The Conversation: Doing the Reading

[Parasaurolophus]

Not much new stuff in here, but it may be of interest nonetheless. Some tidbits:

University course readings are pivotal to advance student knowledge and prepare them for class discussions. Despite this, only 20-30% of students read the assigned materials.

Studies indicate that students are reading more slowly and comprehending less. They often struggle to read anything beyond an excerpt.

A comprehensive study identifies four main reasons university students don't engage with course readings:

• unpreparedness due to language deficits
  time constraints
  lack of motivation
  underestimating the importance of the readings.

Ideas for pre-class strategies:

• Students participate in pre-class activities online. Learning management systems and collaborative tools – such as quizzes, polls and collaborative apps – offer multiple interactive options. Invite students to practise different approaches, including unfamiliar reading strategies.
  
  Offer clear expectations and strategies on what, how and why to read. For example, should I skim, review the text or look for best practice? Sometimes a discussion early on is enough.
  
  Gradually introduce technical terms and cognitive load. Don't assume students know all specific terms from the start.

Ideas for in-class strategies:

• Invite students to apply the readings to real-life experience, assignments or projects. Activities with clear longer-term agendas not only engage students but also allow educators to observe how students grasp new information.
  
  Gradually increase informed learning concepts and strategies to help students develop critical and creative academic skills.
  
  Provide a safe space for students to clarify confusing aspects. Weekly reading groups, talking circles or other collaborations enable students to share and ask genuine questions. These conversations can encourage students to tackle complex content.

It doesn't seem to me that there's anything new in that advice--it's the same techniques which are letting us down in the first place. What do you do, and is it sufficient to the task?

[RatGuy]

I don't often teach first-year students anymore, but when I do I find that there's very little I can do to get them to read the textbook. I also struggle getting them to bring the materials to class, have pen and paper, etc. It's a whole different kettle of fish.

In majors classes, I find that a mixture of quizzes, in-class activities, and out-of-class responses generally mean that students read (or appear to). Those that try to Sparknote their way through learn by the midterm that they'll need to change their ways or drop. When I teach non-freshmen, I rarely have any complaints.

[marshwiggle]

Since I'm from STEM, where class discussion isn't so much of a thing, I have a question.

How "fakeable" is doing the readings before class? In other words, are there any serious consequences (i.e. unavoidable lost grades) for not doing the readings for a typical class?

[Morden]

For the most part, there is no direct consequence for not doing the readings (which of course leads to many people not doing them). Some people are very good at participating in discussion without having done the readings. You can try to mitigate this by immediately asking them to point to specific details from the text; having different people (who have to do prep work ahead of time that is turned in) in charge of leading discussion; and grading discussion on substance, not just on whether or not they discussed. Reading quizzes are tricky: sometimes they encourage surface level reading (because then it's easier to mark).

On a side note--I found the Conversation article very irritating to read because each source was linked (fine) but there wasn't a list at the end, so if you wanted to know what sources the authors were using to back up their claims, you had to click on each one. And some seemed odd. 

[Parasaurolophus]

Yeah, there's not usually any penalty. But it's also quite obvious in my field when students are faking it.

And the discussion suffers a great deal, since it depends on everyone engaging closely with the arguments presented. So when most don't read, you can make up for that as the instructor by presenting the arguments in more detail, and then everyone can discuss them, but that's a big waste of time, and the quality of the class suffers as a result.

[hmaria1609]

When I was in college, one of my history profs wasn't happy only a few of us had done the reading and told us class was over. (I remember she shook her head at me whenever I raised my hand when she asked questions about what we'd read. I'd already answered one question) It was an upper level history class; I was taking it as part of my history major.  That was a one-off thing.

All those reading assignments in college were no worse than reading for my library science classes in grad school.

[Hegemony]

There's a penalty, at least in my classes, when it comes time for the test. You can't do well on the test without doing the reading, and in many cases you can't pass it.

Once when it was clear that about 75% of my class hadn't done the reading, I sent the 75% out in the hall to do the reading and then to come back in and answer questions about it. That unnerved them. They thought their lack of preparation would be inconspicuous.

Usually when I find someone hasn't done the reading, I gently expose them in class. "Jason? Give us your thoughts on why Gatsby did what he did in today's reading, chapter 6. No? Can you just sketch in what he did, then? No? Didn't have time to get to the reading?" [Conspicuously writes Jason's name down in my notebook.] "We'll rely on you next time, Jason, okay? Now, who else — Emily?" The next time I make sure to call on Jason first. And randomly throughout the rest of the semester. After a scare like that, they're always prepared.

[fishbrains]

There's a penalty, at least in my classes, when it comes time for the test. You can't do well on the test without doing the reading, and in many cases you can't pass it.

Once when it was clear that about 75% of my class hadn't done the reading, I sent the 75% out in the hall to do the reading and then to come back in and answer questions about it. That unnerved them. They thought their lack of preparation would be inconspicuous.

Usually when I find someone hasn't done the reading, I gently expose them in class. "Jason? Give us your thoughts on why Gatsby did what he did in today's reading, chapter 6. No? Can you just sketch in what he did, then? No? Didn't have time to get to the reading?" [Conspicuously writes Jason's name down in my notebook.] "We'll rely on you next time, Jason, okay? Now, who else — Emily?" The next time I make sure to call on Jason first. And randomly throughout the rest of the semester. After a scare like that, they're always prepared.

I do pretty much the same, with the addition of an impromptu quiz now and then and by only discussing the major essays (generally based on additional readings) in terms of the previously assigned readings, which drives them absolutely nuts.

