaching 101 is "No phones." It's on you to control your classroom in that aspect. You can decide whether you're the hard-ass who has a basket upfront to collect phones as people come in (works fine for classes of under 20ish), the clown who makes a big deal at the beginning of every class with "Pull out your phone. Turn it off. Put it in a bag, pocket, or under your desk" and watches to ensure everyone does it, or takes a tactic like Hegemony recommends in which you call someone out every time you see one.
A huge lecture hall is much harder to police. A class of 20 or under that has students regularly on the phone means the instructor is not controlling the class.
The feedback on talking too much and getting students out of their seats seems to indicate an expectation of doing some more interactive techniques. One easy technique to promote discussion is to have students stand, designate one wall as strongly agree, designate the opposite wall as strongly disagree, ask an opinion question, and have students physically move to indicate their opinion. Call upon people at various points on the spectrum to have them explain. If no one ends up in one category, then have the person with the strongest opposite opinion explain why someone might be in the unrepresented category. Allow people to "use a lifeline or phone a friend" if they are stumped.
Think-pair-share coupled with making people move to their partners/trios helps promote more participation (http://www.adlit.org/strategies/23277/) (it's pretty hard to get out of sharing in a group of only two). You can mix it up by having the first round be with one set of partners and then either rotate partners in a given pattern or collect into larger groups to explain what the first group thought. People can be encouraged to report out to the whole class or a board can be used for individuals to put their thoughts.
Other ideas and the related perspectives include:
https://busyteacher.org/22219-getting-students-out-of-seats.html
https://teaching.berkeley.edu/active-learning-strategies
https://www.steelcase.com/research/articles/topics/active-learning/class-can-i-have-your-attention/
An internet search on the term "active learning strategies" will turn up much good material. Don't do all these things at once, but do take the observation seriously that you need to enforce no phones and get students more involved in their own learning in the classroom.
The interactive stuff has some merit, provider the students are mature enough to trust them in such an exercise. It's my judgment that they are not, and, in any case, the course frontloaded much information to be lectured on and learned, which I did.
As to phone use, are you being deliberately obtuse? I would have suppressed phone use the first week if I thought I could get away with that action. But sadly, nothing my supervisor said gives me any notion that she would accept such action, rather than backing up student complaints if I took it. Indeed, I trolled around a bit when speaking to her Thursday, after her observation, trying to make it clear to her that phone use is indeed a big problem and let her tell me to do just what you suggest. That she emphatically did not do so should be as telling to you as it is to me. Like it or not.
Did you directly ask what actions are supported to get concrete yes/no answers or did you just state that phones are a problem?
Being ignored for yes/no questions is bad. Being given discretion of being a professional is good, as long as one rises to the occasion and owns the room.
There's no reason to pussyfoot around the subject. Just say to her, "Phones are a big problem in this class, and I got the impression from you that I should not be banning the use of phones outright. Is that so, or have I misunderstood? My colleagues at other universities tell me that banning phones is essential for good classroom engagement, so I am confused as to the right course of action here. Would you object to my banning phones in the classroom?" Then she can tell you yes or no. I myself would be astonished if she said that phones were allowed to be used in the classroom. I mean, why ever would that be? You're not requiring any work that needs a phone to check it. Who ever would say, "Sure, let students surf the webs on their phones while you're teaching, why not?" I simply would be astounded if she felt that were necessary. And I think inferring that she would allow them, on the basis that she didn't say this or that when you brought it up, is greatly unnecessary. Nobody does well trying to guess what other people are thinking — that's why we give specific assignments to students instead of having them intuit the homework. And in the extremely unlikely event that she thinks students being on their phones is fine, you can argue against it, so that you're on the same page if a student goes to complain. (But I would imagine the students are used to having phones forbidden in other classes, and think they are in a wonderland of lawlessness in yours, where anything goes and phone use is fine by you.)
I like concrete examples. Let's do a scene.
K16: Phone use is a problem in my class. Would you support my collecting all student phones at the door to prevent use?
Supervisor Karen: Oh, don't do that! That's a huge liability issue.
K16: Would you support my starting every class with a group exercise of turning off phones and putting them away?
Karen: No. We have too many caretakers who need to be reached. You can, though, require people to put the phones on vibrate.
K16: OK. Would you support me having students leave the room to take an emergency text/call?
