Blog Entry #6

This week’s readings in Teaching Tips and First Day to Final Grade talk about how teachers should cope with so-called “problem” students. Both books offer some helpful tips and, I think, draw useful distinctions between what teachers should do and should not do as they try to help students. Both books also remind teachers about maintaining professional distance from students, with First Day to Final Grade dispensing advice more appropriate for young graduate teaching assistants and Teaching Tips dispensing advice more appropriate for professional faculty members.

Problem students come in a variety. Teaching Tips describes types of problem students, such as “aggressive, challenging” students, “attention seekers,” and “the flatterer, disciple, con man (or woman).” First Day to Final Grade, on the other hand, describes students’ problems. I think Teaching Tips is more thorough in providing suggestions for dealing with some of these problems, but I prefer the way First Day to Final Grade frames the subject. By lumping problem students into categories, McKeatchie in Teaching Tips seems to view some students as problematic by nature, whereas Curzan and Damour in First Day to Final Grade view students as having some problematic behaviors. To me, it seems less intimidating (and less hopeless) to try and grapple with bad behaviors than with bad people.

As unlikely as it seems, given my years of teaching, I haven’t actually had to deal with that many problem students or student problems. As the director of a development media project in Africa for six years, I dealt with lots of problem employees and employee problems, but I just can’t recall having too much trouble with any of my students.

Actually, wait. When I was worked for Angola’s national oil company managing their training programs, I did deal with a number of problem students and student problems. I was not their teacher, though. But about 5% of the few hundred students I supported as they studied around the world had serious, chronic issues. There was the very sweet, bright Helizângera, who started developing paralyzing nodes around the upper part of her spine. Her paralysis caused her to miss so much school that she eventually had to leave the US and return to Angola. The good news is she was later cured in South Africa and completed her studies there. Then there was the angry, brooding Helder, who all his classes three semesters in a row and was kicked out of school. As a result, his student visa became invalid and he was forced to return to Angola. After he departed, I joined his landlord in checking out his apartment and we discovered he had micturated and defecated in the most inappropriate places. Anyway, back to the readings…

The Challenger

I agree with McKeatchie that dealing with students who like to challenge the teacher should be viewed as “teachable moments” and great opportunities for teachers to model constructive debate and discussion. He later mentions that new or insecure teachers might easily fall prey to “the flatterer,” but I think there is more danger of new or insecure teachers falling prey to the “challenger.” I see some of my younger TA colleagues at NDSU expressing real anger when they think they’re being challenged. Given their circumstances, I can understand why, but I actually rather enjoy being challenged, perhaps because I am a bit of a challenger myself. I think students should be encouraged to ask questions and provide answers, if they think they know more than the teacher does.

Curzan and Damour touch on this subject briefly in their section on problematic arguments. For whatever reason, students in their late teens and early twenties tend to have very strong opinions about things, but may not be able to support these opinions effectively with evidence. I agree that students’ faulty methods of argumentation, not the opinions, need to be the focus of teachers’ critique.

The Underprepared, the Unprepared and the Inattentive (a Sergio Leone film?)

Another problem student category McKeatchie talks about is the “underprepared” or “struggling” student. TA’s generally teach basic-level courses, so unless the university is admitting students unprepared for any post-secondary academic work, we are unlikely to face students who are totally underprepared for our courses. Students may find the course challenging and some may have certain traits that make our classes particularly difficult for them (e.g., a student may have high communication apprehension, which would make public speaking unpleasant), but there may not be much remediation that can be done in these instances. Nonetheless, I like the idea of making supplemental texts and materials available to students. These could be useful tools for the entire class, not just those who feel underprepared. I also liked the idea of creating a FAQ (frequently asked questions) document that could be provided to students. I’ll be teaching a mass media course next semester. Given the diversity at NDSU, I shouldn’t assume that all students have the same level of familiarity with the mass media. A FAQ and other tools could help address this.

The mass media course I’ll be teaching next semester normally has around 130 students in it. I assist the lecturer in this class this semester and I see lots of “inattentive students,” which make up another of McKeatchie’s categories. Almost without exception, these students sit in the back rows. I will not only try a seat rotation policy, as McKeatchie suggests, I will also ask students not to take a seat in a row unless all the seats in the row in front of it are filled. One additional benefit for me might be less straining of my voice. I don’t see why I should have to yell for 75 minutes just because some people like to sit as far from the teacher as physically possible and still be in the same room.

Inattentive students may also come to class unprepared. I agree with McKeatchie that students can prepare themselves better if they receive more guidance when assignments are made, instead of being told simply to “read the chapter” or “do the assignment.” I will try to give students questions to answer—not to answer formally or for a grade, but to guide their reading. Beyond that, I saw a great activity in Dr. Robert Littlefield’s Intercultural Communication course last week that is likely to motivate all students to come to class prepared. Students must first answer questions individually, then answer different questions in small groups. The small groups’ answers are then compared in class as a whole and differences are discussed and debated. Students’ individual question sets are graded, as are the group grades. So students are encouraged to do the readings in order to help themselves and their groups. Dr. Littlefield said there’s a lot of preparation required for these activities, so I doubt I’ll be able to do them every class session, as he does, but I intend to do this at least occasionally in my course next semester.

