Remedial courses

[chemigal]

I am so envious of the TV/film portrayals of college where the professor collects everyone's' cell phones and places them on his desk during class.

I offer a miniscule amount of extra credit if students put there phones on my desk when they come in.  It seems to work really well.  The students are delighted to get extra credit for "nothing" and I'm delighted that I don't have to deal with them.

[aside]

I am so envious of the TV/film portrayals of college where the professor collects everyone's' cell phones and places them on his desk during class.

I offer a miniscule amount of extra credit if students put there phones on my desk when they come in.  It seems to work really well.  The students are delighted to get extra credit for "nothing" and I'm delighted that I don't have to deal with them.

Interesting idea.  I tell the students to put their phones away, and they generally do.  If someone does not, I call them out and we move on.  Some days we get them out to do cool internet stuff as a class, so I don't want to ban them entirely.  If they don't have a phone (very rare at my institution, but it has happened), we work around that.  Have you had students complain that because they don't have a phone, they are not eligible for the extra credit?

[fleabite]

Again, thanks all, and thanks especially for the ongoing offers from several of ye to continue to ask questions as I wend my way through this actually rather new endeavour.  Now that I'm three weeks in, and have had some graded work to ponder as well, I can raise a few more points and questions, again in no particular order of importance... I have now seen the results of two written homeworks and one quiz, and several things are standing out.  First, the remedial nature of the class and why they're assigned to it, is sadly obvious.  Three students out of 9 passed the quiz, none with a grade higher than 74, and it just wasn't that hard.  Lack of study time may be the answer in aome cases, but methinks that ain't the big reason.  Indeed, despite the fact that the quiz was mostly on study skills, notetaking, reading context clues, and test taking strategies, they seemed not only not to have used these skills in studying, but in several cases not to have understood the points I was teaching about them.  This was a high school level assignment, but, recalling my own experiences teaching these things in high school, these kids are very much behind.  In some cases this is due to their limited English proficiency, and/or decidedly crappy high schools they've graduated from( all of these kids did attend hs in the U.S., but mostly in crappy inner city ones).  However, in an actual hs class, I would go over the thing tomorrow and requiz Thursday, but here I'm handicapped by the set syllabus I'm stuck with this semester, and will have to move on.  I don't like th is but don't have much of a choice, as I am expected to cover all these topics, use the inappropriate textbook as much as i can minimally justify (augmented by the right to pass out supplimentary photocopies), and use the assignment structure I inherited.  I will be able to make significant, perhaps wholesale, changes, for next semester, but I can't this one.  It's true that the kids clearly weren't putting in as much effort on their written hw last week as the should, but nonetheless I still have major concerns as to how well many of them were understanding it.  I can remediate some of this in class, and use carrot and stick approach somewhat, but I'm less sure about what to do about the nonnative speakers? . . .

Might it be possible to offer them the opportunity to retake the quiz to improve their grade? You could point out the fact that the skills tested will be essential for the rest of the course, and you want to give them another chance to learn the material. They may be more willing to study after tanking the first round.

[Aster]

I'm not allowed to ban phones. Our college has some sort of poorly articulated rule that a personal phone is a U.S. citizen's right to have on their person at all times. The rule exists in some magic place that we can never directly look up or locate. We are just told that we can't put anything on our syllabi that specifically bars phones.

I can only require that students not use them during class, and I can require that they put the phones on a silent mode. I can't even tell them to turn off the phones. Turning off the phone would restrict the student's "rights" to receiving real-time emergency notifications.

[kaysixteen]

I went over the quiz extensively in class today, but have to move on.  I am already a day behind in the syllabus and am stuck with doing the stuff on it, so I cannot justify moving further behind.

One thing became crystal clear today as well.  The two young men who sit in the first row, and have been chatty, are not being deliberately disruptive.  Both are native speakers of Spanish, whose written performance is actually comparatively strong, but when I wrote the hw assignment on the board, one of the young men was actually translating it into Spanish for the other.  Obviously I can't do that myself, and I don't know what if anything I should do about it.

[dr_codex]

I went over the quiz extensively in class today, but have to move on.  I am already a day behind in the syllabus and am stuck with doing the stuff on it, so I cannot justify moving further behind.

One thing became crystal clear today as well.  The two young men who sit in the first row, and have been chatty, are not being deliberately disruptive.  Both are native speakers of Spanish, whose written performance is actually comparatively strong, but when I wrote the hw assignment on the board, one of the young men was actually translating it into Spanish for the other.  Obviously I can't do that myself, and I don't know what if anything I should do about it.

