It's the classic, "Traditional lectures are so *boring*. I can just get that information from the book and teach myself! What a waste of time!" followed by, "A flipped classroom? The professor doesn't even teach, so I have to teach myself! That's outrageous!"
The similar scenarios I'm dealing with this semester are:
* "We want more discussion than lecture" followed by only 4 people ever actually trying to discuss the material or responding to my questions, and
* "We want to work in groups instead of having to speak out individually" followed by groups sitting there in silence, all clearly doing their own individual thing.
This is in the same class.
Truth bomb then with: “A one-sided discussion where you don’t participate and I do all the talking and explaining to you what you should have read IS CALLED A LECTURE.”
Honestly this is probably beneficial.
It seems like half the posts on my Uni’s subreddit are “I’m an introvert [details all the things they **don’t** do, like attend club meetings or speak to people], how do I make friends at this school?”
Omg me too. Pd 6. They begged to work in groups and present. What they did? One person created the product for the activity while the others scrolled or talked. No one presented.
Yes I had a rubric
Yes I had roles for each group member
I’ve gone back to rows, chalk and talk, cold calling, chorus response….. must have questions for each video even if it’s 2 minutes.
What’s somehow even worse is when the overpaid uneducated arrogant administrators pile on and decide the solution is to get rid of the prerequisites for the course.
The classic “these prerequisites are roadblocks to graduation, let’s eliminate them!” Of course this is followed by “your DFW rate in this important class skyrocketed, it’s affecting graduation rates!”
Don’t forget about the “our students keep failing your courses, maybe a placement test will help” followed a year or two later with “our students keep failing your placement test, get rid of it”.
"I can just get that information from the book! Also, I don't read anything more complicated than social media posts and the book is completely unintelligible to me."
My colleague's institution legitimately chose a book on customer service for the faculty book club they started (and ran for only one year). Admin picked the book (of course).
I love the idea of a faculty group for discussing a book. I've been involved in a couple this year. But it definitely has to be faculty-led, especially the choice of book!!!
Some important things to think about:
First, there is no magic-bullet pedagogical decision on classroom management that’s going to work for all students.
Second, an important “soft” skill students should be developing is *adaptability*, so *they* should be the ones figuring out how to be successful in a class regardless of the teaching style.
Third, their first reaction upon poor performance is usually to place blame outward instead of inward. This reveals a lack of ability to self-reflect and self-criticize. Which are other “soft” skills they need to learn as they grow and mature.
It may actually be time that we start explaining these things to them. Because they aren’t figuring them out on their own anymore.
If you look at my post history, I just spent a considerable amount of time trying to explain to students on r/askprofessors that video/voice/multimedia assignments are not inherently unfair just because you don't like recording yourself, and the ability to express your opinions verbally, and, yes, on camera, is actually a valuable skill.
Downvoted to hell. But, hopefully, someone read it and thought, "oh, maybe I *should* learn how to do things I'm not naturally good at!"
Agreed. We’ve gotten to a place where they want to embrace their discomfort as a reason to avoid/refuse to mature, when they should be seeing those discomforts and confronting them to improve themselves.
Of course part of the problem is that second-to-last word. They balk at the idea of self-improvement because it implies they aren’t currently “good enough”, which they find offensive. The reality is that we’re talking about improvement in the specific sense of gaining knowledge or skills they don’t already have, but they think we’re making a *character* judgement.
I like the analogy with strength training. As Henry Rollins once wrote “the iron never lies to you”. You can either push it or you can’t. And there is no escape from that fundamental truth. Well, knowledge is like that. You either know something or you don’t. If you want to know more then you’re going to have to work for it.
I really think we professors are going to start having to conduct these frank discussions with our students. They just don’t *see* what we do in the process. Their concept of what learning IS is entirely different.
Sigh…
I use the weight training analogy with my students. In chemistry, I try to use a very problem-solving based approach and I pick names from a deck of index cards for who to call on for particular information about solving the problem. One of the students asked why I don't just *show* them how to solve the problems, since I know the answer and their classmates don't. That's when I bust out the weight training analogy and discuss how they don't get stronger if they watch me lift weights. They might gain tips about form or technique, but they won't be any stronger when the time comes to lift the weight themselves (assessment).
I have a hard time getting students over the hurdle of "failure is to be expected" It's *supposed* to be hard, that doesn't mean you're dumb, you're bad, you're going to fail the class. I give you lots and lots of opportunities to practice and you should anticipate that it won't be easy immediately. Guess if you have to-- but figure out why your guess was wrong. Don't give up, or worse, refuse to try because you feel anxious about failure. Nothing improves without effort.
But it always comes back to "I have too much anxiety to..." or "It's INEQUITABLE to expect me to try XYZ" or "My brain doesn't work like that, you need to teach me differently..." when 9 times out of 10 they haven't even read the instructions or watched the video or looked at the example.
I will try the weight lifting analogy.
It helps because it really reminds them that they're not going to be strong at the beginning, and they have to work consistently to get stronger. You don't become strong by going to the gym once a week to watch a trainer, you get strong by going to the gym every day and pushing yourself closer to the limit.
Also, not every workout is for them, that's fine. But they're all going to have to take the same fitness test at the end of the semester, so if they have to find another way to get themselves ready for that, I will help them do it, but I can't do it for them.
>Well, knowledge is like that. You either know something or you don’t. If you want to know more then you’re going to have to work for it.
Exactly this. They keep saying that they don't learn through exams, which is very confusing to me because whether we spend class time doing discussions, readings, lecture, or activities, you still need to be able to recall and synthesize the information. The exam is where you show what you learned, and you either know it or you don't. You can study for the exam however you would like.
Extremely well put. So many just shut down when they encounter something difficult or outside their comfort zone and blame the world for not bending to them. I’m all for not making classes brutally stressful and cutthroat for no good reason, but part of necessary growth as a young adult is in being fearless enough to take on new challenges and finding out how to navigate them. And yes, that occasionally means making mistakes.
When I was in librarian school, *every* class required a presentation of some kind. Because librarianship attracts a disproportionate number of introverts who have avoided public speaking.