Karen: Yes, that's the way the rest of us do it. It's far less disruptive, although a quick glance usually isn't a problem.
K16: That's probably only a tiny fraction of the problem I'm seeing. Would you support me calling out students for their cellphone use?
Karen: We really prefer structuring classes so that students don't have an opportunity or feel a need to consult their phones. Especially for the student-readiness courses, we much prefer a good mix of active learning that includes getting people out of their seats. These are folks for whom five minutes of explanation is about the limit before it's time to start practicing or discussing the ideas. A long lecture seems like it should be efficient, but smaller bites interspersed with activities tends to be more effective. Oh, and there's my soapbox.
Anyway, a good practice is to keep walking the room, stand next to anyone who is checking that phone, and direct the next question to that person by name. That's supportive of our students, preserves everyone's dignity, and yet keeps the cellphone distractions to a minimum.
K16: Will do. Thanks for the talk.
When I was supervising adjuncts, I would much prefer that my professionals come to me with typical suggestions on addressing common problems than wait for me to tell them exactly what to do. There's a reason I hire professionals instead of just any old warm body off the street. I would also much rather support my faculty against silly student complaints* than deal with the valid student complaints** resulting from someone too timid to do the job out of fear of student complaints.
Students complain; the question is whether those complaints are easily dismissed as indicating that students don't want to engage in their own education or valid complaints indicating a professor who isn't meeting expectations.
* Silly student complaint that seldom happens
Student: Dr. K16 told me to put away my phone!
Karen: Good for him! Remember, class time is for engaging with the group, not your phone. Would you like to discuss strategies to make the phone less tempting during class?
** Typical student complaints that lead to people never being asked to teach again unless we're at an institution so far down the food chain that we are literally hiring any warm body willing to work for the pittance
Reading the written complaints:
Everyone just plays on their phones all class. Why did I have to take this class that's just the same as high school, but with no mean Mrs. Smith this time making people try to pay attention?
I'm angry that everyone is goofing around on their phones, so I can hardly focus on Dr. K16's lecture. That's ok, though, because the lecture was just like the reading and the assignments were absurdly confusing with no resemblance to the lecture/reading.
I never understood what I needed to do in this class so I'm failing, but Dr. K16 seemed mad a lot over nothing.
I liked this class because Dr. K16 is a nice guy who didn't yell or call on me all the time like the other teachers. It's not Dr. K16's fault that I didn't pass.
In my view, if there are students who need their phones out because they might get an emergency call (a real chance for a real emergency call, not just "Who knows, anything could happen from anyone"), invite them to talk to you about it so you can make an exception to your rule against phones. Then those people are allowed to have their phones out on their desks.
Or maybe you want to allow everyone to have their phones out on their desks if they want. (It sounds like a potential to distraction to me, but it's an option.) If so, they still should not be on their phones. They should only attend to their phone if the phone vibrates (no ringing allowed). And if it's the babysitter with an urgent question, they quietly step outside the class to attend to it, then come back in. No surfing the phone, no texting. They have to not be on their phones unless they're taking an emergency call. They know and you know and I know that an emergency call will happen rarely, and is not a pretext for a good portion of the class to be surfing their phones during class time.
Quote from: Hegemony on November 17, 2019, 12:30:45 PM
In my view, if there are students who need their phones out because they might get an emergency call (a real chance for a real emergency call, not just "Who knows, anything could happen from anyone"), invite them to talk to you about it so you can make an exception to your rule against phones. Then those people are allowed to have their phones out on their desks.
Student demographics matter. When 70+% of the population have complicated lives such that true emergencies occur multiple times per month, then requiring special permission for every individual is unreasonable.
I was much less sympathetic until I ended up with essentially no back-up net and multiple trips to the emergency room in a month for my dependents.
But polly_mer, I bet you still had no reason to sit there scrolling through your phone when class was underway — and I imagine you never would have thought of doing so.
Quote from: Hegemony on November 18, 2019, 12:49:09 AM
But polly_mer, I bet you still had no reason to sit there scrolling through your phone when class was underway — and I imagine you never would have thought of doing so.