Taking Students at Their Word…

Living in Africa, I regularly encountered beggars on the street. To discourage me from giving, many of my African friends told me of elaborate deceptions that many “beggars” perpetrated in order to swindle people out of their money. I heard about little old ladies who drove luxury cars to their mansions after a long day of panhandling. While I’m sure that some of the beggars were probably capable of earning money in a more productive manner, I always gave because I felt I’d rather be swindled out of a few bucks than deny help to someone in desperate need. In other words, I agree with McKeatchie’s philosophy in dealing with students who have excuses/reasons for not getting work done, etc.

This is not to say that teachers should bend their rules and always give students extensions on assignments. But teachers should take students at their word in most situations. I thought the suggestion of discouraging procrastination by asking students to show progress on assignments was a good one. One of the COMM 110 teachers says students can’t sign up for speaking order until they show they’ve completed their outlines. Because students want to choose when they speak (they usually want to go last), they are incentivized to complete their outlines as early as possible.

“Why Must You Be Such an Angry Young, When Your Future Looks Quite Bright to Me?”

The last of McKeatchie’s problem student categories I’ll discuss is the “angry” student, the student who is openly hostile towards the teacher as an authority figure. I would probably try to ignore this student, which McKeatchie says is the most common strategy. However, if the hostility is disruptive to the class and the angry student is performing poorly, then the issue should be addressed.

Apart from listening to the student carefully and respectfully, McKeatchie offers three alternatives. Which alternative to pursue depends on why the student is angry. If the anger is due to disagreement over classroom material and opinions, then I think presenting the issue to the class could be helpful and could deliver what McKeatchie calls a “useful experience in thinking for everyone” (p. 185). But if the issues are more personal or over a grade, then I think the first alternative, which is to “state your position as calmly and rationally as you can, recognizing that not everyone will agree,” is the best (p. 185). Or, if you feel that the student may have a legitimate point, then the third alternative, which is to admit the possibility of error and that you will review and report back soon, is also appropriate.

“Don’t’ Stand So Close to Me”

First Day to Final Grade this week advised TA’s on how to interact with students. Much of the text was not so useful for me, in large part because as an older TA and a parent, I’m just not thinking about trying to date my students or be their friend. So for me there was no question about where to hold office hours, for example, or where to meet with students. At least in the communication department, TA’s have offices and we should meet with our students there. If a bit more privacy is warranted, we could meet with students up in the conference room of the department office. Meeting in coffee shops or other settings simply has too much potential to create misunderstanding.

Curzan and Damour admit as much by saying the only con to meeting in the office is that it may establish a more formal relationship with students than the TA wishes to have. At NDSU, where TA’s are in charge of their own classrooms, I think a formal relationship is what must be had. And as the book says, the tone TA’s take with students can do a lot more to establish the relationship they’d like with students than the setting in which they meet with students. Again, for me, the tone should be formal, but also congenial.

The same applies to e-mail correspondence with students. Curzan and Damour offer a couple of different suggestions for responding to an e-mail from a student in which the student says he had a migraine headache that kept him out of class one day. I think the sample informal response is inappropriate, especially the “I hate to think of you teetering on the edge of stroke-dome :-)” line. The formal response could certainly have included some additional niceties. For example, an “I’m sorry to hear that you suffer from migraines” or something along those lines would have made the response more compassionate, but the “stroke-dome” line is too familiar. And like the authors state on the following page, e-mail correspondence is a permanent record of a conversation. Emoticons and other informal usages could be misconstrued by someone else, like a department head or supervisor, who reads the message later.

Several pages in First Day to Final Grade tackle the issue of teacher-student fraternization. I can certainly imagine that if I were 24 years old or so and I had attractive students just a few years younger than I in my classes, it could be difficult not to want to befriend or date them, despite the warnings offered by Curzan and Damour. Years ago, before I got married, I had a brief affair with a co-worker. I wasn’t her direct supervisor, but I was above her in the hierarchy. Then my boss went on vacation and left me in charge. Unfortunately, while my boss was away, my paramour got into some kind of fight with her supervisor and the issue was brought to me to resolve. I wound up siding with the supervisor, which (as you might imagine) infuriated my paramour. Our romance soured and the professional relationship was destroyed. It was such a painful, uncomfortable experience that I knew I would never again become romantically involved with someone I wasn’t supposed to. I only hope that this kind of warning is enough to discourage my fellow TA’s. Too often, sadly, people don’t learn from models; they must experience ruin firsthand.

Cheaters!

We’ve talked about cheating and plagiarism before, but this week we see advice and specific dialogue options TA’s can use with their students. The most useful advice was to make assignments that can’t be plagiarized. For my mass media class next semester, for example, I may ask my students to write something about a commercial they see on TV. I might also ask them to complete short writing assignments in class, which at least would give me a look at their “real” writing styles and skills.

“How Could You Do This to Me?”

The section on dealing with complaints about grades offers specific suggestions for how to respond to students who are unhappy about a grade. Moreover, the section underscores the need to have clear grading standards and to share these standards with students. Without clear grading standards, classes are like games the students don’t know the rules to. I have developed detailed rubrics for my speech class and I’ve reviewed the rubrics with my students. TA’s that don’t have these are likely to find themselves in indefensible positions if challenged by students over a bad grade.

This website offers many more suggestions for dealing with students’ grade complaints. It provides links to sites that can help teachers develop good rubrics and assignment sheets. This site, meanwhile, links to a Word document that details suggestions for dealing with angry students.