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Re: Writing Tests, Lectures and Dealing with Students



Tina Fanetti wrote:

How do I know if I am the one causing the problem?
Am I being too hard on the students? Am I asking too
much; expecting too much?

Those are the crucial questions.

If this is the case, these problems will follow me from job to job.

It could -- but it need not stick with you, whether you
change jobs or not. You can adapt.

I ask questions to try and make things better and to
learn from my mistakes.

That's the right way to think about it.

It has been suggested to me that it is not my teaching style
or abilities that upset the students, it is my personality.

That's not the right way to think about it. People
generally speak of "personality" as something relatively
unchangeable. Rather than changing your personality,
it would be better to think of adapting your "style" or
your "approach". Or keeping the same style and approach,
and just making fewer mistakes.

The students think I am uncaring and mean. My class of
favorites is always telling me to relax especially when I
try to enforce rules or keep order.

They say dogs can smell fear. I don't know about that, but
for sure students can smell fear. This can lead to a vicious
cycle: the students jerk you around... You go into class
expecting to be jerked around... Class detects this and lives
up (or down?) to expectations... Cycle repeats....

The applies equally to expectations of bad behavior and
expectations of low academic performance.

What if it is me?

Again, that's not the right way to phrase it.
-- I refuse to speak about what a person _is_. I'm not
God; I can't see into a person's eternal soul.
-- I can however observe and comment on what a person
is _doing_.

The difference in phraseology is subtle; the difference
in approach is crucial.

There are only 2 weeks left this semester, but what if I get
a similar class next semester?

That's the right question. It wouldn't be the least bit
surprising if the next class had the _potential_ to develop
the same problems.

The issue here isn't about how to write the test. It's
about motivation. This year's class has had severe
motivational problems for months and months.

One constructive suggestion: Figure out what motivates the
students. Why are they attending this school at all? Why
are they taking this course? What do they do in their spare
time? What are they expecting to do after graduation?

You presumably took physics courses because you were interested
in physics. I'll bet few of the students in this class have
the same motivation. A few, but only a few.

Maybe some of the rest have no ambition beyond getting
a job as a clerk in a store, and playing Nintendo in
their spare time. These folks should just drop the course.
They don't need to know the difference between refraction
and diffraction. And they know they don't need to know it.
Studying it would be a waste of their time. Teaching it
to them is a waste of your time. You've got no way to
motivate them: no carrots and no sticks except perhaps the
threat of ruining their GPA, and that is a blunt instrument
at best (and may have no motivational effect at all).

The test they just took, had a class average of 57%.
The short answer questions were all just regurgitation and THEY CAN"T GET
THEM RIGHT!!!!
...
How can they apply what they don't know???

In some respects, that's a good question, but the
opposite question is at least as important:

How can they learn something if they can't
apply it, or even see an application for it?

Yes, there is a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem here, but
solving that problem is at the core of what teaching is.

Maybe next year there will be a course on the physics of
amateur astronomy. Students will sign up because they
want to build their own telescopes. Then there will be
a context in which to discuss diffraction and refraction.

Or maybe next year the students are all seeking union
jobs installing optical fibers. That requires knowing
a thing or two about diffraction and refraction. That
is a completely different context, and a completely
different motivation. Play the hand you're dealt.

If you can't articulate a reason why the students need
and _want_ to know the stuff, don't bother trying to
teach it.

=============================

Returning to an earlier subject: Any classroom, like
any other workplace, involves a certain amount of barnyard
ethology. Pecking orders and all that.

One thing you learn by watching a barnyard is how well
the critters seem to know their place in the pecking
order. Very little day-to-day violence is involved,
just an occasional nip to remind somebody where he
belongs. On rare occasions, when somebody decides he
wants to move to a new stratum, there will be a genuine
struggle -- but even then, it is often solved by
intimidation, rather than a fight to the death.

Here's why I mention this: It is important for the teacher
to seize the top spot on the pecking order. Walk in
on day 1 like you own the place. You don't need to be
mean. You don't even need to discuss the subject.
Usually you won't have the slightest trouble fitting
into this role. (Indeed most teachers face the opposite
problem, i.e. students being too deferential.)
-- Be fair.
-- Be friendly. You want the atmosphere "we're all
in this together" or perhaps "I'm here to help you
learn this stuff". If it degenerates into a me-versus-
them attitude, you can write off the whole year. Try
again next year.
-- Don't tolerate any behavior that disrupts the class.
Kidding around for a few minutes per day is good,
but a student showing disrespect for the other students
is completely out of bounds.

They scream and holler if I ask them some thing that is
not directly stated in the notes.
These kids go to my boss and holler.

Tell them in writing: Dear student:
-- If I ask you whether the moon is made of green cheese,
I expect you to answer, whether or not the subject
was covered in class.
-- If I ask you an ambiguous question, restate the question
to better express that you think I meant, and answer the
restated question. In the real world, almost all questions
are ambiguous; there are almost no multiple-choice questions.
-- One of these days, you will have a job. If the
customer asks you a question, and you don't feel like
answering, you can't go whine to the boss or the boss's
boss. It's your problem. It's your responsibility.
If you can't deal with it, the boss will get rid of you
and hire someone who _can_ deal with it.
-- If you think I've made a mistake grading your test, I will
regrade your test. But I will regrade the whole test. It's
possible that I gave you too little credit on one problem and
too much on another. I'm happy to fix genuine errors, but I
have a hearing defect that makes me insensitive to high-pitched
whining noises.

===============

Another piece of basic barnyard ethology: If you move
a given critter from one paddock to another, it always
starts out on the bottom of the pecking order. If it
is really ambitious and
tough, it might move up quickly, but it always starts
out at the bottom. This leads to a comforting thought:
next year you won't be a rookie. There are a million
small mistakes you made this year that you won't make
next year. There's a lot of nonsense you put up with
this year that you won't put up with next year.