Correct, however I definitely pulled out the phone for a quick glance to ensure that vibrate notice wasn't the day care, hospital, school, or home. One spectacular day, I ran out of a meeting with 20 people including the chair of the board of trustees and the provost to take an emergency call from the day care and made my apologies for leaving via email six hours later. I also walked out of a one-on-one meeting with the provost in which I had no phone at all, but the secretary broke in saying, "The school has been looking for you and needs you right now!"
I've never had a scrolling type phone and still don't now. Thus, I don't know the temptation of scrolling at all. I do, though, know exactly why someone who thinks their class is more important than everyone else's child/husband/grandmother being able to reach the responsible member of the family is perhaps teaching at the wrong institution.
Even that relative youngster in class may be the most responsible person in the family/neighborhood and thus needs to be available to ensure the emergency doesn't become worse than it has to be by virtue of letting the underresponsible take care of it.
I'm not at all defending fooling around on the phone instead of paying attention in class. However, I do now know why a rule of "no phones at all in the classroom" is unworkable for very responsible people who also need to get an education.
Quote from: polly_mer on November 18, 2019, 06:40:48 AM
Quote from: Hegemony on November 18, 2019, 12:49:09 AM
But polly_mer, I bet you still had no reason to sit there scrolling through your phone when class was underway — and I imagine you never would have thought of doing so.
Correct, however I definitely pulled out the phone for a quick glance to ensure that vibrate notice wasn't the day care, hospital, school, or home. One spectacular day, I ran out of a meeting with 20 people including the chair of the board of trustees and the provost to take an emergency call from the day care and made my apologies for leaving via email six hours later. I also walked out of a one-on-one meeting with the provost in which I had no phone at all, but the secretary broke in saying, "The school has been looking for you and needs you right now!"
I've never had a scrolling type phone and still don't now. Thus, I don't know the temptation of scrolling at all. I do, though, know exactly why someone who thinks their class is more important than everyone else's child/husband/grandmother being able to reach the responsible member of the family is perhaps teaching at the wrong institution.
Even that relative youngster in class may be the most responsible person in the family/neighborhood and thus needs to be available to ensure the emergency doesn't become worse than it has to be by virtue of letting the underresponsible take care of it.
I'm not at all defending fooling around on the phone instead of paying attention in class. However, I do now know why a rule of "no phones at all in the classroom" is unworkable for very responsible people who also need to get an education.
I agree. To some extent the technology has some solutions to this stuff. For example, I put my phone on "do not disturb" in class, but I've checked a setting that overrides that if someone calls twice and told my spouse that, so if there was a true emergency and she needed to reach me, my phone would start vibrating in my pocket. Students having their phones out on their desks and then seeing when messages come in isn't really ideal, because it does seem distracting, but it isn't the same as writing people back, or just sitting there and playing with your phone.
Quote from: kaysixteen on November 15, 2019, 10:05:39 PM
I'll see your 500 quatloos and raise you 500 more.
So, am I paying out 1000 quatloos for your students' fabulous presentations or do you want more discussion regarding teaching classes where students need a lot of support, often much more support than high schoolers at good schools?
Yes. I'll get back to it asap. What I want to say will take time to do rightly and intelligently, but I do thank you kindly for being willing to interact with me on this topic, as always.
When I first encountered it, I was very surprised as well about how much worse prepared high school graduates can be than diligent and interested middle schoolers. Add in student complicated lives so that school isn't anywhere near the top priority and teaching at this level is really hard for reasons that have nothing to do with faculty content knowledge.
Quote from: polly_mer on November 25, 2019, 05:17:43 AM
When I first encountered it, I was very surprised as well about how much worse prepared high school graduates can be than diligent and interested middle schoolers.
I saw that years ago when I worked with a program for interested students in Grade 9. I did a few hour workshop with them where they did something more complicated then I would do with first year university students in a term of labs. Lack of subject background is much easier to remediate than lack of interest and/or motivation.
Sorry I did not get back to this one sooner. My tablet crapped out last month and I still have not gotten internet service at home, am working on it. I just wanted to send something today from the library, and will more fully reengage when I get back on line at home.
Random thoughts, now that I have just today submitted final grades for the course:
1) even after well over a month, I am still dealing with the astonishing claim by my supervisor, that I was at fault for the students' cell phone use because I was boring them, and the accompanying even more astonishing remark that college students need to be getting up and walking around. I am struggling mightily against the thinking that this woman, late 30-ish, and without a doctorate, is just not competent to be supervising college teachers, and indeed sees herself as the defense attorney for struggling students in need of her 'student success program' efforts.
