What do students mean by "going over the readings"?

[mythbuster]

Mamselle, at my institution your approach would rapidly lead to student revolt and emails of complaint to chairs, deans, and the president. You would be called condescending for daring to reveal students lack of knowledge.

Ask me how I know this.

[mamselle]

Never have had a problem with it.

But then, I wouldn't be revealing their "lack of knowledge," I'd be testing what they know.

The emphasis, and the reinforcement, is all positive, and students get into it.

If one did it with a sour smile and a badgering tone, I could definitely understand students being upset.

But I never treat students that way, so it's not an issue.

In fact, we just did something similar in the online theory class I taught on Friday, reviewing chord structures.

No problems.

M.

[Hegemony]

There is a world of difference between students making specific inquiries about specific lesson topics, versus students making non-specific, broad requests to have their lesson content spoon-fed to them.

I don't think we can conclude that student requests to "go over the readings" means they want the content spoon-fed to them. They are undoubtedly not adept enough at articulating what they want to be able to say, "Can we have some experiences of interpreting the readings in the way you'd like us to be able to do, with you modelling the type of analysis that we should be aiming for, and helping us find strategies to clarify the parts we find confusing?" Instead they say, "Can we go over the readings?"

[Caracal]

I see something very similar in my science classes. Students often ask me to tell them what will be on the exam. Well the recorded lectures, textbook readings, weekly quizzes, online homework, and supplemental study questions are all designed to do just that.
   I can give them what they want, an itemized list of topics, but it won't be of any help to them if they haven't done the work to understand the items on that list. That work is built in to all the resources I have created. There just is no short cut.

I teach in the humanities, but I used to get complaints on evals that "they had no idea what was going to be on the exam." This never made any sense because obviously the things on the exam were going to be the readings and lectures since the last exam. So, I just started giving them the itemized list of topics and the complaints mostly went away. This list is mostly just drawn from the syllabus and like your lists it isn't going to help if you haven't done the rest of the work.

I think the lesson is just that sometimes you just need to address student anxiety. "What is going to be on the test?" is sometimes a question that students who just want a shortcut ask, but it is also a question that some decent students ask because they are legitimately worried that somehow evaluation is going to be this weird thing which doesn't have anything to do with what they've learned, or maybe that they don't actually understand what it is they have learned.

[the_geneticist]

I used to get the "we didn't know what was going to be on the exam" complaint in my science classes.  So, I compiled a list of the learning goals, readings, suggested practice problems, key terms, and in-class examples.  They had all of this information already, just not all in one place.  The complaints disappeared. 
Students are still learning WHAT information to organize and HOW to organize it. 
Maybe a list of standard questions would help?  Like "What does [character] want?  How do you know?"  "How do these characters know each other (family, friends, rivals, etc.) How do you know?"  "Describe what you know about [character].  What is their age, job, religion, etc.".

[Aster]

There is a world of difference between students making specific inquiries about specific lesson topics, versus students making non-specific, broad requests to have their lesson content spoon-fed to them.

I don't think we can conclude that student requests to "go over the readings" means they want the content spoon-fed to them. They are undoubtedly not adept enough at articulating what they want to be able to say, "Can we have some experiences of interpreting the readings in the way you'd like us to be able to do, with you modelling the type of analysis that we should be aiming for, and helping us find strategies to clarify the parts we find confusing?" Instead they say, "Can we go over the readings?"

Student: "Can we go over the readings?"
Professor: "Sure. What specifically do you want to review?"


There is a world of difference between students stating that they want to "go over the readings" but when pressed for specifics, offer them, vs. students who when asked for specifics by their professor, choose not to participate in their own education.

Students may be as vague as they want to when communicating with their professors at a preliminary level, but *persisting* at that level of communication identifies a lack of participation in one's educational responsibilities.

[Aster]

I used to get the "we didn't know what was going to be on the exam" complaint in my science classes.  So, I compiled a list of the learning goals, readings, suggested practice problems, key terms, and in-class examples.  They had all of this information already, just not all in one place.  The complaints disappeared. 
Students are still learning WHAT information to organize and HOW to organize it. 
Maybe a list of standard questions would help?  Like "What does [character] want?  How do you know?"  "How do these characters know each other (family, friends, rivals, etc.) How do you know?"  "Describe what you know about [character].  What is their age, job, religion, etc.".