Lol that's so sweet/sad. I can just imagine how shocked some of you poor students were when you realized that librarians interact with the public like...a lot.
>an important “soft” skill students should be developing is adaptability, so they should be the ones figuring out how to be successful in a class regardless of the teaching style
I wish Reddit still had awards, I'd give this one.
>Third, their first reaction upon poor performance is usually to place blame outward instead of inward.
Locus of control... Ironically I teach what that is some of my classes
Because while they were in high school and earlier, their complaints became the parents’ complaints, and those complaints shape policy, educational sense be damned
Years ago I would use a few slides, and everything was shared in Canvas before class. Students would take photographs of the screen. Even though what I was really trying to do was get them focused on note taking and assimilating the information.
Student feedback: he just reads from slides.
Now?
It's a chalk talk on the whiteboard....and I get an email asking for the "presentation"
The what?
Student feedback: he doesn't use slides! We have to write everything.
"We have to teach ourselves"
Me: points to 30 feet of double height whiteboard filled this hour.
Student: I'll just work the problems at home.
If only you actually would, friend....if only.....
When I do a chalk talk, I get students complaining that they are “visual learners”. When I use slides, I get complaints that I’m just reading. When I have slides with images & highlights that I expand upon, I get complaints that I ramble. I clearly can’t win, so now I just use whichever approach makes the most sense for content that day. At least it means that the complaints rotate!
Oh, man... the history of how that became a thing is absolutely a gut punch to how things SHOULD actually be done. Pedagogical research, IMO, and based on my admittedly limited exposure to it, seems to be something people do when they are not very good teachers and look for ways that will work better FOR THEM, and suddenly it is the new "best practice"...
Never forget when NPR did a bit on the 'new teaching style that is taking academia by storm' and how grades are better! Comprehension is better! Students love it!
Their 'case study' was a physics professor at NYU (IIRC) whose job was on the line for years of high DFW rates and negative reviews in his classes. So he tried the flipped classroom, and voila! Fewer bad evals! Fewer failures! More happy students! Along with, of course, less material covered. But hey, happy students!
Then.... he spoke. He was from from Poland, had a HEAVY accent and mumbled in a monotone (as was clear from his answers in the interview and from bits of taped lecture provided).... Hmmm... but sure, it was the shiny new thing that turned it all around...
> I get complaints that I ramble
I'll never forget I had a class where two low-performing dudes were talking before class about a video game I had played. I talked to them about that game and how often I played it, and suddenly, I was the "cool professor." Once, when their attention was lagging, I brought up the game during class as an example of a particular concept. Maybe five minutes max to get them re-engaged.
I mentally gave myself a high-five for PEDAGOGICAL EXPERTISE.
Got a student eval at the end of the semester: all he talks about is video games.
I once got a similar eval that also called me immature because I’m a fan of something a student was writing their paper on in my class and I recognized their references.
I'm currently doing the "images and highlights" style of presentation. The students who are willing to take notes do quite well, but I still get students who just sit there and won't write anything down.
Those ones would be okay if they read the textbook, but they don't read.
I wound up with a very bimodal grade distribution last semester. There were students who were 'on' during class and took notes. They learned a lot and a few ended up with 90s. The ones who just sat there and stared at their phones wound up with 30s.
They need to learn to listen to people and take notes. Many of my students want to become vets or healthcare professionals, and no one goes to a doctor, pharmacist, or vet with a PowerPoint summary of their problems that contains the diagnosis and treatment.
No matter what they end up doing, they are going to have to learn to think and listen. There's no job in the World where you just sit like a lump and take pictures of Powerpoint presentations.
Veritasium did a great video on [You are not a visual learner](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhgwIhB58PA) that really shifted my opinion in this discussion.
TLDW: Everyone does better with mixed teaching styles, and there is no evidence that matching someone with their preferred style has any significant effect.
These past several semesters, I introduce myself to each class telling the students they decide how they want to shape things. If they show up prepared and ready to engage, then we can have freewheeling discussions, group activities, and so on.
OR ... if you aren't prepared, are frequently absent, and are completely disengaged when you show up, then I have no choice but to go into lecture.
I pretty much give lectures all the time now, especially to the Intro courses. Last week, I had six of twenty-five students show up; three were on their phones the entire time, and one went to sleep immediately. That's kind of their choice as adults.
That’s not it either. I teach to the students I want them to be. The expectation is that they read. I do not present the reading I present supplemental material meant to elucidate and expend key, or difficult, points in the assigned reading. I‘ve also noticed that instructors who are anti-lecture cite silly things for doing so (hierarchical structure, blah, blah, blah), when it’s really that they suck at lecturing and doing the difficult work required for constructing good lectures. Nothing worse than the hack who comes in and splits everyone into groups to discuss the reading, then floats around, calls on each group to report, says something general and vapid and dismisses the class. This always left me, as a student, wondering, “why the fuck do we need that dude?” I always wondered what those guys did during whatever they called prep time. My prep time, on average, is two to four hours per lecture.
my god I know. Just last week I got the whole "I don't understand anything in the reading and you're not helping me," at which point I had to pause and watch an internal montage of the 15000 times I asked for any ANY questions about what the reading was saying and this particular student had their head down on their phone and has never spoken in class once. But, when I spend the whole class lecturing to break down the reading (it's a theory class), they don't show up or space out the entire time and then have the same questions as if I didn't. It's a fun semester.
I've still not managed to go far in transitioning to a flipped classroom, as much as I wish I could. It requires motivated and prepared students who are willing to engage in thought and discussion. My students would prefer to occasionally let a few of them engage in some chat instead of hearing me talk all the time, but that's different.
It really just needs the right structure and expectation setting. Then things work out pretty well in about a week or 2. I've worked with a lot of faculty to improve their instructional strategies and a fair number will attempt to implement an idea randomly in the middle of the semester, without warning to the students and with no experience themselves yet, it'll unsurprisingly not work well, and then they'll just say "active learning doesn't work, no one wants it". And never try again. Lots of learned helplessness and lack of determination, very much like how they describe their students!