This is what I was discussing, above. EFL students will use their own resources to cope. In an actual foreign language course, you could impose a "language of instruction only" rule, which I'd expect if I took a Spanish course. In a remedial reading course, you might be better off letting it go, at least for the instructions component. For comparison, would you cut off a student who was explaining an assignment to a classmate, in English? I do appreciate that it's a concern for a comprehension course, and a big flag about how well some students are able to process information in English, but I'd say pick your battles, unless you are going to implement a ban on other languages in the classroom.

[hungry_ghost]

I went over the quiz extensively in class today, but have to move on.  I am already a day behind in the syllabus and am stuck with doing the stuff on it, so I cannot justify moving further behind.

Can you include (possibly extra credit) review questions on future quizzes?
Or, allow them to do some kind of re-take to raise their grades?
The "raising grades" is the incentive. The goal is for them to learn that important material. 

And, whatever you do, tell them that over and over, sincerely: I want you to learn, I want you to do well, I want you to succeed.

[kaysixteen]

Well things continue to progress and now that I recognize the linguistic challenges, I can monitor the students to help try to ensure their ongoing comprehension.  I made a what I think is a very easy quiz for tomorrow, much easier than the first one, although it does require the students to have done a good job memorizing a lot of basic facts regarding reference books, how to read a dictionary article, how to scope out the main ideas of a passage, etc, all of which topics were given to me on the syllabus and all of which are indeed vital aspects of the skills needed for college reading success.  I have also discovered some excellent college reading textbooks which I can use for supplemental readings now and pne of which I will adopt as the main text for next semester.  So we'll see how it goes.

Now one more confession... I'm afraid of the potential consequences of negative student feedback or complaints, and of their ending up not being seen by my supervisor as not having adequately improved their performance on the diagnostic reading test when they retake it at the end of the semester.  My previous adjunct experiences, and indeed on 2 prior k12 ones as well, has engendered this, like it or not.  I do not know what to do about this.  But I cannot lie about its clear reality nonetheless.

[ciao_yall]

Well things continue to progress and now that I recognize the linguistic challenges, I can monitor the students to help try to ensure their ongoing comprehension.  I made a what I think is a very easy quiz for tomorrow, much easier than the first one, although it does require the students to have done a good job memorizing a lot of basic facts regarding reference books, how to read a dictionary article, how to scope out the main ideas of a passage, etc, all of which topics were given to me on the syllabus and all of which are indeed vital aspects of the skills needed for college reading success.  I have also discovered some excellent college reading textbooks which I can use for supplemental readings now and pne of which I will adopt as the main text for next semester.  So we'll see how it goes.

Now one more confession... I'm afraid of the potential consequences of negative student feedback or complaints, and of their ending up not being seen by my supervisor as not having adequately improved their performance on the diagnostic reading test when they retake it at the end of the semester.  My previous adjunct experiences, and indeed on 2 prior k12 ones as well, has engendered this, like it or not.  I do not know what to do about this.  But I cannot lie about its clear reality nonetheless.

Another thought is open-book, open-note quizzes that are low-stakes. Students who know the material have it easy. Students who at least know where to look or double-check their ideas are also going to be fine and build confidence.

[Caracal]

I'm not allowed to ban phones. Our college has some sort of poorly articulated rule that a personal phone is a U.S. citizen's right to have on their person at all times. The rule exists in some magic place that we can never directly look up or locate. We are just told that we can't put anything on our syllabi that specifically bars phones.

I can only require that students not use them during class, and I can require that they put the phones on a silent mode. I can't even tell them to turn off the phones. Turning off the phone would restrict the student's "rights" to receiving real-time emergency notifications.

I'm on your administration's side on this. It isn't reasonable to not allow phones at all in the classroom. Phones are a basic tool of modern life. It would  be like telling students they couldn't bring their wallet to class, or have it in their pocket. And nobody really turns off their phone anymore. This isn't really about addiction to technology, its just that it is inconvenient.

If my phone is on "do not disturb" while I teach, then I don't have to boot it up again afterwards. If my phone is off, anybody who calls will go to voicemail. If they don't leave a voicemail, I won't know they called, and if they do, I find that kind of stressful. Plus there is the emergency notifications issue along with personal emergencies. I have a young kid and my do not disturb is set so that if certain people call me multiple times it will buzz me and I'd be reachable if there was some emergency. I have students who have kids or are caregivers for other family members.

It is perfectly reasonable to ask that phones not be in use during class, or out on desks, but turning them off doesn't make much sense.