I don't put the squeeze on them in class. You never know what's going on in someone's life that day, and I just don't have the energy for that kind of extraction. The more power to Hegemony though.

[Wahoo Redux]

I'm doing a brand new class this coming semester with a great deal of reading involved.  I am taking others' advice and we are doing a short reading quiz every week and at least a couple of addtional pop-quizzes.  They can drop three or four of them (depending on how many pop-quizzes I sneak in) but overall the quizzes will count for at least 10% of their final grade.  It is the first time I will try this approach.  I will tell them that, if the quizzes are routinely on point, we can drop the quizzes for more interactive assignments (which I will have to devise if it comes to that, I guess).

We'll see how it goes.

I like the ideas in the article.

[mamselle]

My aesthetics prof's favorite thing to do, the day after a lecture on one writer, and the reading assignment on another writer, was to ask at the start of class, 'So, what would Wittgenstein have had to say to Tolstoy about the generation of art in culture? Would either of them have agreed with Nietzsche?"

Then he'd call on folks if no-one raised a hand.

That only happened once, on the first day of class....

M.

[Wahoo Redux]

My aesthetics prof's favorite thing to do, the day after a lecture on one writer, and the reading assignment on another writer, was to ask at the start of class, 'So, what would Wittgenstein have had to say to Tolstoy about the generation of art in culture? Would either of them have agreed with Nietzsche?"

Then he'd call on folks if no-one raised a hand.

That only happened once, on the first day of class....

M.

You may have had considerably brighter, more motivated, more artistic students than we have.

Our kids are very practical, not intellectual, and just looking for the job passport.  They do what they can to keep their GPAs up because it goes on their resumes, but that's the limit for most of them----exceptions noted of course.

[kaysixteen]

I'd love to do what hegemony does, but, well, adjunct professors are often cowed into not doing this, if the culture at the school allows for students to complain to chairs/ deans/ 'student success' programs, etc., concerning the difficulty of a course, or, especially, feeling dissed by a professor.

On another note, is it just me, or is it not the case that the average undergrad these days is not going to be able to read difficult texts in fields like history, let alone philosophy, nearly so well as in prior generations, for a variety of reasons we all could probably brainstorm out here?

[theblackbox]

I deploy two different strategies. For the students in my required course for a wide array of majors, I'm okay with them skim reading the textbook just to get a general sense of what we will be addressing that week. I tell them that directly, and they have an open book quiz due before our first class session on the ch. I also explain that their skimming and that quiz means I can go faster through the lecture portion bc they already have context for the material, and then we can spend more time on simulations, case studies, role plays, etc. They seem to buy in quite well, and frankly, that's enough for me for this audience.

For my upper level major course, they have to write an analysis for each chapter addressing 3 out of 5 prompts that all require deep application. They have to do it before we discuss the ch in class, which stresses many of them out bc they realize they have to Learn?? On their own?? Before I've explained the concepts?? Yes, that's what critical reading is for. I help them reframe that they don't have to understand everything in the ch, but they need to wrestle with at least 3 topics with sophistication- they can leave the part they're confused about alone for this paper and wait to hear another explanation in class. The critical component with this approach is that they must know their writings are both read And matter to the direction of class. So I either grade them directly and insert the best applications, questions, etc into class, or I use the peer grading and lead class discussion model. Everyone gets feedback on their writings and in total, these exercises matter as much as an exam. The upside is the students read, discussion is rich, and the class is a little different every semester because it takes the shape of the best ideas from the students' writings. The downside is this strategy is time-intensive for the instructor.

I'm not a fan of cold-calling to scare people into reading. If they have a ticket into class (like pre-writing or quizzing), you accomplish the same objective of preparedness, and then you can invite them into discussion with a very different class atmosphere that I find more conducive to learning. (Emma, we haven't heard much from you today. How did you analyze ___ in your paper?)

[mamselle]

My aesthetics prof's favorite thing to do, the day after a lecture on one writer, and the reading assignment on another writer, was to ask at the start of class, 'So, what would Wittgenstein have had to say to Tolstoy about the generation of art in culture? Would either of them have agreed with Nietzsche?"

Then he'd call on folks if no-one raised a hand.

That only happened once, on the first day of class....

M.

You may have had considerably brighter, more motivated, more artistic students than we have.

Our kids are very practical, not intellectual, and just looking for the job passport.  They do what they can to keep their GPAs up because it goes on their resumes, but that's the limit for most of them----exceptions noted of course.

It was a philosophy course, not many art students in it. More upper- than lower-class students (i.e., more Jrs/Srs than Frsh/Soph), at a large state university (OSU, c. 40,000 students at the time).

But it wasn't inconsistent with the first English lit class I took as a freshman, in which I ended up applying the theories in Aristotle's 《Poetics》to Oedipus Rex, and finding a double peripateia in the plot, for a final paper I began by being terrified of (instructor didn't "assign" the topic, but strongly encouraged it...) and ended up enjoying it once I hgot over the Activation Complex Energy hump of digging into the readings.

We were just expected to read and think about what we read, was all (in 1972, I believe that was)....

M.

[apl68]

I'm not a fan of cold-calling to scare people into reading. If they have a ticket into class (like pre-writing or quizzing), you accomplish the same objective of preparedness, and then you can invite them into discussion with a very different class atmosphere that I find more conducive to learning. (Emma, we haven't heard much from you today. How did you analyze ___ in your paper?)

I don't see anything at all unreasonable about expecting students to be normally well-prepared enough to face a cold-calling such as Hegemony describes.  I admire Hegemony's willingness to hold students' feet to the fire.  However, I can see such tactics backfiring with some student populations.  I guess a lot depends on an instructor's ability to read what it takes for a given class.