Strategies for Countering Unproductive Student Attitudes and Behaviors

[spork]

Inspired by:

I don't give PowerPoints for class because I've found students interpret that to mean they don't need to take notes, and then are upset when they are unprepared for the exams. Also, I highlight why physical note taking by hand is superior to typing notes (the deeper level processing of using shorthand and consolidating what is most important, rather than trying to transcribe word for word). Most of my students appreciate the rationale for it by the end of the course even if they start of resistant to the idea, because they become better note-takers over time.

THIS.

And to verify the accuracy of the model, I gave out my instructor notes throughout March and April this Spring. The bulk behavior of students went exactly as predicted. A lot of people didn't review the material at all except right before the exam, or *during* the exam via smartphones. Exam scores overall tanked hard. I even received a few highly unusual nastygrams from students complaining that they the new exams "were much harder" and they deserved better grades, even though the new exams were greatly simplified and I could tell immediately from examining their answer responses that those students had not studied one teeny bit.

I'm probably not releasing my instructor notes in the Fall. I will record my lectures and students will be forced to watch them if they want to collect all their study material.

In my pseudo-administrative role, I'm hearing about what happened last semester from faculty colleagues and feedback they received on course evaluation. For example, when all courses went online, some students wanted live synchronous video lectures (no regard for classmates who might have had problematic home situations, part-time employment, etc.), plus PowerPoint files with audio narration and slides containing lists of bullet points they could memorize. Any method or material for which note-taking could have improved their learning resulted in complaints of "the professor didn't teach."

[downer]

I saw a colleague report on FB that all the students he had informally surveyed much preferred synchonous teaching to asyncrhonous. He teaches at a nice university with good students.

As someone who is not interested in doing synchronous online teaching, I was a bit disturbed by this. I doubt that this attitude is widely shared among a wider population of students but maybe it is.

I would not be surprised if many students want to have their cake and eat it -- every possible teaching modality supplied, so they can pick and choose as they like.

As ever, my approach is to put responsibility on the student to identify particular needs and problem-solve. I can help them with many of their needs, but they can also group together so find information and teach themselves. The online discussion should enable those kind of solutions. My goal is to push them to be active, and students insist on being spoon-fed will fall by the wayside.

[Caracal]

I'd be inclined to be a bit more charitable towards students. From a teaching and personal mental health standpoint I would have preferred synchronous lectures too. I didn't do it for some of the reasons mentioned, but also because it wasn't going to work for my family either with childcare suddenly gone.

I really missed it though. It was depressing to do the work of teaching a class in isolation. I'm assuming that many students felt the same way. Preferring in class instruction and human interaction along with your work isn't a sign of poor character.

[Puget]

I'd be inclined to be a bit more charitable towards students. From a teaching and personal mental health standpoint I would have preferred synchronous lectures too. I didn't do it for some of the reasons mentioned, but also because it wasn't going to work for my family either with childcare suddenly gone.

I really missed it though. It was depressing to do the work of teaching a class in isolation. I'm assuming that many students felt the same way. Preferring in class instruction and human interaction along with your work isn't a sign of poor character.

This. I continued to teach my seminar synchronously because there was really no other way with student presentations and discussion, but what I came to realize was just how important the human interaction and continuity was for the students. Most days, they ALL showed up on zoom, which was higher than in person. Attendance at online office hours was also up-- some had real questions, but they also just wanted to talk. Humans are wired for interaction and for learning directly from other humans. I understand the need to go asynchronous in many cases for logistical reasons, but it seems far from ideal for both learning and mental health.

[downer]

I can imagine doing 30 - 45 mins of synchonous interaction with students at a time, after they have viewed the materials, for further explanation and discussion of it. I have offered to meet student requests but I had no requests for synchonous teaching in the Spring.

[Aster]

Show one sign of weakness, and it's a feeding frenzy.

[the_geneticist]

At the start of Spring, some students were asking to take a course overload since they were under the impression that online learning would be easier than in person.  Those requests vanished in week 2 when they realized that online classes are MORE work.  Plus some students were confusing "online" with "self-paced" or "no due dates for assignments". 
Now that they've all survived a quarter of online classes, I think a lot of the issues stemming from not knowing the expectations for an online class will not be as intense in Summer.  Maybe.  Hopefully? (Can I have a tiny bit of optimism?).

[Bonnie]

I'd be inclined to be a bit more charitable towards students. From a teaching and personal mental health standpoint I would have preferred synchronous lectures too. I didn't do it for some of the reasons mentioned, but also because it wasn't going to work for my family either with childcare suddenly gone.

I really missed it though. It was depressing to do the work of teaching a class in isolation. I'm assuming that many students felt the same way. Preferring in class instruction and human interaction along with your work isn't a sign of poor character.

This. Many of my students came to optional syncrhonous sessions. Many who couldn't expressed sadness that they couldn't. Many students asked for small group or 1:1 sessions outside of their work/sibling care/child care/grandparent care responsibilities.

We can also think of "every possible teaching modality supplied" can be thought of as culturally responsive, universally designed, trauma-informed practice.