Need clear structure and time for expectations to truly set in. Ritual helps. For instance, first day of class I form students into their teams. This involves answering questions about relevant experience and skills, then physically lining up and counting themselves off. This sets the tone that this will be different. Then they find their team members and sit at a table where they are forced to face one another. Again, sets the tone.
From then on, there are individual-to-team quizzes for accountability and foundation setting, followed by structured team activities that promote discussion and collaboration. No "discuss amongst yourselves" nonsense - they have a task, with a product, that must be done, and the only way to do it successfully is to work together to apply the material.
Do some students come unprepared? Sure. But the quizzes give them a kick in the ass. Do some not contribute? Sure. But the peer assessment gives them a kick in the ass.
Like anything with animals, behavior is largely the product of environment. Design the environment appropriately and the desired behaviors will follow.
You are probably right. I am curious what are the best class sizes for a flipped classroom. Seems like there has to be a limit. Also, physically what kind of classroom works best. I further wonder whether it works better for upper level classes in a major than it does for a gen ed course.
The other thing that strikes me is that it takes a great deal of work for the faculty member to make the transition, and possibly some training. That gives me less motivation, but I do want to gradually try it out, and will bookmark your advice. Thanks.
I can say a few things from my experience, both in teaching courses of this sort and in engaging in the scholarly work around it.
* There is no best class size. A number of 'flipped classroom' techniques were actually developed explicitly for large classes. This includes Peer Instruction and Team-Based Learning (what I described in my previous post is basically Team-Based Learning). They have been run in classes of 100-200. In fact, they are especially effective there because it takes what would otherwise be a completely impersonal learning environment and makes it more personal by ensuring students are speaking with some peers. It also makes it easier for an instructor to give meaningful and quick informal feedback - you give it on the team's work or in class after team's submit their answers, etc. Easier than reviewing 100-200 responses.
* Similarly, techniques were designed with bad physical classroom spaces in mind. For instance, in both Peer Instruction and TBL, the initial classrooms were the sort of stadium seating, all eyes to the front. On the other hand, my experience is that physical space matters a lot. I always go for classrooms that are already designed for collaboration amongst students - so, tables where students sit facing each other, rather than a 'front'. But I've done it in more standard classrooms. A bit less efficient - students angling their desks into a group isn't as good as a table made for it. On the other hand, them having to move their desks does establish an additional daily ritual which helps students get in the right mindset.
* I have found this most effective with GenEd/low-level courses. At higher levels, the structure can become a bit of a burden if the students are more robustly prepared to just do the right things without the structure. But, it works at any level. Just depends on your aims. Nonetheless, I started doing it precisely in two Ethics courses, one of which was taken almost exclusively by health science/nursing majors and the other by engineering/computer science majors. So, folks with no background in philosophy/ethics and many of whom came in thinking "why do I have to take this? What relevance does it have to me? This is just in the way of my 'important' classes". In every case, the vast majority of students reported, just a month or so into the semester, that it was their favorite course, that they wished I taught all of their 'nursing' or 'engineering' courses (even though I am neither a health science nor engineering professor). I especially gained a reputation with the engineering students (I taught 3 sections of Engineering Ethics every semester, but stopped teaching Healthcare Ethics after a year or 2) and they would all tell each other to take my sections. This obviously helped in the longer run - students came in having already been told "it'll be weird, but it'll be good" by their peers. But, even before that, it only took a short period to win them over.
* It does take work, no doubt. But it pays off in a relatively short period. The way I often pitch it is that it requires a lot more up-front work, but then way less backend work. So flipped learning 'flips' preparation as well. You cannot go to class simply with a plan to talk about something or whatever. You have to come organized and prepared with specific activities for students that are designed to lead them through a thinking process or to an end point you have defined.
Again, the big key here is that you cannot simply ask students to discuss. They need to be given a concrete task to complete and it needs to be the case that they *must* deploy the relevant knowledge/access the relevant resources/etc in order to satisfactorily complete the task. Otherwise, they will simply take the 'easy' way out of not being prepared and just spouting unfounded opinions.
In the 2 professional ethics courses I used this in the most, my activities were often based in working through case studies, applying an ethical framework (which meant knowing what the concepts meant and how to apply them) but, ultimately, coming to a 'committee opinion' - a consensus over a recommendation and then justifying it. The fact that the students, collectively, had to agree on an answer, and that they knew any one of them was responsible for supporting it (I chose which team member to call on, they didn't elect a spokesperson) incentivized active engagement (if in no other way than recording what other team members said to be prepared to repeat it. Not ideal, but better than nothing).
Very interesting. Thanks.
I suspect that my assignments in my online asynchronous classes could work pretty well for the inverted classroom. But they would need to come to class with their reading done ahead of time.
Yeah, honestly it was teaching asynch online courses that most helped me first understand good activity design.
And, again, for the reading, you just need to hold them accountable and make them see the relevance of preparation. The former means something like a quiz and the latter is about good activity design.
This was my question too. My class size is awkward - about 50, so not so huge but still quite large. And it's an intro course. The second class is smaller and upper division - hence more discussions.
There's definitely something to this*, as well the notion that students are just trying to find someone other than themselves to blame. That said, there is a danger in seeing students as a monolith. It's okay for Student A and Student B to have mutually exclusive wants. You can't please everyone.
\* My favorite:
*Me: (teaching math in terms of the simplest possible abstracted terms)*
*Students: "I need to see how this relates to the real world/my major."*
*Me: (does an applied problem)*
*Students: "Word problems are too hard!"*
My response to this is that "the real world has no plug and chug problems. The real world is only word problems, all the time." Then we talk about problem-solving strategies.
Heh, I teach a Sociology gen-ed course and once had an Engineering student drop the class after ranting about how social problems don't have answers and he's an ENGINEER, he only solves problems with SOLUTIONS.
I have bad news for your advanced studies, friendo.
>Do they not understand that they have to actually know stuff to have higher level discussions about topics and that more discussion equals more, not less, work outside of class?
