“Why Don’t They Do the Reading, and Other Mysteries of Motivating Students”
Sept 12, 13, 2012
Introductions
Why are you here? What about the topic appealed to you? What student behaviors have you observed that frustrate you?
Small group conversations – what have you done that worked?
Report out.
Trout Power Point –
May be over the top, but expresses some classic faculty frustrations.
So, how do we deal with this?
I’ve got four major points I want to make, and a number of other suggestions, but I know that people don’t remember most of what they hear. So let me start immediately with two of the things I would most want you to remember if I could choose.
PP -- Point One. “Lectures decrease the likelihood students will prepare for class.”
The more we talk, the less students need to be prepared. Please don’t get me wrong – I love to talk and find crafting a well organized lecture intellectually rewarding. But it isn’t really a good model if the goal is either motivating students to prepare or stimulating learning. If we come in and deliver a traditional lecture, we are encouraging passivity rather than encouraging them to work on their own.
Now, on to my second key point. We all talk in class – and we need to – but when and how really matters.
Use your imagination for a moment. Let’s say you have some energetic student who dutifully reads the assignment, comes to class, and the professor proceeds to offer a few “brief” opening comments which – to the student’s ears – summarize the key points of the reading.
How many times do you think the student is going to do the reading on his own if he believes that we are telling him all the critical information in class?
PP – Point 2
And it isn’t just decreasing the reading. Remember, most of our students are intimidated by us and fearful of looking stupid in front of their peers, so if we have just “cleared up what was in the readings,” how likely are they to respond when you say “any questions?”
Furthermore, think about their response if we send them off to discuss the readings after we have clarified them. From the student perspective, we have just told them everything that was important, so their response is what is there left to discuss.
My point is this: if we want to promote responsibility and engagement, we have to resist the temptation to tell them the answer.
Power Point (#5)
Yes, the material is hard and maybe beyond what they can learn on their own. Then find a question that addresses part of it. Let them struggle and/or succeed -- and THEN use your expertise to help them move further. If we don’t, we not only absolve them of responsibility for doing some work before class, but we also make them dependant on us. You aren’t going to be there when they are in the workforce and need to figure out how to tackle a new problem – they need grow by practicing now.
Pass out outline here
Ok, you’ve heard my two big points.Let me move on to some other aspects of motivating students.
When I started teaching, I lectured almost all the time. Readings were important only in that I expected students to use them to create a larger synthesis in exams and papers.
Then I got a little smarter, and had them discuss the readings in class. What I didn’t do, however, was give them any guidance on what it was that they were supposed to be looking for in the readings. All I said was “read pages 52 thorough 104, and we’ll talk about it.” Now, 40 or 50 or 60 pages of a history text contain a lot of information, and they didn’t know where to focus.
It was amazing how much better they did when I started telling them, “here’s the question you need to be able to answer when you come to class.” That question can be anything you dream up that gets at the key elements you want them to learn. In history, I use things like “what do you see as the two most important reasons for x, and why those two?” Or, if you are using a case study, “what would you do and why?” Or “how does the new concept x apply to what we learned in chapter 2?” Please notice, the questions need to be amenable to discussion, and require thought. Asking them to dig out a bunch of facts doesn’t accomplish either – and my guess is that if they are able to answer your bigger question, they will need to know the key facts.
Ok, so students need some guidance in what to do as they prepare for class. Obviously, they also need some motivation to prepare.
We have to be realistic – we’re the only ones who love our material enough to read it by choice. Our students aren’t us, and they have lots of other demands on their time and other things they would like to do.
So how do we fight through these barriers to get them to prepare for class? Of course, one solution is to make the out of class work into a graded assignment. Great – and I’ll suggest some options there. But I’m sure most everyone in this room instantly cringed at the thought of adding more grading to our workload. So what incentives can we use that don’t add to our burden.
One key is to remember that most people like praise. I’m not talking about something fake or forced, but if a student comes up with a good insight, expresses something in a particularly nice way, asks a great question, or pulls the previous comments together in a helpful way, we need to acknowledge that. In my experience, on a typical day, I’ll have at least 10-12 of these opportunities.