[fishbrains]

I'd be inclined to be a bit more charitable towards students. From a teaching and personal mental health standpoint I would have preferred synchronous lectures too. I didn't do it for some of the reasons mentioned, but also because it wasn't going to work for my family either with childcare suddenly gone.

I really missed it though. It was depressing to do the work of teaching a class in isolation. I'm assuming that many students felt the same way. Preferring in class instruction and human interaction along with your work isn't a sign of poor character.

This. Many of my students came to optional syncrhonous sessions. Many who couldn't expressed sadness that they couldn't. Many students asked for small group or 1:1 sessions outside of their work/sibling care/child care/grandparent care responsibilities.

We can also think of "every possible teaching modality supplied" can be thought of as culturally responsive, universally designed, trauma-informed practice.

Meh. Trying to keep track of what I say/teach to whom while employing multiple teaching modes within each course across a 5/5 teaching load sounds like a complete nightmare. I've seen too many faculty work themselves into the ground trying to be all things to all students, with no discernible improvement in success rates.

[Bonnie]

I'd be inclined to be a bit more charitable towards students. From a teaching and personal mental health standpoint I would have preferred synchronous lectures too. I didn't do it for some of the reasons mentioned, but also because it wasn't going to work for my family either with childcare suddenly gone.

I really missed it though. It was depressing to do the work of teaching a class in isolation. I'm assuming that many students felt the same way. Preferring in class instruction and human interaction along with your work isn't a sign of poor character.

This. Many of my students came to optional syncrhonous sessions. Many who couldn't expressed sadness that they couldn't. Many students asked for small group or 1:1 sessions outside of their work/sibling care/child care/grandparent care responsibilities.

We can also think of "every possible teaching modality supplied" can be thought of as culturally responsive, universally designed, trauma-informed practice.

Meh. Trying to keep track of what I say/teach to whom while employing multiple teaching modes within each course across a 5/5 teaching load sounds like a complete nightmare. I've seen too many faculty work themselves into the ground trying to be all things to all students, with no discernible improvement in success rates.

High teaching loads certainly are an important consideration. I just a 3/3 with graduate student mentoring, heavy service, and research and would perhaps collapse at the idea of a 5/5.

So how much of the problem is the system of heavy teaching loads and how much is teacher unwillingness to be flexible in teaching approaches? There has to be some teaching flexibility. Quality teaching demands some flexibility. Does the system disallow that flexibility due to teaching load, or do we turn away from that obligation on our own? I know some of my colleagues who have lighter teaching loads than I have refuse the idea of flexibility as an appropriate approach to teaching.

I'll also note, I do have discernible improvement in success rates when I attempt to build in flexibility and other forms of culturally responsive pedagogy. My students do amazing work and often wow me.

[downer]

I taught 7 classes in the Spring. My time per class is limited.

[spork]

I spoke via email with one of the psychologists on the faculty here. She thinks many of the 18-22 year old, white, suburban students who enroll here had greater problems with self-control and time management once classes moved online.

[theblackbox]

I'm the poster of the first quote, so I figure I should chime in. In countering unproductive student attitudes, there are a few relevant concepts I discuss with my students. Their best learning is often at odds with the typical preference to do the least effortful work for maximum outcome. That concept is known as Desirable Difficulties. I'll link an article if you're completely unfamiliar with the topic, but here's the bolded takeaway:

Making learning too easy and straightforward can cause a misleading boost in the retrieval strength without causing the deeper processing that encourages the long-term retention afforded by higher storage strength.

So in short, yes, I know you just want me to provide the slides with relevant notes on them, to skim through them and memorize the most you can right before the test, and then move on with your life. But this is demonstrably less effective for your long-term learning than requiring the student to generate their own notes, to synthesize the information and handwrite it in an meaningful/outlined format, and then review those notes over time in preparation for application and assessment. My ultimate job is not to help them check a box but to have the information sink in, transform their perspective, and provide them with a wealth of tools/frameworks for tackling various problems they'll encounter in the field.

Therefore, I require physical note-taking, encourage spaced studying (which is the same amount of time but spread over days rather than crammed), have them apply the material in novel situations during class, and assess them with exams that are more than multiple-choice. I find the key factor that makes this work for me and my students to not hate me is that I'm very transparent about the why, and I am able to convince them I genuinely care about their long-term learning and growth.

Desirable difficulties article: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/all-about-addiction/201105/desirable-difficulties-in-the-classroom
Physical notetaking (although it centers on other laptops in the classroom issues, too): https://medium.com/@cshirky/why-i-just-asked-my-students-to-put-their-laptops-away-7f5f7c50f368

[kiana]

I spoke via email with one of the psychologists on the faculty here. She thinks many of the 18-22 year old, white, suburban students who enroll here had greater problems with self-control and time management once classes moved online.

Well, since I as the professor had greater problems with self-control and time management, that's not surprising.

[spork]

^ Per theblackbox's post above, I once assigned The New Science of Learning* in a first-year seminar. Students had to write about the different chapters. We talked about the book in class, too.

It had no discernible effect on student performance.

*I have no connections to the authors or publisher.