Jedi Mind Tricks

[polly_mer]

It's not a trick per se, but I'm putting it here as an idea for the next time I run one of these classes.

I recently attended a workshop with a lot of "here's a brief lesson, now you do a couple exercises on your computer" led by a lead teacher with the support of two facilitators.

Each student was given a red sticky note and a green sticky note.  As we completed our exercises, we put a green sticky as a vertical flag on the top edge of our monitor.  If we encountered any problems, we put a red sticky up as a flag so someone could come help us.  That allowed the lead teacher at the front of the room to gauge progress on when to give the group a couple more minutes or when we were done enough to move on.

Polling of the class was also by red or green sticky flag.  That helped the lead teacher tailor the canned class to the group need without nearly as many abstentions.  I'm not sure why the stickies were different from raising a hand, but it seemed to have better compliance.

[the_geneticist]

It's not a trick per se, but I'm putting it here as an idea for the next time I run one of these classes.

I recently attended a workshop with a lot of "here's a brief lesson, now you do a couple exercises on your computer" led by a lead teacher with the support of two facilitators.

Each student was given a red sticky note and a green sticky note.  As we completed our exercises, we put a green sticky as a vertical flag on the top edge of our monitor.  If we encountered any problems, we put a red sticky up as a flag so someone could come help us.  That allowed the lead teacher at the front of the room to gauge progress on when to give the group a couple more minutes or when we were done enough to move on.

Polling of the class was also by red or green sticky flag.  That helped the lead teacher tailor the canned class to the group need without nearly as many abstentions.  I'm not sure why the stickies were different from raising a hand, but it seemed to have better compliance.

I love this!  I'll have to use it in my bioinformatics labs in the fall. 

[pepsi_alum]

After several years of teaching first-year college students, I've finally developed a few Jedi Mind Tricks for avoiding whining by students complaining about basic college expectations being "too hard" (e.g., students who whine about having to do reading or homework before class or students who want to be spoon-fed directions).

Jedi Mind Trick: Provide evidence of student success.

How I Do It: Whenever I return an exam or a major essay, I provide students with a numerical summary of assignment scores. I don't use any identifying information so that it's FERPA compliant. The list is simply scores arranged from from highest to lowest (e.g., 50/A+, 46/A, etc.). I also will occasionally do an abbreviated version for smaller assignments if I'm getting pushback about those. (e.g., "The overall class average on last last week's homework assignment was a 7.0/10. Among students who submitted a full assignment, the average rose to an an 8.7/10").

Why It Works: In most of my classes, usually between 30%-50% of the students are consistently earning grades of B or higher. When students who are struggling with adjusting to college expectations see that their peers are in fact achieving success in the class, it tends to reduce the number of students who try to blame me for their difficulties.

[drbrt]

It's not a trick per se, but I'm putting it here as an idea for the next time I run one of these classes.

I recently attended a workshop with a lot of "here's a brief lesson, now you do a couple exercises on your computer" led by a lead teacher with the support of two facilitators.

Each student was given a red sticky note and a green sticky note.  As we completed our exercises, we put a green sticky as a vertical flag on the top edge of our monitor.  If we encountered any problems, we put a red sticky up as a flag so someone could come help us.  That allowed the lead teacher at the front of the room to gauge progress on when to give the group a couple more minutes or when we were done enough to move on.

Polling of the class was also by red or green sticky flag.  That helped the lead teacher tailor the canned class to the group need without nearly as many abstentions.  I'm not sure why the stickies were different from raising a hand, but it seemed to have better compliance.

I love this!  I'll have to use it in my bioinformatics labs in the fall.

This is called stoplight cards. If you want to be fancy, a yellow post it is used to signal "I need time to talk with a classmate ".

[polly_mer]

The original thread is at

https://www.chronicle.com/forums/index.php/topic,50350.0.html

for those making plans for the new term.

[polly_mer]

From the "Is it just me?" thread regarding how to get students to discuss during class:

Two tricks that work for me: (1) "Good morning, everyone! Today I have a list of your names in random order, generated by the LMS. My goal is to call on everyone by the end of class today." Then I lob a lot of softball questions that they can't get wrong exactly, "What comes to mind when you hear this term?" Rather than "What does this term mean?" They fall all over themselves to volunteer on Qs to avoid getting a stumper, and it sometimes jump-starts discussion mode again in the next few classes.