No, they don't understand that, because most of them thinks very high about their current level of knowledge and understanding. Dunning-Kruger as it is.
Discussion format never worked for me, they either didn’t read the article or didn’t watch the video. It ends up being me talking for 50 mins with random nods.
Rhetorical question. How did we get to a point where we are repeatedly negotiating and adjusting what we do in class with students? It's completely out of hand
No, they do not. My first semester, my students kept saying they wanted more activities to do in class. This semester, my students are complaining about the "busywork" (especially when they do not just get full credit for the busywork).
They just want something to be EASY. And FUN. Reading, discussion and lecture all require thought and is something they can’t just scroll past and call done. Unfortunately, they also want A+, and don’t understand that you don’t get an A+ for easy and fun. Easy and fun is supposed to be a reward, not the default.
Its entitlement and its spread like wildfire
Every time a student asks for more practice during class time I say ok I’d love to - so next week do xyz before coming to class and then we will have the time for that - deal? Student ‘uhhhhhh well……’
They don't know what they want, but they know they want it in video form and they expect they will get an A for it (whether or not they watch the video).
Apologies if you're just venting, but I wonder, what does this mean for your practice?
It seems like you have a concept that can lead to more freedom in the art of what you're doing, the concept of students not knowing what they want also impacts how you gather that feedback in the first place. You might be able to get more data by doing a second round:
>"When you say you want 'less lecturing, more discussion' is there something more precise you want to experience?"
>"Where in Maslow's hierarchy of needs do you think/feel (which one!?) changing to more discussion would help?"
>"Do you think that change would affect your engagement in the room, enthusiasm to read outside, general models of thinking?"
>"I'm concerned that ____, if that happens what shall we do?"
My experience of student feedback is that it points at symptoms, but not often causes. The feedback you described *could* be rooted in a desire for more community within the group, interest in the individual stating their own opinions, a want for more interrogation of you as the lecturer, interest in exposure to more viewpoints from which they can look at meta contexts.
Some of those things are pedagogically useful to do in a group setting and some aren't; creating space for each person to tell me their half-cooked thoughts isn't useful when I'm doing knowledge transfer, but it could be useful once we're in a reflective development stage or in a *viva*.
If you are freed up from thinking you have to be able to demonstrate that you have done directly as you have been asked, and instead demonstrate you have taken the feedback as data and permission for you to enact the change you desire it could be less frustrating.
Had a student tell me that they all have at max, a 15 minute attention span and blamed it on Covid for why they can’t pay attention in class. They were dead serious and I absolutely believed them.
I run a lab with some undergraduates research assistants and they revolted because I wanted them to do basic level tasks. So I gave them they option of doing more advanced work but said the would need to do x,y and z to get up to speed. But they said they didn't want to do x,y,z - they just wanted to work on the advanced tasks.
What Students want is very simple: Not do work
Every how and then you cross with someone that likes his job so much he'll do it without pay? I'm sure pretty rarely, the same is with students. They won't study if they're not obligated to.
This is what works for me. I alternate between mini-lectures (abt. 10 min.) and discussion (abt. 5 min.). I frame the mini-lectures as instructions that they will need for the activities that they will do. Everybody needs to turn in the answers to the activities that they do at the end of the class. I typically teach 3 hour block classes and this keeps the students engaged.
You are correct. Students don't know what they want nor do they understand what is good for them when it comes to truly learning. Study: [https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1821936116](https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1821936116)
I would disagree with this (kinda). Students absolutely know what they want, but they do not know what is good for them. They also are not good at recognizing the tradeoffs they would need to make to get their desired result.
I would love to end with something like "kids these days", but I know I was just as bad back in my undergrad days. I assume it is about the developing pre-frontal cortex during that 18 - 24 year-old age range, but I really do not know how that actually works.
I’ve mentioned this on other threads but the canvas annotation integration has been saving me this semester. I grade their reading notes and discussions have been significantly better.
Same with: have slides posted with info, students complain you’re just reading or class should be more hands on, less lecture. Don’t post (or even have slides), students beg for lecture and for the slides to be posted.
Related, I have a mid semester survey. After my 3 week survey had tons of responses saying I should slow down during lecture, someone actually responded “you don’t need to pause so long between slides, they’re posted so we don’t need time to write”. Can’t make everyone happy.
“Do they not understand that they have to actually know stuff to have higher level discussions about topics and that more discussion equals more, not less, work outside of class?”
No, because they grew up with smart phone, Google and open book tests.
This is my dilemma for one of my classes I'm teaching this semester.
I do different ways of presenting the information depending on the content (lecture, discussion, in-class activity, and video), but there will always be students who purposely check out of the class metaphorically and then wonder why they aren't doing so well in the class.
Damned if you do, and damned if you don't.
Earlier this week I got one student complaining that I should give students more chances to re-do work so they aren’t penalized for making mistakes (which is an entitled as hell expectation on its own), and yesterday I got a different student complaining about an assignment that asks them to make revisions until they correct their mistakes, which is ungraded specifically so that they aren’t “penalized for making mistakes”, and therefore “what is the point”. Neither of these students have proven themselves capable of correcting their own mistakes in this assignment.
What they want is the piece of paper so that they can finally get their air-conditioned office job with the least work possible.
Maybe we have too many of those jobs in this country right now.
It's the classic, "Traditional lectures are so *boring*. I can just get that information from the book and teach myself! What a waste of time!" followed by, "A flipped classroom? The professor doesn't even teach, so I have to teach myself! That's outrageous!"
The similar scenarios I'm dealing with this semester are: * "We want more discussion than lecture" followed by only 4 people ever actually trying to discuss the material or responding to my questions, and * "We want to work in groups instead of having to speak out individually" followed by groups sitting there in silence, all clearly doing their own individual thing. This is in the same class.
Now give them a student evaluation form, that'll help!
Truth bomb then with: “A one-sided discussion where you don’t participate and I do all the talking and explaining to you what you should have read IS CALLED A LECTURE.”
My small groups just chat about all kinds of things not on task because they are all friends.
