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

[mythbuster]

Smallcleanrat, I feel your frustration. Teaching students how to read scientific papers is one of the single hardest things I do as an instructor. To do it well really does require discussion, and Bio students have been trained NOT to discuss things in class, so it's foreign to then and scary.  In terms of how best to structure the class periods, I recommend investigating the CREATE method first developed by Sally Hoskins at CUNY. PM me and I can send you some links and ideas. I also recommend discussing with the instructor of record what other assignments you can do that count for points so that students take the process more seriously.
   In terms of the students who are truly clueless, at some point your just have to say, No dolphins in this paper- maybe that was for another class? And move on. I often make sure to pair such a statement with a reminded of when office hours are if they need more guided help.

Sounds to me like you are doing all the right things. You just have to remember that not all your students are as self-motivated or as good with logic as you are. That's a big part of why you are now at the front of the class.

[smallcleanrat]

I was definitely confused because neither dolphins nor the South Pacific was mentioned anywhere in the paper, so I was struggling to think how to respond. Is it the pauses that could potentially come across as condescending? Or is it saying I didn't remember that being in the paper? The papers can often be quite dense, so I don't remember every detail; I've certainly been a student in discussion sections in which the professor says "Was that in there? Where? I don't remember...page six, you say? Oh, I see. Ok." I was trying to give the student a chance to explain. I still have no idea how he got "dolphins" because he refused to say anything.

But see, you weren't actually confused (except by how the student could be so wrong)-- you knew perfectly well the paper wasn't about dolphins. Students can tell the difference between genuine uncertainty and feigned uncertainty -- I know you don't mean it to, but the latter comes across as condescending.

..........

When I'm genuinely unsure of what a student is asking, I generally say something like "Interesting, can you say a little more about that?", then I'll pull out a nugget of truth if there is one "Ah, what I think you're getting at is. . .", or correct "I can see why you reached that conclusion, but let's take a look. . ." 

Ok, I think I see your point here. It wasn't entirely a feigned uncertainty; I was open to the possibility I missed or forgot a detail in the paper. But that was a low probability, so I should have just treated it as a definitely wrong answer?

What do you do when you ask something like "Can you say a little more about that?" and they just stare at you in silence? I tried to get him to elaborate (he just listed conclusions without explaining the experimental logic, as they are supposed to do); it could have given me a clue as to what he might have been driving at with the dolphins (it could even been as simple as a vocabulary issue; perhaps he used one term while meaning something else entirely). I asked about the location of the information in the paper for the same reason; to try to get at the root of the misunderstanding. So, would asking for a page number be advisable if the student has at least a kernel of a correct idea and not advisable if the answer is completely wrong?

You really do have to tell them they are wrong when they are though, otherwise you're not actually teaching them-- it's all in how you do it. At the beginning of my seminars we talk about how it's OK to be wrong and to express uncertainty, and OK for others to jump in a and disagree respectfully, and in fact this is necessary for good science and good discussions. I encourage them to ask clarification questions at any point, and sometimes redirect those to the rest of the class when I'm pretty confident someone will be able to answer ("Good question, does anyone want to take a shot at that?").

So when a student says "dolphins" what is the polite way to tell them that's wrong? "No, not dolphins." sounds too abrupt. "Not quite" is kinder but misleading as it implies "almost". What tone of voice do you use?

I noticed the professor definitely didn't do anything to soften the blow when he would throw out comprehension check questions to the class during lectures. A wrong answer gets a quick "Nope!" or even "Oh, come on..." Not sure if he had students complaining about that or not. Then again, he's the professor, not a TA. He's also got at least 25 years on me, is a great deal taller, and has a much louder voice. Would this make it less discouraging to get a brusque response to a wrong answer or more?

If I do try to set a group on the right track during the group-work, what do I do if they just stare blankly at me? Do I try to get them to engage, or do I just explain whatever they refuse to answer for themselves? And if a group is having trouble answering a gimme question like "What did the results of Experiment 3 cause the authors to question? (see page 3, paragraph 2)," how can I point them to page 3, paragraph 2 containing the sentence, "The results of Experiment 3 caused us to question..." without seeming to patronize them?

I would back off of those types of questions-- I know you think they need them, but I think they may be coming across as condescending busy work, which is highly demotivating. In my experience if you treat students as capable learners most of them will rise to the occasion. Keep the page numbers off the worksheet, and then when you circulate and they are having trouble with that question, you can say "check this paragraph and see if you can figure it out, and then I'll check back with you after I check on the other groups".

Makes perfect sense to me. I felt weird about adding questions like that in the first place. I didn't start with those until pretty late in the term though, because I was not sure what else to do for the students who seemed to be missing pretty obvious phrases like "Our main hypothesis was..." as big flashing signals that this sentence is telling you something very important. Doing the progress checks you suggest and giving a less specific hint sounds like a better way.

I suspect some of the students were trying to figure out the paper just by looking at the figures and figure legends. That's why they miss things that should be obvious from reading the text. Sometimes I'm pretty sure they are skipping the figure legends too; how else can they not answer a question like "Was this experiment done with live animals or cell cultures?" when the legend says "cell cultures" multiple times?

Smallcleanrat, I feel your frustration. Teaching students how to read scientific papers is one of the single hardest things I do as an instructor. To do it well really does require discussion, and Bio students have been trained NOT to discuss things in class, so it's foreign to then and scary.  In terms of how best to structure the class periods, I recommend investigating the CREATE method first developed by Sally Hoskins at CUNY. PM me and I can send you some links and ideas. I also recommend discussing with the instructor of record what other assignments you can do that count for points so that students take the process more seriously.
   In terms of the students who are truly clueless, at some point your just have to say, No dolphins in this paper- maybe that was for another class? And move on. I often make sure to pair such a statement with a reminded of when office hours are if they need more guided help.

Sounds to me like you are doing all the right things. You just have to remember that not all your students are as self-motivated or as good with logic as you are. That's a big part of why you are now at the front of the class.

mythbuster, I would definitely be interested to read up on the CREATE method if you wouldn't mind PM'ing me. I was a bit disappointed that most of the students were not ready to start learning to critique papers. I had to spend most of the time helping them understand what the paper was saying in the first place.

I did try to throw in some questions about potential downsides and limitations of the various methods and whether there might be explanations for the results besides the ones the authors give. However, I made these discussion questions for the whole class so no one group would be on the spot. Either that or I would just add in a few comments myself throughout the discussion.

By far my favorite student eval comment: "TA was very critical of the papers and it really helped me think about the motivation behind the research, what caveats might have existed and how to decide on future directions of research."

Thanks, anonymous student! That was my biggest hope for you all.

[ciao_yall]

I used to do a case study and invariably the students would assume A, but if they read it, the answer was clearly B. So it was always obvious who hadn't really read it.

When someone called out "A" I would ask everyone to look again at the case. Where does it say A? What else does it say? Ah, so B is the reason.

And then we would go on to discuss B and how to address the situation.

So it wasn't about calling out the student but getting the whole class engaged.