As did I. Many of us are well familiar with this, particularly those of us that teach to freshmen or who teach at open enrollment institutions. And so incorporate additive learning resources, like help guides, study plans, specific syllabus procedures, tutoring center advertisements, practice assessments, review periods, yadda yadda yadda. And sometimes, this helps some students.

[mythbuster]

Aster demonstrates the frustrating aspect of this. You provide a list of objectives- this semester they love it, but 2 semesters later no one uses the list. So they ask for study questions, so you provide those- then no one uses those. It becomes a game of whack a mole that you cannot win! And should you provide them all the different resources- then it's just overwhelming for them.

This might be ok if I had small classes, but when this is happening in lectures of 200+ with no TA help, it's just not feasible to provide everyone with their personalized favorite study tool. So I stick to providing the ones that I have the best data on being effective.

[Hegemony]

I provide a list of study topics, some of them single-word items ("You should be familiar with the concepts of:...") and some of them questions ("Why did the Church object to X? How did Smith argue that X should be allowed?"). I tell them that the quiz will consist of both multiple-choice and short-answer questions.  I also provide a sample no-points optional quiz before the first quiz. Since I have started doing that, I've received zero instances of "What's going to be on the test?" And zero complaints after the test.

What's going to be on the test, and what form it's going to take, is so obvious to us, that I think we can forget how it's not obvious to others. After all, we've been constructing tests for many years, so how they're constructed seems very predictable to us. But other profs construct them entirely differently, so it's no wonder that students may be anxious ahead of time, and feel at sea, not knowing what's coming at them. Sometimes when I see other profs' tests, I think, "I never would have thought of this kind of question." I imagine that in those classes, I'd appreciate some advance direction too.

[the_geneticist]

I used to get the "we didn't know what was going to be on the exam" complaint in my science classes.  So, I compiled a list of the learning goals, readings, suggested practice problems, key terms, and in-class examples.  They had all of this information already, just not all in one place.  The complaints disappeared. 
Students are still learning WHAT information to organize and HOW to organize it. 
Maybe a list of standard questions would help?  Like "What does [character] want?  How do you know?"  "How do these characters know each other (family, friends, rivals, etc.) How do you know?"  "Describe what you know about [character].  What is their age, job, religion, etc.".

As did I. Many of us are well familiar with this, particularly those of us that teach to freshmen or who teach at open enrollment institutions. And so incorporate additive learning resources, like help guides, study plans, specific syllabus procedures, tutoring center advertisements, practice assessments, review periods, yadda yadda yadda. And sometimes, this helps some students.

Ironically, this was a supposedly "selective" SLAC.  Tiny class sizes, good tutoring center, etc.  There was a pretty strong vibe of "any student you fail is a tuition payment we lose".

[Caracal]

Aster demonstrates the frustrating aspect of this. You provide a list of objectives- this semester they love it, but 2 semesters later no one uses the list. So they ask for study questions, so you provide those- then no one uses those. It becomes a game of whack a mole that you cannot win! And should you provide them all the different resources- then it's just overwhelming for them.

This might be ok if I had small classes, but when this is happening in lectures of 200+ with no TA help, it's just not feasible to provide everyone with their personalized favorite study tool. So I stick to providing the ones that I have the best data on being effective.

Sure, I know that feeling. But isn't it really about us, not the students? The frustrating part is that every semester you're explaining the same things over and over. Most students are fine with what you give them. Some want more help, or more reassurance, and some (hopefully) small number, just think everything is unclear and blame us. Then you start again next semester. Of course it gets old. I'm not sure there's a good solution other than to figure out what seems to help students, do that, be willing to work with other students, and accept that some students might still feel lost or confused and that we can't always fix that.

[Langue_doc]

I provide students with a handout explaining archaic words and expressions. They are required to (i) read and annotate, (ii) look up the meanings of unfamiliar words, (iii), and respond to questions either as individual assignments or on the Discussion Board before class. During class, they do group work with each group discussing and presenting (orally and in writing) responses to a question. They are encouraged to comment on their classmates' presentations. These are weekly graded assignments. I usually drop the lowest two or three scores. In my online classes, students post their responses on the Discussion Board and have to respond to two of their classmates' posts. Participation has been excellent so far.
Students will "go over the readings" at home as long as their work is graded. They don't read much in high schools as I discovered when a student referred to a short story as a long and difficult novel. Once they are given directions on how to read before we discuss the topic/readings in class, they actually enjoy the assignments and also the class discussions. In most of the classes, students have enjoyed taking turns reading certain paragraphs aloud before we discuss these.