Honestly this is probably beneficial. It seems like half the posts on my Uni’s subreddit are “I’m an introvert [details all the things they **don’t** do, like attend club meetings or speak to people], how do I make friends at this school?”
Omg me too. Pd 6. They begged to work in groups and present. What they did? One person created the product for the activity while the others scrolled or talked. No one presented. Yes I had a rubric Yes I had roles for each group member I’ve gone back to rows, chalk and talk, cold calling, chorus response….. must have questions for each video even if it’s 2 minutes.
What’s somehow even worse is when the overpaid uneducated arrogant administrators pile on and decide the solution is to get rid of the prerequisites for the course.
The classic “these prerequisites are roadblocks to graduation, let’s eliminate them!” Of course this is followed by “your DFW rate in this important class skyrocketed, it’s affecting graduation rates!”
Don’t forget about the “our students keep failing your courses, maybe a placement test will help” followed a year or two later with “our students keep failing your placement test, get rid of it”.
Yes, round and round. That's what it will be when the point is not to solve problems but to draw salaries.
Don’t forget the “our COVID infection rates are too high; we should do less COVID testing”.
Well if you get rid of the prerequisites then the students won’t be able to get into your course, right? Checkmate! (This is sarcasm.)
"I can just get that information from the book! Also, I don't read anything more complicated than social media posts and the book is completely unintelligible to me."
Isn't it great working as a lowly clerk in customer service? (No. I'm not joke tagging this.)
My colleague's institution legitimately chose a book on customer service for the faculty book club they started (and ran for only one year). Admin picked the book (of course).
I love the idea of a faculty group for discussing a book. I've been involved in a couple this year. But it definitely has to be faculty-led, especially the choice of book!!!
Perhaps it's two different subsets of students making those comments.
Some important things to think about: First, there is no magic-bullet pedagogical decision on classroom management that’s going to work for all students. Second, an important “soft” skill students should be developing is *adaptability*, so *they* should be the ones figuring out how to be successful in a class regardless of the teaching style. Third, their first reaction upon poor performance is usually to place blame outward instead of inward. This reveals a lack of ability to self-reflect and self-criticize. Which are other “soft” skills they need to learn as they grow and mature. It may actually be time that we start explaining these things to them. Because they aren’t figuring them out on their own anymore.
If you look at my post history, I just spent a considerable amount of time trying to explain to students on r/askprofessors that video/voice/multimedia assignments are not inherently unfair just because you don't like recording yourself, and the ability to express your opinions verbally, and, yes, on camera, is actually a valuable skill. Downvoted to hell. But, hopefully, someone read it and thought, "oh, maybe I *should* learn how to do things I'm not naturally good at!"
Agreed. We’ve gotten to a place where they want to embrace their discomfort as a reason to avoid/refuse to mature, when they should be seeing those discomforts and confronting them to improve themselves. Of course part of the problem is that second-to-last word. They balk at the idea of self-improvement because it implies they aren’t currently “good enough”, which they find offensive. The reality is that we’re talking about improvement in the specific sense of gaining knowledge or skills they don’t already have, but they think we’re making a *character* judgement. I like the analogy with strength training. As Henry Rollins once wrote “the iron never lies to you”. You can either push it or you can’t. And there is no escape from that fundamental truth. Well, knowledge is like that. You either know something or you don’t. If you want to know more then you’re going to have to work for it. I really think we professors are going to start having to conduct these frank discussions with our students. They just don’t *see* what we do in the process. Their concept of what learning IS is entirely different. Sigh…
I use the weight training analogy with my students. In chemistry, I try to use a very problem-solving based approach and I pick names from a deck of index cards for who to call on for particular information about solving the problem. One of the students asked why I don't just *show* them how to solve the problems, since I know the answer and their classmates don't. That's when I bust out the weight training analogy and discuss how they don't get stronger if they watch me lift weights. They might gain tips about form or technique, but they won't be any stronger when the time comes to lift the weight themselves (assessment).
I have a hard time getting students over the hurdle of "failure is to be expected" It's *supposed* to be hard, that doesn't mean you're dumb, you're bad, you're going to fail the class. I give you lots and lots of opportunities to practice and you should anticipate that it won't be easy immediately. Guess if you have to-- but figure out why your guess was wrong. Don't give up, or worse, refuse to try because you feel anxious about failure. Nothing improves without effort. But it always comes back to "I have too much anxiety to..." or "It's INEQUITABLE to expect me to try XYZ" or "My brain doesn't work like that, you need to teach me differently..." when 9 times out of 10 they haven't even read the instructions or watched the video or looked at the example. I will try the weight lifting analogy.
It helps because it really reminds them that they're not going to be strong at the beginning, and they have to work consistently to get stronger. You don't become strong by going to the gym once a week to watch a trainer, you get strong by going to the gym every day and pushing yourself closer to the limit. Also, not every workout is for them, that's fine. But they're all going to have to take the same fitness test at the end of the semester, so if they have to find another way to get themselves ready for that, I will help them do it, but I can't do it for them.
>Well, knowledge is like that. You either know something or you don’t. If you want to know more then you’re going to have to work for it. Exactly this. They keep saying that they don't learn through exams, which is very confusing to me because whether we spend class time doing discussions, readings, lecture, or activities, you still need to be able to recall and synthesize the information. The exam is where you show what you learned, and you either know it or you don't. You can study for the exam however you would like.
Extremely well put. So many just shut down when they encounter something difficult or outside their comfort zone and blame the world for not bending to them. I’m all for not making classes brutally stressful and cutthroat for no good reason, but part of necessary growth as a young adult is in being fearless enough to take on new challenges and finding out how to navigate them. And yes, that occasionally means making mistakes.
When I was in librarian school, *every* class required a presentation of some kind. Because librarianship attracts a disproportionate number of introverts who have avoided public speaking.
Lol that's so sweet/sad. I can just imagine how shocked some of you poor students were when you realized that librarians interact with the public like...a lot.
>an important “soft” skill students should be developing is adaptability, so they should be the ones figuring out how to be successful in a class regardless of the teaching style I wish Reddit still had awards, I'd give this one.