[kaysixteen]

I confess I have not been able this semester, and it's been a month now, to get the students to put away the damn phones.  After several classes where I told them to put em away, without really any success, i told them last Thursday that I wouldn't be saying that again, but I would simply give a zero for daily class participation grade to anyone I saw with phone out.  And this accomplished pretty much exactly nothing.  Several repeat offenders just brazenly have been keeping em out right on desk using them, literally right in front of my eyes.  If I do go through with the zero class participation marks, this would likely tank several of their ultimate course grades.  Thing is, despite the fact that I find this behavior very disrespectful.... Maybe i am just old..... But if I weren't genuinely afraid that those who are doing this will fail to learn the stuff they'll need not only to improve their scores on the reading test, but more bluntly just won't learn to read well enough to succeed in college (several clearly do not yet have those needed reading and stuxy skills, and this is a noncredit, high school level course) and I will have failed in my duties, whether or not I get blamed by my superiors.  Thus I remain perplexed and in a quandary....

Btw, what exactly is the pedagogical goal and likely useful assessment potential of an open-book, open-notes quiz?

[Caracal]

I confess I have not been able this semester, and it's been a month now, to get the students to put away the damn phones.  After several classes where I told them to put em away, without really any success, i told them last Thursday that I wouldn't be saying that again, but I would simply give a zero for daily class participation grade to anyone I saw with phone out.  And this accomplished pretty much exactly nothing.  Several repeat offenders just brazenly have been keeping em out right on desk using them, literally right in front of my eyes.  If I do go through with the zero class participation marks, this would likely tank several of their ultimate course grades.  Thing is, despite the fact that I find this behavior very disrespectful....

I go back and forth about the phones. Some days I think that plenty of students have always been disengaged, and the phones are just a visible manifestation of disengagement. The students who pay attention and contribute don't generally stare at their phones in the middle of the class, so maybe this is just one of those things that bothers me more because it wasn't a thing when I went to school.

Other times, it bugs me more because its so visible and that so many students seem to feel like going to class is basically like standing in line at Wendy's-a perfectly fine time to zone out on your phone. I don't buy into all of the doomsayers about screen time-perhaps because I'm a historian and people always say the same things about young people and their technologies. I dunno, maybe we are just in a transitional moment with smart phones where they've become ubiquitous but cultural norms around their use and abuse haven't fulled formed yet.

[ciao_yall]

Btw, what exactly is the pedagogical goal and likely useful assessment potential of an open-book, open-notes quiz?

IMHO a student either knows the material or they don't. They have read the book and know where to double-check a concept or they are scrambling through the glossary seeing if they can find the term.

So the open-book open-notes quiz lets it look more like a cooperative endeavor, with the students more relaxed about the assessment.

And you get to ask more complex questions that allow for critical thinking. Like "In Jane Eyre, compare Jane's experience at Thornfield Hall to the hero's narrative described on page 342 of the text."

[mamselle]

For the really obstreperous ones, it reinforces the basic actions of bring the right book to a class and opening it.

I always give open-book/open-notebook tests.

As noted above, it's only efficacious if they have organized their notes and notebooks (and I give a 5-point optional extra-credit opportunity to submit an organized notebook before the final, to be graded on completeness and any good ordering of the contents; the syllabus includes a page with suggestions for this). I maybe get 2 or 3 out of a class of 50 art history students;, so it's not an onerous addition to my work.

It also provides a sort of deniability for exam grades: you had this chance, and you didn't take it; your score reflects your engagement in the class and your attention to the details you were told about that could help you.

M.

[Aster]

I'm not allowed to ban phones. Our college has some sort of poorly articulated rule that a personal phone is a U.S. citizen's right to have on their person at all times. The rule exists in some magic place that we can never directly look up or locate. We are just told that we can't put anything on our syllabi that specifically bars phones.

I can only require that students not use them during class, and I can require that they put the phones on a silent mode. I can't even tell them to turn off the phones. Turning off the phone would restrict the student's "rights" to receiving real-time emergency notifications.

I'm on your administration's side on this. It isn't reasonable to not allow phones at all in the classroom. Phones are a basic tool of modern life. It would  be like telling students they couldn't bring their wallet to class, or have it in their pocket. And nobody really turns off their phone anymore. This isn't really about addiction to technology, its just that it is inconvenient.

If my phone is on "do not disturb" while I teach, then I don't have to boot it up again afterwards. If my phone is off, anybody who calls will go to voicemail. If they don't leave a voicemail, I won't know they called, and if they do, I find that kind of stressful. Plus there is the emergency notifications issue along with personal emergencies. I have a young kid and my do not disturb is set so that if certain people call me multiple times it will buzz me and I'd be reachable if there was some emergency. I have students who have kids or are caregivers for other family members.

It is perfectly reasonable to ask that phones not be in use during class, or out on desks, but turning them off doesn't make much sense.

And here we have a fundamental difference between the United States and the rest of the world. In other countries it's not only reasonable to bar phone use in certain public and private buildings, but its encouraged.

But in the U.S., access to cell phone signals seems more enshrined than the right to carry firearms.

Oh wait, I forgot that abuses with the latter are the primary reason that the U.S. feels it needs to mandate unrestricted access to the former. Ha that's right. Wow.