2) she also told me in August, when she hired me, that the students would be given the same diagnostic exam that landed them in the class, again in Dec., to see how they progressed. Seemed very logical, esp. wrt the objective of improving the reading class, but in Nov., when I asked her when they would be doing so, she told me that they would not be able to be given the test again at this time, because the school cannot now afford to buy access to it from their vendor.
3) WRT criticism of me for being 'timid', I just do not want to hear any such criticism from someone who is not an adjunct professor, and esp from a tenured person. It is just not rational to expect someone who is essentially a glorified k12 sub teacher, and who can and likely will be fired/ not rehired at any time, for any reason, to be un-timid, esp. when his prior experience (admittedly at other schools) suggests that 'customer first' appeasement is the norm, something which is all the more magnified owing to the financial struggles of this school
More later.
Quote from: kaysixteen on December 18, 2019, 02:11:00 PM
1) even after well over a month, I am still dealing with the astonishing claim by my supervisor, that I was at fault for the students' cell phone use because I was boring them, and the accompanying even more astonishing remark that college students need to be getting up and walking around.
I totally agree with you about the preposterous nature of the supervisor's remarks. Good luck to you in dealing with the nonsense.
The part about getting up and walking around is interesting though. I encourage my students to do that sometimes, and they are reluctant. In one class I got them to do some star jumps to get their circulation going again. I like the idea of classrooms being more dynamic places. Sitting down for long periods of time is really bad for people.
Still, it is a perfectly normal convention these days that sudents should sit and concentrate for long periods of time.
I'm not tenured and can be fired at will for no reason with no notice. My responsibility remains to do what's right instead of what's convenient. I can, in fact, be fired for not reporting conditions that hinder my ability to do the job.
Quote from: kaysixteen on December 18, 2019, 02:11:00 PM
Sorry I did not get back to this one sooner. My tablet crapped out last month and I still have not gotten internet service at home, am working on it. I just wanted to send something today from the library, and will more fully reengage when I get back on line at home.
Random thoughts, now that I have just today submitted final grades for the course:
1) even after well over a month, I am still dealing with the astonishing claim by my supervisor, that I was at fault for the students' cell phone use because I was boring them, and the accompanying even more astonishing remark that college students need to be getting up and walking around. I am struggling mightily against the thinking that this woman, late 30-ish, and without a doctorate, is just not competent to be supervising college teachers, and indeed sees herself as the defense attorney for struggling students in need of her 'student success program' efforts.
2) she also told me in August, when she hired me, that the students would be given the same diagnostic exam that landed them in the class, again in Dec., to see how they progressed. Seemed very logical, esp. wrt the objective of improving the reading class, but in Nov., when I asked her when they would be doing so, she told me that they would not be able to be given the test again at this time, because the school cannot now afford to buy access to it from their vendor.
3) WRT criticism of me for being 'timid', I just do not want to hear any such criticism from someone who is not an adjunct professor, and esp from a tenured person. It is just not rational to expect someone who is essentially a glorified k12 sub teacher, and who can and likely will be fired/ not rehired at any time, for any reason, to be un-timid, esp. when his prior experience (admittedly at other schools) suggests that 'customer first' appeasement is the norm, something which is all the more magnified owing to the financial struggles of this school
More later.
Well first of all, I really am not sure that her doctorate or lack thereof is really relevant, especially since this is sort of an intro to college course. I also don't really see why someone in their late 30s isn't qualified to supervise you. None of that is really the issue. I agree that the specific criticisms don't seem fair. There's nothing wrong with her mentioning cell phone use as an issue, but just blaming you for a systematic problem isn't fair. And I agree that telling you that students need to move around is strange. Trying to get students to move around a bit is a perfectly fine strategy, and one I occasionally employ, but it isn't the sort of thing you should be criticized for not doing.
On the rest, I also would be pretty offended to be called "timid," but it is mostly just unhelpful feedback. Its in the same vein as telling someone they seemed "nervous" or "unsure of themselves." It doesn't give the recipient anything concrete to work on fixing and instead implies that the problem is somehow their personality. On the other hand, you can't teach effectively if you actually are always afraid of your students complaining about you. I have some of these anxieties too, but to teach effectively I have to put them away. What do you mean by appeasement? I think we should be pleasant to students. I believe in being as flexible and reasonable as I can be about things like extensions. On the other hand, you have to have reasonable standards.