(2) Some preparatory assignment in which students develop discussion questions and then pose them (sometimes to a small group). Sometimes they're really good, and even if they are sort of lackluster, they can help reveal where students are at with the material.

[polly_mer]

One of my colleagues has a "system" for this type of student/situation.

When a student complains about a tech issue, he requires them to submit a cell phone picture of the computer screen that clearly shows the problem (e.g. a non-working browser). He also requires the student to submit a ticket request to the relevant tech service (e.g. IT, CMS support, publisher), and for himself to be CC'd in that ticket request along with the screen photo(s) of the problem. My colleague provides a listing of all relevant tech representatives as a reference so that students can't delay by either not being able to locate the right tech representative to contact, or to pretend that they can't locate the right tech representative to contact.

My colleague says his procedure works almost every time in either helping the student quickly get the tech problem corrected, or outing students who don't really have a problem but are just being whiny butts about doing their work.

[sprout]

From "Bang Your Head on Your Desk - the thread of teaching despair!":

That sucks, the_geneticist.

In other news, I have received several emails from students regarding 'what's on the test.' 'What's on the test' is clearly outlined in the syllabus. I need to find a tactful way to saying this. Any suggestions?

I've found that "review sheets" are helpful. The review sheet is nothing but a listing of the topics and readings we covered taken off the syllabus.  It takes about 2 minutes to put together. For some reason, students seem to like this and I don't get those questions.

[the_geneticist]

Jedi Mind Trick for online classes.
Our LMS (and I assume all of them) makes it super easy to see if/when a student started an assignment/quiz/worksheet/etc.  If a student emails to ask about grading on late work, rather than saying "you only earned 4/10 points because your quiz was late" I say "any answers you submitted by the due date and time will be graded out of full credit".
Overall, our students HATE online classes.  It's asking them to be so much more organized, self-regulating, and responsible than their usual in-person classes.

Other than listing all assignments (points & due dates) on the syllabus, using the "send announcement feature" to let them know an assignment is available, and reminders during Zoom, is there anything else that helps students with the basic structure of an online class?  Or do I just need to resign to the fact that online learning is a harsher sorting mechanism against the disorganized and/or procrastinating student?

[arcturus]

[...]
Other than listing all assignments (points & due dates) on the syllabus, using the "send announcement feature" to let them know an assignment is available, and reminders during Zoom, is there anything else that helps students with the basic structure of an online class?  Or do I just need to resign to the fact that online learning is a harsher sorting mechanism against the disorganized and/or procrastinating student?

Do you use modules to organize your course? I've been teaching an online GenEd course for several years now. I have one module per week, which consists of a "home" page, the reading assignment, the reading quiz, discussion, and homework. The "home" page is a single web page with a section at the top with links to the assignments due that week, followed by course content material (text, video, and the equivalent of classroom assessment questions). I change the "home page" for the class to be the appropriate "home" for the module of the week. While students are free to navigate to the homework and quizzes through the other tabs in Canvas, the work they need to do for this week is readily apparent when they enter the Canvas site for the class since it is at the top of the home page each week. I am also careful to have a set schedule for assignments (class activities are due 5pm on T, Th, and F each week). I change the home page sometime Friday evening and my email announcement setting the stage for the new module is sent sometime on Sunday afternoon.

Organizing by modules means that students can see the structure of the course not only through the syllabus, but also as a week-by-week grouping. I also want students to be able to find the links for the assignments in the manner that makes the most sense to them - whether that be by the "type" tabs provided (quizzes; discussions; assignments), by the module groupings, or by clicking on the link that is present at the top of the page that greets them upon entry to the Canvas site.

While there is probably very little you can do for the truly disorganized student, providing transparent organization for the structure of your course can help those that are only in moderate disarray. 

[the_geneticist]

[...]
Other than listing all assignments (points & due dates) on the syllabus, using the "send announcement feature" to let them know an assignment is available, and reminders during Zoom, is there anything else that helps students with the basic structure of an online class?  Or do I just need to resign to the fact that online learning is a harsher sorting mechanism against the disorganized and/or procrastinating student?

Do you use modules to organize your course? I've been teaching an online GenEd course for several years now. I have one module per week, which consists of a "home" page, the reading assignment, the reading quiz, discussion, and homework. The "home" page is a single web page with a section at the top with links to the assignments due that week, followed by course content material (text, video, and the equivalent of classroom assessment questions). I change the "home page" for the class to be the appropriate "home" for the module of the week. While students are free to navigate to the homework and quizzes through the other tabs in Canvas, the work they need to do for this week is readily apparent when they enter the Canvas site for the class since it is at the top of the home page each week. I am also careful to have a set schedule for assignments (class activities are due 5pm on T, Th, and F each week). I change the home page sometime Friday evening and my email announcement setting the stage for the new module is sent sometime on Sunday afternoon.

