What's the Nicest Way to Tell Students They're Wrong?

[mbelvadi]

Others have mentioned a lot of good strategies already! I'll just add this one, which I use a lot when I'm teaching formal material: when the student volunteers a wrong answer, I'll say something to the effect of "not quite, but that's a great guess!" and then I'll explain why it's a good guess, try to reconstruct the reasoning behind the answer, show them everything that was going right with that guess, and finally show them where it went wrong.

I would be offended that you label my attempt at analysis as a "guess". Maybe this is like "actually" which carries baggage for some people more than others, but "guess" to me in an academic context is pejorative, implying that I didn't try to think, but just took a stab at whatever came in my head first. YMMV

[polly_mer]

I think avoiding sarcasm is a good policy for getting along with people in general, not just in class.  Sarcasm is mocking, and mocking people almost never wins their agreement. Mocking people you have authority over is especially problematic. In a conversation between friends, at least the friend could mock you back. If a student responded to your answer with sarcasm or mockery, I doubt you'd be pleased, and I don't think the discussion would be advanced.

Clearly we travel in very different circles. 

There's mocking that's mean and then there's being bright enough to play with sarcasm.

For example, I have put a ton of work into ensuring that my child does sarcasm right.  I love it when students are together enough to respond with witty sarcasm.

The discussion is advanced if people are playing intellectual fun games instead of immediately going to personal attack and being bitter about not being recognized as right in all things.

Likewise, being unable to hold one's own in a less-than-perfectly-friendly environment means that someone cannot succeed in the professional environments in which I've spent my adult life.  I agree that "guess what I'm thinking" is a poor way to teach.  However, I spend nearly all my current time in a research environment (i.e., everything is a discussion and we're all wrong to some degree) that is >90$ male engineers and currently with the military as our primary customer.  Anyone who is not going to push hard to be one of the discussing group, especially when likely to be wrong, is not going to be successful.  Period.

Perhaps as an academic, you, Hegemony, are not used to having a true boss who will flat out say things like "Even if you're right, the decision has already been made for this year.  Sit down, shut up, and work according to the plan given to you; I'm not going to tell you again."  I've never had a boss that was as sickly nice as a kindergarten teacher.    The A-student who is only an A-student in a formal classroom setting is not being educated sufficiently.  Yes, we're hiring those brash C students who just keep being wrong because that's far more useful to us.  That's the drum I have to keep banging so <bang> here it is again. 

[mamselle]

But where people have experienced the use of words as a weapon, nuanced efforts to establish trust and kindness are not misplaced.

The OP has indicated they have had more than enough exposure to sarcasm and are seeking other avenues of expression.

So, yes, where a good, strong, understanding relationship exists, sarcasm might be OK. You're both lucky, Polly, and I know you've worked hard, to create such situations for yourself in what can be a difficult environment.

I'm truly glad for you...that's a lot to have worked through.

But in other settings, like a classroom or family, it can make things harder for those on the lower/beginning side of the learning curve's ascending differential, before it goes to 0 and starts to even out.

It's also more understandable in some family interactions, but even there, I often wished my family of origin would stop using sarcasm and witty put-downs to express distance when sometimes, what was needed was a sense of safety, warmth, and acceptance.

Different people are different, and have had different experiences of reinforcement, or its lack.

I don't see the OP's request as frivolous, but at the heart of what we try to do.

M.

[downer]

It's not so much the words but the way you say them.

A puzzled look and "that is not quite right!" or a smile and "Nope! Try again."

It partly depends on what relationship you have established with them in the classroom, and how much you have already shown that you are not an asshole.

[ciao_yall]

What about just hearing from several students? Somehow students would rather hear the right answer called out from a peer than you telling them they are wrong.

Also if the whole class is heading down the wrong path, have them find the spot in the book, article, etc that provides the correct answer. Discuss why sometimes the answer the class is giving is correct, still, in this case...

Another "banned word" is "But." Instead of "but," say "still."

[marshwiggle]

What about just hearing from several students? Somehow students would rather hear the right answer called out from a peer than you telling them they are wrong.

I'll sometimes do a poll on this: "How many people agree?"
and then
"Any other answers?" (with poll again.)

Then I can explain why the correct answer is correct, and point out the misunderstanding leading to the wrong answer.

Part of the point, which I don't think has been addressed so far, is that often you want students to feel free to use their intuition* and so there has to be an atmosphere where being wrong isn't a big deal.