The reason I feel her lack of doctorate renders her unqualified to assess me is essentially the same as the fact that by her own admission she is a high school teacher. She really does seem ignorant of the proper assessment of college teaching reality.
BTW, what do you think regarding what to do when you computer a student's grade according to the clear syllabus percentage standard s but wonder afterwards whether the grade is too low and you should make a n exception, especially when the syllabus standard s were really not of your own choosing?
Quote from: kaysixteen on January 08, 2020, 09:39:14 PM
The reason I feel her lack of doctorate renders her unqualified to assess me is essentially the same as the fact that by her own admission she is a high school teacher. She really does seem ignorant of the proper assessment of college teaching reality.
BTW, what do you think regarding what to do when you computer a student's grade according to the clear syllabus percentage standard s but wonder afterwards whether the grade is too low and you should make a n exception, especially when the syllabus standard s were really not of your own choosing?
Unless you're planning to recalculate everyone's grade, I'd hesitate to do this. If the calculation doesn't give a "reasonable" grade for one student, why can it be trusted for anyone else?
Quote from: kaysixteen on January 08, 2020, 09:39:14 PM
The reason I feel her lack of doctorate renders her unqualified to assess me is essentially the same as the fact that by her own admission she is a high school teacher. She really does seem ignorant of the proper assessment of college teaching reality.
You're not teaching a college-level course. The kind of course you've described is the newfangled way to deal with students who are in college, but aren't ready for college. Thus, someone with substantial high school teaching experience is exactly the person who should be supervising the course.
Quote from: kaysixteen on January 08, 2020, 09:39:14 PM
BTW, what do you think regarding what to do when you computer a student's grade according to the clear syllabus percentage standard s but wonder afterwards whether the grade is too low and you should make a n exception, especially when the syllabus standard s were really not of your own choosing?
If you're worried about student complaints rising to the level of job loss, then grading capriciously (i.e., deviating from the syllabus) is a fast way to get valid complaints that will lead to job loss. It's possible to give the entire class a tiny, justifiable bump, but not making an exception for one person just because the grade is lower than you thought it would be.
Quote from: kaysixteen on January 08, 2020, 09:39:14 PM
BTW, what do you think regarding what to do when you computer a student's grade according to the clear syllabus percentage standard s but wonder afterwards whether the grade is too low and you should make a n exception, especially when the syllabus standard s were really not of your own choosing?
Step back. Why was the student's grade lower? Did they miss an assignment? Overall turn in slightly sub-par work and the average catch up to them?
Why do you think it should be higher? Is the student brighter, more engaged, more capable than you think the grade reflects? Why should your perception exceed reality?
I don't have much problem tweaking a D into an "honest effort" C, but anything other than that, I go with where the grade lands based on calculations. Because all the students know what they need to do and their grades are their responsibility.
I think the answer is that you figure out how the grade got "too low," and you adjust next time. For instance, maybe they got a low grade on an assignment that was so trivial that you believe it should have counted for less. If you are stuck requiring the assignment, just grade the assignment more generously next time out.
If I have a really good student who just happened to bomb a class for some reason, I don't change the student's grade, but I talk to or email the student to express confidence that he/she will do better in future classes, and to say that I know it was a hard term, and so on — just to give some teacherly reassurance that one grade is not a diagnosis of inadequacy.
Quote from: Hegemony on January 09, 2020, 09:36:31 AM
I think the answer is that you figure out how the grade got "too low," and you adjust next time. For instance, maybe they got a low grade on an assignment that was so trivial that you believe it should have counted for less. If you are stuck requiring the assignment, just grade the assignment more generously next time out.
The two exceptions to this are if:
A. You think the grades as a whole are skewed. Last semester, for various reasons I changed stopped dropping the lowest exam and at the end of the semester, I found that as a result there was a pretty low percentage of As (we don't have A-s...) I rounded up to an A from further down than I usually do. This semester I'm changing I'm changing a few things with other assignments that should fix the problem, but it didn't seem fair for last semester's students to get fewer As.