More subtly, we can validate student responses by writing their answer on the board. Or we can show that we were paying attention and valued a comment by saying something like “that connects with what Tiffany said 10 minutes ago.”
I’ve watched a lot of classes and have been amazed at how rarely even really good and experienced teachers use this tool. Typically, we just take a student answer and move on. When we do offer some kind of validation or praise, it encourages that student to do more, and motivates at least some of the others to reach the same level. And there’s absolutely no added workload for us!!!
Of course, the flip side to praise is fear of embarrassment. And I’m certainly not above using that.
Let me start by asking for a show of hands on this question. And this, etc
Power point (7, 8, 9, 10) on how diligently would you read
Show of hands on each.
One study done at a big state school reported that if the students didn’t think there was any chance of being called on, only 10% did the readings before class, even though the instructor told them they needed to.
If the students thought there was “some chance” that they would be called on, almost 70% did the reading.
So, if we want students to be prepared, the message is call on them. I don’t like doing it, but it is essential not just for preparation, but also for learning.
For me, it works best to explain on the first day that I call on people, and why I do it. Then I jump right in. I want to make sure that I call on people right from the beginning because I want them to see it as the norm in this class, and not something punitive or an effort to “catch them.”
To get around the discomfort of putting individuals on the spot, I periodically rely on what I think of as “group calls.” I’ll say Bob, Andre, Billie, and Amy, we haven’t heard much from you. What do you think about this question? One of them will respond, and then I will go to each of the others. I’ve found that this approach really sends the message that you can’t hide, but at the same time since I am calling on multiple people, it seems less personal. And since several people need to talk, it gives the last one a little more time to think of what they want to say.
When I do this right, it has a huge impact. If I do it properly, I will have 35 students talking every day. When I slip up at the beginning of the semester and don’t really push, I find myself fighting every day to drag people in.
Power Point 11
So – drum roll—this is my third big point of the day. Calling on students promotes preparation by holding them accountable, plus it increases learning by getting them thinking, and doesn’t require ANY extra grading.
Another approach that has a slightly higher workload cost for us is to send a clear message on how the student is doing in discussion early on.
In most of my classes, about 20% of the grade is based on discussion – this includes their verbal contributions in small and large group plus various short writing assignments.
My small groups stay together for about a third of the course, so they are with the same people almost every day and know who is prepared and who isn’t.
About the third day of the semester I hand out this form and explain the process.
Pass out 152 evaluation form
Explain form – small group and individual accountability
Know from that moment on that they will be evaluated by their small group peers – diminishes free rider effect.
At end of each third of course they fill out and I respond with their discussion grade to that point. Use to reinforce idea that they need to be in class and participate. Just to give you an example – several years ago I had a student who put “very good” in the attendance section at the top. I then responded by explaining to him that from my perspective, missing 25% of the classes didn’t exactly equal “very good.” He got the message.
More broadly, when a student gets a C or a D for participation in the first unit because they didn’t do the pre-discussion papers or didn’t contribute anything, it creates a great teaching moment when they are ready to pay attention to what is expected. And since it is early in the semester, they have time to recover.
There is some cost to me. I have to learn names quickly. And I have to keep a record of their contributions. And then I have to respond in some way to what they have put on the form.
But the benefits are huge. Some don’t quite get it when I talk about my expectations, but if they get a grade they don’t like on their first evaluation form, participation jumps. So, this is my fourth and last big point –
Power Point #12
Using some kind of feedback that drives home my expectations, and the degree to which they have met them – and doing this fairly early on – can dramatically drive student preparation and participation – with a relatively most increase in my time.
Of course, if you are willing and able to do more to promote out of class preparation, there are lots of options. Unfortunately, they require grading.
I have them do short papers about every third class on the discussion topic for the day, but you could do the same with a Moodle posting. I also periodically will ask them to write for a couple of minutes at the beginning of class on the question I told them to think about, or I’ll have them do a short quiz that gets at key concepts I wanted to work through.
I grade these kinds of things on a check, check plus, check minus
basis and do them very quickly, so I don’t spend tons of time grading.