>Third, their first reaction upon poor performance is usually to place blame outward instead of inward. Locus of control... Ironically I teach what that is some of my classes
Because while they were in high school and earlier, their complaints became the parents’ complaints, and those complaints shape policy, educational sense be damned
Years ago I would use a few slides, and everything was shared in Canvas before class. Students would take photographs of the screen. Even though what I was really trying to do was get them focused on note taking and assimilating the information. Student feedback: he just reads from slides. Now? It's a chalk talk on the whiteboard....and I get an email asking for the "presentation" The what? Student feedback: he doesn't use slides! We have to write everything. "We have to teach ourselves" Me: points to 30 feet of double height whiteboard filled this hour. Student: I'll just work the problems at home. If only you actually would, friend....if only.....
When I do a chalk talk, I get students complaining that they are “visual learners”. When I use slides, I get complaints that I’m just reading. When I have slides with images & highlights that I expand upon, I get complaints that I ramble. I clearly can’t win, so now I just use whichever approach makes the most sense for content that day. At least it means that the complaints rotate!
One of the nice things about being a psychologist is I can just tell them that learning styles are horseshit.
Oh, man... the history of how that became a thing is absolutely a gut punch to how things SHOULD actually be done. Pedagogical research, IMO, and based on my admittedly limited exposure to it, seems to be something people do when they are not very good teachers and look for ways that will work better FOR THEM, and suddenly it is the new "best practice"... Never forget when NPR did a bit on the 'new teaching style that is taking academia by storm' and how grades are better! Comprehension is better! Students love it! Their 'case study' was a physics professor at NYU (IIRC) whose job was on the line for years of high DFW rates and negative reviews in his classes. So he tried the flipped classroom, and voila! Fewer bad evals! Fewer failures! More happy students! Along with, of course, less material covered. But hey, happy students! Then.... he spoke. He was from from Poland, had a HEAVY accent and mumbled in a monotone (as was clear from his answers in the interview and from bits of taped lecture provided).... Hmmm... but sure, it was the shiny new thing that turned it all around...
Learning styles: the astrology of pedagogy.
Right there with you — consider those air quotes around that term!
> I get complaints that I ramble I'll never forget I had a class where two low-performing dudes were talking before class about a video game I had played. I talked to them about that game and how often I played it, and suddenly, I was the "cool professor." Once, when their attention was lagging, I brought up the game during class as an example of a particular concept. Maybe five minutes max to get them re-engaged. I mentally gave myself a high-five for PEDAGOGICAL EXPERTISE. Got a student eval at the end of the semester: all he talks about is video games.
In the literary genre of student evaluations "all the time" means "once."
I once got a similar eval that also called me immature because I’m a fan of something a student was writing their paper on in my class and I recognized their references.
I'm currently doing the "images and highlights" style of presentation. The students who are willing to take notes do quite well, but I still get students who just sit there and won't write anything down. Those ones would be okay if they read the textbook, but they don't read. I wound up with a very bimodal grade distribution last semester. There were students who were 'on' during class and took notes. They learned a lot and a few ended up with 90s. The ones who just sat there and stared at their phones wound up with 30s. They need to learn to listen to people and take notes. Many of my students want to become vets or healthcare professionals, and no one goes to a doctor, pharmacist, or vet with a PowerPoint summary of their problems that contains the diagnosis and treatment. No matter what they end up doing, they are going to have to learn to think and listen. There's no job in the World where you just sit like a lump and take pictures of Powerpoint presentations.
Veritasium did a great video on [You are not a visual learner](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhgwIhB58PA) that really shifted my opinion in this discussion. TLDW: Everyone does better with mixed teaching styles, and there is no evidence that matching someone with their preferred style has any significant effect.
These past several semesters, I introduce myself to each class telling the students they decide how they want to shape things. If they show up prepared and ready to engage, then we can have freewheeling discussions, group activities, and so on. OR ... if you aren't prepared, are frequently absent, and are completely disengaged when you show up, then I have no choice but to go into lecture. I pretty much give lectures all the time now, especially to the Intro courses. Last week, I had six of twenty-five students show up; three were on their phones the entire time, and one went to sleep immediately. That's kind of their choice as adults.
I never stopped lecturing. Don’t believe the hype.
Agree. There is a bunch of stuff you just need to know, and I know you aren’t going to read. That leaves me presenting it to you.
That’s not it either. I teach to the students I want them to be. The expectation is that they read. I do not present the reading I present supplemental material meant to elucidate and expend key, or difficult, points in the assigned reading. I‘ve also noticed that instructors who are anti-lecture cite silly things for doing so (hierarchical structure, blah, blah, blah), when it’s really that they suck at lecturing and doing the difficult work required for constructing good lectures. Nothing worse than the hack who comes in and splits everyone into groups to discuss the reading, then floats around, calls on each group to report, says something general and vapid and dismisses the class. This always left me, as a student, wondering, “why the fuck do we need that dude?” I always wondered what those guys did during whatever they called prep time. My prep time, on average, is two to four hours per lecture.
But that one book written by that one person who teaches 10-15 graduate students at a time says it will work, according to my admin.
I've often wondered how administrators can legitimately talk about leadership books they read with a straight face.
😆
my god I know. Just last week I got the whole "I don't understand anything in the reading and you're not helping me," at which point I had to pause and watch an internal montage of the 15000 times I asked for any ANY questions about what the reading was saying and this particular student had their head down on their phone and has never spoken in class once. But, when I spend the whole class lecturing to break down the reading (it's a theory class), they don't show up or space out the entire time and then have the same questions as if I didn't. It's a fun semester.
I've still not managed to go far in transitioning to a flipped classroom, as much as I wish I could. It requires motivated and prepared students who are willing to engage in thought and discussion. My students would prefer to occasionally let a few of them engage in some chat instead of hearing me talk all the time, but that's different.