(*In this context, "intuition" often means insights they have which are more or less correct even if they can't yet articulate where they come from. For instance, I've sung in lots of choirs but done virtually no formal study of music. I can guess pretty well at what the appropriate harmony note should be without remotely being able to express the musical theory behind it.)

[Caracal]

Likewise, being unable to hold one's own in a less-than-perfectly-friendly environment means that someone cannot succeed in the professional environments in which I've spent my adult life.  I agree that "guess what I'm thinking" is a poor way to teach.  However, I spend nearly all my current time in a research environment (i.e., everything is a discussion and we're all wrong to some degree) that is >90$ male engineers and currently with the military as our primary customer.  Anyone who is not going to push hard to be one of the discussing group, especially when likely to be wrong, is not going to be successful.  Period.

It seems like there are different things all being thrown together here.
1. Sure, as you move into professional environments, you shouldn't need to be treated with kid gloves. That's true in academia or anywhere else. The basic assumption should be that I'm a professional, I'm open to criticism and if you think I'm wrong about something you should say so. I don't assume I'm infallible, there's lots of things I don't know and I can make mistakes.

2. Undergrads aren't professionals, they are learning. One of the things they are learning is how to have ideas and speak up about them in the first place. It makes sense to consider how to be as encouraging as possible, even when they are getting it wrong.

3. I don't really think sarcastic or unpleasant criticism is more helpful. There's a reason that at most seminars or paper talks, people tend to preface criticism with praise. If you actually want someone to pay attention to your critique, one of the better ways to do that is to make it clear that you think their work has value in the first place. At an early stage in my work I presented a conference paper. A senior figure in the field who was there later wrote me a long and detailed email. He told me he thought I was doing some really interesting and important work, and that was why he wanted to lay out some critiques of my analysis and interpretation that he thought were really important to address. Those critiques have really shaped the way I think of my project over the years and I doubt they would have if he hadn't been so kind.

[Aster]

The United States is far less Anglo-Saxon, Caucasian, English-native-tongue that it was in the late 20th century (when most of us were growing up).

Much higher proportions of today's entering college students are not only non-traditionals, but they're also not native-english speakers.

For those of us operating in the teaching profession (at any level), a contemporary awareness of our rapidly diversifying population will only become more important.

A high proportion of non-native-english speakers in colleges is something to now expect, and adapt to. This trend is so quickly developing that we are beginning to see professor job advertisements where bi-lingual fluency in certain languages (mostly spanish so far) is highly preferred.

A few tips for teaching in a high diversity classroom (borrowed from elementary education professionals)
- speak slowly and carefully
- restrict jokes to non-cultural references
- be very careful with sarcasm
- simplify sentence structure on assessments
- be prepared to answer questions on basic vocabulary (e.g. "drab", I get this a lot now)
- allow more time to read things during class time

[smallcleanrat]

Wow. I'm a bit overwhelmed by the number of replies and variety of opinions added to this thread in just a couple of days. Thanks to everyone who shared their insights and experiences. I'm still processing; will probably need a few posts to address everything I would like to.

For now, I just want to tackle the tone/manner vs. content issue.

ergative, why do you say it's "probably" an issue of tone? I think, in my case, content and timing are more at issue (in the sense that caracal and hegemony suggest: I am jumping too quickly to explaining the correct answer when it would be better to take a few moments to acknowledge the student's answer and thought process first). I think a more conscious effort to ensure the student feels heard would likely improve things. I do try to run the session as more of a dialog than a lecture, but I could probably work on doing this more consistently.

The reason I think tone and manner less likely contributors is that I have a very shy, non-confrontational demeanor and am quite soft-spoken. (One of the positive student comments: "Very quiet lady, but surprisingly knowledgeable, very kind, and willing to help.") Although, sometimes people do interpret reserve as coldness.

Being female, I doubt that I am presenting as a mansplaining "neckbeard". And being raised in an environment that conditions girls to be pleasant and deferential, I tend towards hyper-vigilance regarding my tone of voice and facial expression. I also think I am more anxious than the average person to avoid causing offense. Whatever my faults, overconfidence and a desire to assert my superiority by putting down other people are not among them.