But there are ways of decreasing the work load even further. For example, you can grade them some days but not others – or you can collect a random sample each time. For quizzes, I usually provide the answers in class, and tell the students to use the results as an indicator of whether they are reading carefully enough.
Ok, more assignments do push students to do the work, but they also add to our burden, and I promised “low-cost” ideas, so let me head back in that direction.
One thing we can do is to have high expectations, and to send a clear, consistent message about what they are. Please understand, I’m not talking about telling students they need to work hard, or giving lots of low grades.
When I analyze why my teaching hasn’t worked very well, it very often comes back to the same thing – I didn’t communicate my expectations in a way that resonated with the students. You have to admit that most of our students are nice kids who are anxious to please – yes, there are exceptions, but most of them have done well by pleasing adults. So, they thought they were doing what I expected, but I was frustrated because we were on different pages.
I’ve found I can help myself – and them – by going beyond telling them to demonstrating what I expect. I try to help them see what they need to be able to do once they have done the reading. Or in class, I push them to build what I would consider to be a good answer to an exam or paper question.
It is also helpful to remind them about what it takes to get good at something. They dance or play sports or do video games – and each of those took lots of practice and repetition. Sometimes all they need is a reminder that learning history or physics takes the same diligence.
Many of them also come in with less than wonderful study skills. We can certainly make suggestions, but maybe the best time to act is when they have just gotten an exam back. Warren Bostrom uses this technique in his Accounting classes.
Power Point 13
After he turns back an exam, he asks them to fill out form with the following questions: 1. Were you satisfied with your performance on the exam? 2. How many hours per week do you routinely spend studying for this class? 3. How many hours did you study for this exam? 4. How many days before the exam did you start “studying for the exam”? 5. What changes, if any do you plan on making to improve your performance on the next exam?
He then collects their answers, and plots their responses to questions 2 and 3 – or 2, 3, and 4 -- against their scores on the exam. During the next class period, he shows them the results, which inevitably shows a nice relationship between time spent and grades earned.
I’d like to stress, however, that having high expectations isn’t just about grades. One critical area is consistently reinforcing the expectation that they will be prepared for class. This means using the techniques we have talked about, but it also means watching what you say. I just cringe when I’m watching a class and the professor makes a comment like “I know its Friday, and you probably didn’t have time to finish the reading last night.” I’m sure the goal is to appear hip and understanding, but think about the message – to me it sounds like an acknowledgement that it is ok to be hung over and unprepared.
High expectations also means holding students accountable. If we extend deadlines simply because a student didn’t plan ahead, think about the message we send. Please understand, I’m not talking about being hard line with an illness or a family problem or something like that, but when we try to be “sympathetic” to the difficulty of getting work done by granting easy extensions, we aren’t doing them any favors. Their boss after they graduate isn’t going to say, “it’s ok you didn’t get that presentation done. I understand you were tired.”
Or take the issue of attendance. Students miss classes for a variety of reasons, but the limited evidence we have suggests that they don’t see this as being irresponsible.
One study at a large university found that 93% of the students in the sample said they were responsible people, yet 39% had missed three or more class days in a ten week period.
In the same study, a person teaching a very large biology class found that attendance improved simply because she talked about the importance of coming to class. She didn’t offer any credit for being there, or any penalties for not coming – she just pointed out periodically why being in class mattered.
A lot of people here use the traditional “if you miss more than three classes, your grade goes down” approach. Those of you who have been around me know that I’m not a fan of this. I have several reasons, but in this context the key is the message – students read the three class limit is an invitation to miss three classes. I’d rather set the expectation as you will be there every time. I think we should be pushing the idea that being in class provides a chance to learn, and besides, you owe it to your small group members.
Another low cost technique that sometimes pays off is helping our students see the long term value of what we are asking them to do.
The literature shows that students – especially males – often don’t put in maximum effort because they don’t see the learning as valuable. They see a college degree as the goal, rather than knowledge, so they are – quite rationally – doing just enough to get the degree.
It would be lovely if we could just tell them that what we teach matters, and they would see the light. Since I doubt that will happen, I think we need to be sneakier.