Organizing by modules means that students can see the structure of the course not only through the syllabus, but also as a week-by-week grouping. I also want students to be able to find the links for the assignments in the manner that makes the most sense to them - whether that be by the "type" tabs provided (quizzes; discussions; assignments), by the module groupings, or by clicking on the link that is present at the top of the page that greets them upon entry to the Canvas site.

While there is probably very little you can do for the truly disorganized student, providing transparent organization for the structure of your course can help those that are only in moderate disarray.

Yes, I've been using the "learning modules" feature to organize materials by week with the materials listed in the order they will need them within each module.  Due dates & times are always the same for each section too.
I'm considering replacing the first "syllabus quiz" with asking students to take a screenshot/picture of their calendar or day planner or to do list with the first week of class entered (zoom times, office hours, quiz due date, etc.). 

[nonsensical]

I'm not sure if this is a "trick" exactly, but in large classes I have a bunch of short low-stakes assignments that people do in class. These are graded pretty easily; basically, if you're in class and it looks like you made an effort, you get all the points. Students can't make these up, but they can also miss some without penalty. For instance, I might give 10 over the course of the semester and count the top 7, and I don't tell students when I'll be giving them.

I like this for a few reasons:
- The responses to the assignments are an easy way for me to see what they are understanding and where they are confused.
- The assignments break up lecture and can provide a jumping-off point for a bit of class discussion.
- I don't need to arbitrate whether or not student absences are "legitimate." It doesn't matter if they missed an assignment because they were sick, at a family event, overslept, didn't feel like coming to class that day, showed up late after we had already done the assignment, or some other reason. Everyone gets some that they can miss, and I don't need to know why they were missed.
- It encourages students to come to class. I sometimes give students small amounts of extra credit for completing all of the assignments to encourage them to keep showing up even after they've done the required minimum. I also often have the last assignment be on the last day of class. I haven't run a control group to see what would happen to attendance if I didn't do these assignments, but with them most people come to class most of the time all the way through the end of the semester.

I often use one of these assignments as a way to get quick feedback on how the class is going so far. A few weeks into the class, I ask students to write down what's going well and any changes they would suggest. (They write their name on a separate piece of paper and hand in both, so they get points for the assignments while also being able to provide feedback anonymously.) Next class, I summarize the responses and tell them any changes that I'll be making based on their feedback. It's useful for me to see how the class is going for folks, and students have mentioned at the end of the term that they appreciated that I considered their feedback earlier in the semester.

[teach_write_research]

Teaching despair, but perhaps managed? second course with student who avoids all the work until they are clearly failing.

Dear Student, I will re-open the quiz for you. But, let's make a deal in your best interests. First you need to solve how to manage the assignments and deadlines.

There is a solution - sync your Canvas calendar feed to your Outlook calendar. You will also see that in your Teams calendar. Follow the instructions linked below. Take a photo or screen grab showing me that you have your Canvas calendar showing in your Outlook/Teams calendar. Message back with that photo attached. Then I will open the Quiz with us both having the reassurance that you will be on track for the rest of the term.

https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Student-Guide/How-do-I-subscribe-to-the-Calendar-feed-using-Outlook-as-a/ta-p/531

also for other options - https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Student-Guide/tkb-p/student#Calendar

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

How can I encourage my students to not wait until the last minute to take a test? I just received an email asking what was on the test (I mentioned this several times in announcements- I may have to start making review sheets) less than 3 hours before the test is due.

I wonder if this student expects me to email back?

[Puget]

How can I encourage my students to not wait until the last minute to take a test? I just received an email asking what was on the test (I mentioned this several times in announcements- I may have to start making review sheets) less than 3 hours before the test is due.

I wonder if this student expects me to email back?

1) Don't reinforce them by responding to last minute requests. Tell them they need to ask any questions by X day and time. After that, reply only after the exam, saying "this came in past the stated deadline of X, but if you still have questions about the material I'm happy to go over them with you in office hours".

2) If you really want them to take it early, I've found a "bonus point" to have almost magical power over undergrads. It's worth almost nothing in terms of their final grade, but if they can get one they want it. So you could offer a bonus point for completion by a certain time.