I think if I had been treating students with blatant scorn, more than one student out of fifty would have complained about it.

mamselle, please excuse me if I misunderstand, but are you under the impression that, because I was raised by folks who used sarcasm and ridicule as "teaching tools", I myself have been accustomed to using the same tools? Because that dynamic only ever went in one direction. Most of my life, I have been the subordinate (child, student, girl) being "corrected"; had I ever responded in kind, punishment would have been swift and severe. I want to emphasize I NEVER use snark or mockery in my interactions with students. I know all too well how it feels to be on the receiving end.

Most of the time, the student's answer is at least partially correct. Or I can see the likely source of their confusion/misinterpretation. This gives me a good starting point to begin walking them through the evidence-finding and the logic of the experiment. I tend to do this in the form of LibbyG's hypothetical examples, asking questions to lead them through step-by-step, and acknowledging their successes ("You're spot on with parts A-D, but [or I suppose this should be "still" according to ciao_yall; there's another rule I hadn't heard] let's take a closer look at E-F..."). Most of the time, I see them relax as the lightbulb goes on and their confusion turns to satisfaction as the ideas "click".

I'm most at a loss when the answer is so confusing or off-topic, that I really *can't* see where they're coming from. And the students whose answers are this far off tend to be the same students that react to any questions as to how they arrived at their answer with annoyed silence.

I'll get more into the way the discussions are structured in another post, but the reason I don't toss the question to the rest of the class is:
1) students were pre-assigned parts of the paper to read and there is extensive opportunity for help before and during the groupwork; I am not asking them to come up with answers on the fly, this was their assignment
2) students tend to only pay attention to the details of their assigned section; they don't usually have answers for questions about the details of the other sections

I reread my teaching evals and I realize that I know who the specific student is who objected to my "condescension". Some of the specific responses he quotes I have only ever said to him; interacting with this student was definitely more challenging than with any of the others. If I could go back to do things over, I'm still not sure how I would handle it. I'll make another post later with more detail.

[mamselle]

mamselle, please excuse me if I misunderstand, but are you under the impression that, because I was raised by folks who used sarcasm and ridicule as "teaching tools", I myself have been accustomed to using the same tools? Because that dynamic only ever went in one direction. Most of my life, I have been the subordinate (child, student, girl) being "corrected"; had I ever responded in kind, punishment would have been swift and severe. I want to emphasize I NEVER use snark or mockery in my interactions with students. I know all too well how it feels to be on the receiving end.

No, I wasn't thinking you would really be sarcastic, but thanks for pointing that out...

It just seemed as if, since you've said that those modes of expression were heavily imprinted in your own experience, it might take a moment to overcome them if you were challenged in some way, or needed quickly to find alternatives. We hear and repeat internally what has been said to us, and you are probably always working quite hard to speak in a completely difficult way, precisely because of your empathy for those in similarly disempowered positions.

And even if, very momentarily, something came out that sounded that way to someone, since none of us are perfect, it's clear that that's not your usual mode of communicating, so it would be an outlier, not something habitual.

And it sounds like even that's not the case at all, which is great.

Especially if it's just one particular student who said this, that is actually helpful in giving you a more specific setting in which to work out alternatives if another, similar, situation were ever to arise (which can always happen, challenging students don't, in my experience, have all that large a repertoire, they usually have just a few ways in which to be irritating each, and they use them as much as possible for whatever reason!)

Hence the usefulness of these threads...!

Clearly, it's an important question, to have raised such a multifaceted discussion; I'm especially appreciative of the points just raised by Aster, since those are issues I deal with in some situations as well.

What we do and how we do it is so important.

M.

[scamp]

SmallCleanRat, if it was really just one student, I really wouldn't worry about this.

I would focus on the comments from the classroom observer who said you need to soften the blow more. Those are really the only comments that matter, not of one student on evaluations.

[dismalist]

One student out of 50? Forgeddabboudditt!

[Hegemony]

A single difficult student — yeah, he's just a griper.

The fact that you are open to taking his complaint seriously is also a sign that you probably aren't harsh or cold in the first place. Usually people who have a harsh style react with equal harshness to complaints, even when they're warranted. 

This thread has helped us all to think about these issues, though, so it's useful even if the student is off-base, which sounds like the case.

[dismalist]

This thread has helped us all to think about these issues, though, so it's useful even if the student is off-base, which sounds like the case.

Yes, absolutely, but we must not walk around on egg shells.

[mamselle]

Actually, walking on eggshells is good for your glissades if you're doing ballet...

;--}

M.