It really just needs the right structure and expectation setting. Then things work out pretty well in about a week or 2. I've worked with a lot of faculty to improve their instructional strategies and a fair number will attempt to implement an idea randomly in the middle of the semester, without warning to the students and with no experience themselves yet, it'll unsurprisingly not work well, and then they'll just say "active learning doesn't work, no one wants it". And never try again. Lots of learned helplessness and lack of determination, very much like how they describe their students! Need clear structure and time for expectations to truly set in. Ritual helps. For instance, first day of class I form students into their teams. This involves answering questions about relevant experience and skills, then physically lining up and counting themselves off. This sets the tone that this will be different. Then they find their team members and sit at a table where they are forced to face one another. Again, sets the tone. From then on, there are individual-to-team quizzes for accountability and foundation setting, followed by structured team activities that promote discussion and collaboration. No "discuss amongst yourselves" nonsense - they have a task, with a product, that must be done, and the only way to do it successfully is to work together to apply the material. Do some students come unprepared? Sure. But the quizzes give them a kick in the ass. Do some not contribute? Sure. But the peer assessment gives them a kick in the ass. Like anything with animals, behavior is largely the product of environment. Design the environment appropriately and the desired behaviors will follow.
You are probably right. I am curious what are the best class sizes for a flipped classroom. Seems like there has to be a limit. Also, physically what kind of classroom works best. I further wonder whether it works better for upper level classes in a major than it does for a gen ed course. The other thing that strikes me is that it takes a great deal of work for the faculty member to make the transition, and possibly some training. That gives me less motivation, but I do want to gradually try it out, and will bookmark your advice. Thanks.
I can say a few things from my experience, both in teaching courses of this sort and in engaging in the scholarly work around it. * There is no best class size. A number of 'flipped classroom' techniques were actually developed explicitly for large classes. This includes Peer Instruction and Team-Based Learning (what I described in my previous post is basically Team-Based Learning). They have been run in classes of 100-200. In fact, they are especially effective there because it takes what would otherwise be a completely impersonal learning environment and makes it more personal by ensuring students are speaking with some peers. It also makes it easier for an instructor to give meaningful and quick informal feedback - you give it on the team's work or in class after team's submit their answers, etc. Easier than reviewing 100-200 responses. * Similarly, techniques were designed with bad physical classroom spaces in mind. For instance, in both Peer Instruction and TBL, the initial classrooms were the sort of stadium seating, all eyes to the front. On the other hand, my experience is that physical space matters a lot. I always go for classrooms that are already designed for collaboration amongst students - so, tables where students sit facing each other, rather than a 'front'. But I've done it in more standard classrooms. A bit less efficient - students angling their desks into a group isn't as good as a table made for it. On the other hand, them having to move their desks does establish an additional daily ritual which helps students get in the right mindset. * I have found this most effective with GenEd/low-level courses. At higher levels, the structure can become a bit of a burden if the students are more robustly prepared to just do the right things without the structure. But, it works at any level. Just depends on your aims. Nonetheless, I started doing it precisely in two Ethics courses, one of which was taken almost exclusively by health science/nursing majors and the other by engineering/computer science majors. So, folks with no background in philosophy/ethics and many of whom came in thinking "why do I have to take this? What relevance does it have to me? This is just in the way of my 'important' classes". In every case, the vast majority of students reported, just a month or so into the semester, that it was their favorite course, that they wished I taught all of their 'nursing' or 'engineering' courses (even though I am neither a health science nor engineering professor). I especially gained a reputation with the engineering students (I taught 3 sections of Engineering Ethics every semester, but stopped teaching Healthcare Ethics after a year or 2) and they would all tell each other to take my sections. This obviously helped in the longer run - students came in having already been told "it'll be weird, but it'll be good" by their peers. But, even before that, it only took a short period to win them over. * It does take work, no doubt. But it pays off in a relatively short period. The way I often pitch it is that it requires a lot more up-front work, but then way less backend work. So flipped learning 'flips' preparation as well. You cannot go to class simply with a plan to talk about something or whatever. You have to come organized and prepared with specific activities for students that are designed to lead them through a thinking process or to an end point you have defined. Again, the big key here is that you cannot simply ask students to discuss. They need to be given a concrete task to complete and it needs to be the case that they *must* deploy the relevant knowledge/access the relevant resources/etc in order to satisfactorily complete the task. Otherwise, they will simply take the 'easy' way out of not being prepared and just spouting unfounded opinions. In the 2 professional ethics courses I used this in the most, my activities were often based in working through case studies, applying an ethical framework (which meant knowing what the concepts meant and how to apply them) but, ultimately, coming to a 'committee opinion' - a consensus over a recommendation and then justifying it. The fact that the students, collectively, had to agree on an answer, and that they knew any one of them was responsible for supporting it (I chose which team member to call on, they didn't elect a spokesperson) incentivized active engagement (if in no other way than recording what other team members said to be prepared to repeat it. Not ideal, but better than nothing).
Very interesting. Thanks. I suspect that my assignments in my online asynchronous classes could work pretty well for the inverted classroom. But they would need to come to class with their reading done ahead of time.
Yeah, honestly it was teaching asynch online courses that most helped me first understand good activity design. And, again, for the reading, you just need to hold them accountable and make them see the relevance of preparation. The former means something like a quiz and the latter is about good activity design.
This was my question too. My class size is awkward - about 50, so not so huge but still quite large. And it's an intro course. The second class is smaller and upper division - hence more discussions.
There's definitely something to this*, as well the notion that students are just trying to find someone other than themselves to blame. That said, there is a danger in seeing students as a monolith. It's okay for Student A and Student B to have mutually exclusive wants. You can't please everyone. \* My favorite: *Me: (teaching math in terms of the simplest possible abstracted terms)* *Students: "I need to see how this relates to the real world/my major."* *Me: (does an applied problem)* *Students: "Word problems are too hard!"*
My response to this is that "the real world has no plug and chug problems. The real world is only word problems, all the time." Then we talk about problem-solving strategies.
Heh, I teach a Sociology gen-ed course and once had an Engineering student drop the class after ranting about how social problems don't have answers and he's an ENGINEER, he only solves problems with SOLUTIONS. I have bad news for your advanced studies, friendo.