B. The student is very close to the grade cut off and there was some very specific circumstance out of this student's control that caused them to lose a few points. Something like the student's attendance grade suffered because they got the flu in the middle of the semester.
Like Ciao said, I'm more likely to do this on the lower end. I might be quite generous to a student who had a series of disasters but tried and is just short of a C. I'm much less likely to do this on the A range without a very compelling circumstance.
The syllabus grade percentage breakdown was poor, overweighted to class participation and the silly journaling assignment. But his participation was poor and he didn't write any of the journaling entries or his article presentation, his class participation was poor, and he missed several classes.
I get that the supervisor's hs background has some relevance to a course like this, but the course requirements are to teach the skill s they did not learn in HS, not continue with bad hs methods leading to bad hs outcome s.
Quote from: kaysixteen on January 10, 2020, 10:43:09 PM
The syllabus grade percentage breakdown was poor, overweighted to class participation and the silly journaling assignment. But his participation was poor and he didn't write any of the journaling entries or his article presentation, his class participation was poor, and he missed several classes.
I get that the supervisor's hs background has some relevance to a course like this, but the course requirements are to teach the skill s they did not learn in HS, not continue with bad hs methods leading to bad hs outcome s.
Well, a student's job is to follow the syllabus, complete assignments, and prioritize higher-weighted assignments to make sure they get done. What they think of the assignment is not relevant.
You might think it's not great weighting either, but if you were required to follow it, it was still the student's job to perform to it.
Quote from: kaysixteen on January 10, 2020, 10:43:09 PM
The syllabus grade percentage breakdown was poor, overweighted to class participation and the silly journaling assignment. But his participation was poor and he didn't write any of the journaling entries or his article presentation, his class participation was poor, and he missed several classes.
What grade are we talking about here? And how close is the student to the next highest grade?
Quote from: kaysixteen on January 10, 2020, 10:43:09 PM
The syllabus grade percentage breakdown was poor, overweighted to class participation and the silly journaling assignment. But his participation was poor and he didn't write any of the journaling entries or his article presentation, his class participation was poor, and he missed several classes.
Record the grade the student earned and negotiate with the Powers that Be for a better weighting for the journaling assignment for this term.
Quote from: kaysixteen on January 10, 2020, 10:43:09 PM
I get that the supervisor's hs background has some relevance to a course like this, but the course requirements are to teach the skill s they did not learn in HS, not continue with bad hs methods leading to bad hs outcome s.
Unless this particular person was personally responsible for all the students in the class failing to learn in high school, ignoring the course coordinator's recommendations are a bad idea.
Is your graduate work directly in remediating primary/secondary skills in a postsecondary environment?
Do you have several years of successful teaching of remediating primary/secondary skills in a postsecondary environment closely related to the students at this particular institution?
Do you have similar credentials in adult English as a Second Language?
If no to all these questions, then your best option to go talk with the coordinator and get a plan to do better this term if you want to have this same job next year. Listen to why the participation aspect is weighted so heavily as well as what the true goals for the journaling assignment are.
This class has been developed in this way for a reason; if you want to be successful in terms of meeting expectations for the job, then find out what the reasons are instead of just pooh-poohing them. You resent the term "timid", but it's timid to both refuse to ask the questions to start a negotiation or to refuse to just flat out make the changes your expertise indicates are necessary and deal with the fall out.
If yes to at least two of these questions, then you should seriously consider your options as a highly qualified professional being told to do things contrary to your direct expertise. Being told to spin straw into gold (i.e., the impossible task you've already claimed is true for this course) is never a good sign.
For the readers at home, every term we have many people rediscover the truths that having a PhD and college/HS/other teaching experience is not the same as having the most relevant degrees along with the most relevant teaching experience for the specific course and the specific demographics being served. Content knowledge is not the same as knowledge in how various groups with specific previous educational experiences best learn the material. That's much more true the farther down the prestige scale one goes.
I had a nice chat with her last week. She was very happy with the overall performance of the class but we will have to agree to disagree wrt the relative utility of some of the active learning, group work, entertainment type strategies she suggested. These kids were assigned to the class in order to learn the skills needed to succeed in college, and I taught them those skills.
She, BTW, didn't really know what the syllabus grading policies were. If i ever do it again, I will insist on substantial changes.