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Re: Advice for Tina and other rookies...



It is difficult to analyze Tina's situation from a distance, but when she
says students think she is uncaring and mean, I can identify with that
problem many times over. I identify with it partly from personal experience
in my early days of teaching, and also from many years as department chair
and dealing with students complaining to me about other faculty in the
department being uncaring and mean. The advice I give here is for all
teachers who might find themselves in similar situations.

MAJOR POINT ---> I believe it doesn't matter how well you know the field,
how well you prepare the curriculum, how well you deliver lectures, how well
your labs integrate into the course, how well you write tests, etc... none
of this matters if the students think you are uncaring and mean. Or stated
in another way, students must believe you have their best interests at the
core of your mission. You are there to help them learn the material and
succeed with their goals. If they cannot see you in that light, then you're
in for a long haul.

REPEAT THE LAST TWO SENTENCES ---> You are there to help them learn the
material and succeed with their goals. If they cannot see you in that
light, then you're in for a long haul.

This doesn't mean you give them grades they don't deserve. This doesn't
mean you water down the material. You must cover the material and you must
hold students to a standard. Some students will fail. But while all this
is transpiring students must trust that you are not an adversary; they must
view you as an advocate.

How do you pull this off? Especially today when so many students equate
caring, friendly, advocate with "easy." That's the trick, isn't it...
getting students to realize you are friendly and caring and you have their
interests in mind, yet at the same time you aim to deliver a legitimate
program at the appropriate level of rigor.

Here are some thoughts on this. These are not in any particular order.

(1) Be sure to be fair and even handed with all students. When my
evaluations say, "Professor Edmiston is a hard prof, but he is fair" then I
know I am on the right track. The poorer students dare not think I like the
better students more, or I give the better students advantages. If a better
student gives a poor answer, and a struggling student gives an equally poor
answer, I dare not give more points or respond more positively to the better
student because I think, "Well she really knows better," and I dare not act
more positive in class toward the better students and more abrupt with the
poorer students.

(2) Fair also means that I listen to students if they think I have graded
them incorrectly or too harshly. This doesn't mean I will cave in to their
request for more points, but I will listen to their complaint and I will
take time to explain why I did what I did. Sometimes I do make errors, and
as soon as I realize I have made an error then I admit it. I don't try to
save my professorial face and make excuses. I apologize, fix the error, and
thank the student for pointing it out to me.

I keep track of statistics for each question on each exam. Sometimes I will
take the time to discuss a class-wide problem with the class. "Only 20% of
you got problem 14 correct. Let's talk about this and see what the problem
was. Did you not understand the question or did you not know the answer."
In the beginning they might all try to say the question was confusing, but I
don't let them off that easy. They quickly learn that my next response will
be, "How would you have worded the question, or how would you have tried to
assess the class understanding of this concept." We can't spend much time
doing this, but even doing this a little bit shows the class that you are
trying to understand what happened to make the whole class miss a question
so badly. Sometimes I find the question really is confusing, or I find that
the whole class indeed has a misconception of some basic physics principles.
I can't go back over it, we must move on, but I will try it differently next
year. More important, students see me trying to understand their problems.

(3) Make sure to invite all students to confer with you, but especially go
out of your way to get the struggling students into your office. You may
have to break the ice by starting to talk to them as they are leaving class.
Or if you see them in the lobby, sit down and start talking to them. Ask
them about their goals and why they are your class.

If you are in your office or another private place, they will probably tell
you what grade they think they need (to keep a scholarship or to get into
medical school, etc.) but if they don't volunteer that information then ask.
Just be direct... "What grade are you hoping to get in this class?"

If they have an unrealistic goal, don't initially balk, but don't make
unrealistic promises either. "You want an A. Well, I'm sure you're capable
of doing A work in this class, but we both know that isn't happening right
now. Let's see if we can figure out why that is." Then talk about study
habits, class attendance, what grades they've gotten in other classes, etc.
but the most important thing is to see if they can identify, with my help,
what is the biggest problem they are having in my class. We then try to
come up with a plan to improve this.

I don't make deals. I don't say, you will get a B if you do this.

I don't give extra credit assignments.

If the student needs help studying for exams or working on assigned
problems, I try to find a tutor. If the student has trouble writing lab
reports, and the problem is grammar, proofreading, etc. I make arrangements
for them to get their lab report to the writing lab so tutors can work with
them. I point out that this requires the report to be written at least a
day before it is due.

If students are having problems with the science part of lab reports I offer
to skim the report the day before it is due and point out problem areas. I
do have strict rules about this. The earlier, the better. I will not skim
a lab report later than 3:00 pm on the day before it is due. I do not
guarantee I will be in my office outside of office hours. If you want me to
read your lab report a day or two early, and you aren't going to come during
a posted office hour, you had better make an appointment.

Skimming lab reports the day or two before sounds like a big effort, but it
is not. The most important thing it does is get them to write it two days
before it is due so they can make a second draft the day before it is due.
Otherwise they turn in the first draft on the due date, and that first draft
probably got printed at 3:00 AM the night before. Simply getting them to
have the first draft ready a day early, and treating it as a first draft
rather than the final draft is a major accomplishment, and it is well worth
the effort. Any time I spend skimming the report and making a few
suggestions is repaid many times over by a much easier to grade lab report
turned in on the due date. Also, students only do this a few times and then
realize they don't really need me. In a class of 25 students I will have
four or five students take advantage of this offer, and they only do it for
the first three or four reports. But knowing this service is available
helps students realize I am there to help them succeed.

(4) I try to be happy. This is often very hard for me, especially when I am
mired in political hassles at the college. But problems with the
administration are not the students' fault. Also, my calculus based physics
class has been at 8:00 AM five days a week the whole 24 years I have been
here. That is really tough. But I try real hard not to be a grouch.

(5) As you try to be friendly, do not become a friend. I'm 52 years old and
most students are 19. They're probably not going to try to be friends with
me because of the age difference. But I see younger profs fall into the
trap of trying to be friends with students, and then either (a) the students
don't understand what happened when they get a bad grade, or (b) the
professor has to sacrifice integrity to maintain a friendship. I will joke
around with students; I will ask them about themselves; I will try real hard
to make them view me as a human being while also convincing them I view them
as human beings. Yet, I try to maintain the posture that I am the professor
and they are the students. This is a difficult balancing act, but worth
striving for. If students view you as a friendly and caring mentor (not
friend) then you should be able to get them to perform better, or at least
accept the blame for poor performance. When things go badly for them I tell
them I am sorry, and I think they know I am sincere. When things go well
for them I compliment them and tell them I am happy for them.

SUMMARY --> I could make many more suggestions; perhaps I haven't even
listed the most important, but these are enough to show that there are
things you can do to make students realize you are there to help them, yet
you do not have to sacrifice your integrity. It doesn't work with everyone.
A few students still get D and E grades in my classes. But enough students
realize I am there to help them, and I am approachable, that even those who
fail typically accept the blame for their failure. Many who originally
hoped for an A will take a B or C and feel okay about it. Those who get the
A know that they really accomplished something.


Michael D. Edmiston, Ph.D. Phone/voice-mail: 419-358-3270
Professor of Chemistry & Physics FAX: 419-358-3323
Chairman, Science Department E-Mail edmiston@bluffton.edu
Bluffton College
280 West College Avenue
Bluffton, OH 45817