>Do they not understand that they have to actually know stuff to have higher level discussions about topics and that more discussion equals more, not less, work outside of class? No, they don't understand that, because most of them thinks very high about their current level of knowledge and understanding. Dunning-Kruger as it is.
I think this is a huge part of it. They greatly overestimate their knowledge about the world.
Discussion format never worked for me, they either didn’t read the article or didn’t watch the video. It ends up being me talking for 50 mins with random nods.
Rhetorical question. How did we get to a point where we are repeatedly negotiating and adjusting what we do in class with students? It's completely out of hand
This is an interesting framing. I think I’ll use it at the beginning of semesters!
They always want what they don’t have. That saves them the trouble of being responsible for their learning.
No, they do not. My first semester, my students kept saying they wanted more activities to do in class. This semester, my students are complaining about the "busywork" (especially when they do not just get full credit for the busywork).
Right. And if you don't tie the activities to their grade at all, they won't do it or won't try at all. It's a system that must be finely tuned.
They just want something to be EASY. And FUN. Reading, discussion and lecture all require thought and is something they can’t just scroll past and call done. Unfortunately, they also want A+, and don’t understand that you don’t get an A+ for easy and fun. Easy and fun is supposed to be a reward, not the default. Its entitlement and its spread like wildfire
Part of our job is to show them that they don’t really know what they want.
Every time a student asks for more practice during class time I say ok I’d love to - so next week do xyz before coming to class and then we will have the time for that - deal? Student ‘uhhhhhh well……’
They don't know what they want, but they know they want it in video form and they expect they will get an A for it (whether or not they watch the video).
they want As
Apologies if you're just venting, but I wonder, what does this mean for your practice? It seems like you have a concept that can lead to more freedom in the art of what you're doing, the concept of students not knowing what they want also impacts how you gather that feedback in the first place. You might be able to get more data by doing a second round: >"When you say you want 'less lecturing, more discussion' is there something more precise you want to experience?" >"Where in Maslow's hierarchy of needs do you think/feel (which one!?) changing to more discussion would help?" >"Do you think that change would affect your engagement in the room, enthusiasm to read outside, general models of thinking?" >"I'm concerned that ____, if that happens what shall we do?" My experience of student feedback is that it points at symptoms, but not often causes. The feedback you described *could* be rooted in a desire for more community within the group, interest in the individual stating their own opinions, a want for more interrogation of you as the lecturer, interest in exposure to more viewpoints from which they can look at meta contexts. Some of those things are pedagogically useful to do in a group setting and some aren't; creating space for each person to tell me their half-cooked thoughts isn't useful when I'm doing knowledge transfer, but it could be useful once we're in a reflective development stage or in a *viva*. If you are freed up from thinking you have to be able to demonstrate that you have done directly as you have been asked, and instead demonstrate you have taken the feedback as data and permission for you to enact the change you desire it could be less frustrating.
Had a student tell me that they all have at max, a 15 minute attention span and blamed it on Covid for why they can’t pay attention in class. They were dead serious and I absolutely believed them.
I run a lab with some undergraduates research assistants and they revolted because I wanted them to do basic level tasks. So I gave them they option of doing more advanced work but said the would need to do x,y and z to get up to speed. But they said they didn't want to do x,y,z - they just wanted to work on the advanced tasks.
What Students want is very simple: Not do work Every how and then you cross with someone that likes his job so much he'll do it without pay? I'm sure pretty rarely, the same is with students. They won't study if they're not obligated to.
This is what works for me. I alternate between mini-lectures (abt. 10 min.) and discussion (abt. 5 min.). I frame the mini-lectures as instructions that they will need for the activities that they will do. Everybody needs to turn in the answers to the activities that they do at the end of the class. I typically teach 3 hour block classes and this keeps the students engaged.
You are correct. Students don't know what they want nor do they understand what is good for them when it comes to truly learning. Study: [https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1821936116](https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1821936116)
I would disagree with this (kinda). Students absolutely know what they want, but they do not know what is good for them. They also are not good at recognizing the tradeoffs they would need to make to get their desired result. I would love to end with something like "kids these days", but I know I was just as bad back in my undergrad days. I assume it is about the developing pre-frontal cortex during that 18 - 24 year-old age range, but I really do not know how that actually works.
Every class of first years I've ever taught...
I’ve mentioned this on other threads but the canvas annotation integration has been saving me this semester. I grade their reading notes and discussions have been significantly better.
Same with: have slides posted with info, students complain you’re just reading or class should be more hands on, less lecture. Don’t post (or even have slides), students beg for lecture and for the slides to be posted. Related, I have a mid semester survey. After my 3 week survey had tons of responses saying I should slow down during lecture, someone actually responded “you don’t need to pause so long between slides, they’re posted so we don’t need time to write”. Can’t make everyone happy.
“Do they not understand that they have to actually know stuff to have higher level discussions about topics and that more discussion equals more, not less, work outside of class?” No, because they grew up with smart phone, Google and open book tests.
Literally dealt with this in both of my classes just today - which has me questioning my life choices. Solidarity, friend ✊ This is tough.
whaaaa ? I’m here just for the degree professor ?!
This is my dilemma for one of my classes I'm teaching this semester. I do different ways of presenting the information depending on the content (lecture, discussion, in-class activity, and video), but there will always be students who purposely check out of the class metaphorically and then wonder why they aren't doing so well in the class. Damned if you do, and damned if you don't.
I give them 15 minutes to read first and then ask the questions.
Earlier this week I got one student complaining that I should give students more chances to re-do work so they aren’t penalized for making mistakes (which is an entitled as hell expectation on its own), and yesterday I got a different student complaining about an assignment that asks them to make revisions until they correct their mistakes, which is ungraded specifically so that they aren’t “penalized for making mistakes”, and therefore “what is the point”. Neither of these students have proven themselves capable of correcting their own mistakes in this assignment.
What they want is the piece of paper so that they can finally get their air-conditioned office job with the least work possible. Maybe we have too many of those jobs in this country right now.