A couple weeks ago, Irwin Horwitz, a Professor at Texas A&M lost it. He gave all his students F’s and abandoned the course before the end of the semester. A rational, lucid person doesn’t normally behave like this. These are the acts of a person at the end of all his wits. This guy felt powerless and didn’t know what else to do. So he exercised the only power he thought he had. The grade. And it turns out that Horwitz didn’t have power over grades either. The school will evaluate all the students in the course and change grades based on work completed.
In his email to higher ups at A&M, Horwitz complained that some students told him to ‘chill out.’ They’re right. Horwitz and any educator working with Millennials, any set of students these days, needs to chill out in a major way. And by chillin’ out, I mean that college educators need to change their approach to teaching. Adjust their attitude in the classroom. Use learner-centered teaching methods and embrace technology, even smart phones.
Here are 7 approaches and attitudes that can stop you from losing it in the classroom.
1. They are students: In the ‘They are Students’ approach, educators assume that there are some things that students might not know. As such, we assume that negative behaviors may come from ignorance or lack of experience rather than unkindness or cruelty. In this approach, the classroom is seen as a learning environment, where students are allowed to slip up. Slip-ups, like rudeness and texting in class, become teaching moments where educators relate how these activities might hinder life goals like not getting a job or a promotion. Millennials care deeply about anything that affects their ability to get a high-paying job.
Important to the ‘They are Students’ approach, educators must accept that they can’t teach every life lesson in a semester or in a year. Some students may need to have ideas reinforced in many classes before they get it. Or they have an aha moment ten years after they graduate. Or never.
“… any educator working with … students these days, needs to chill out in a major way.”
Some students can’t learn from you. Why? All kinds of reasons. They think your voice is annoying. They click better with a different personality type. Whatever the reason, you make an attempt, respect the student and keep doors open, so that the student can approach you anytime, no matter what.
Some students cheat, fight and abuse other students. The school has procedures for most serious offenses that might occur. State them on your syllabus. Tell students about them. And when it happens, refer/report the student to the correct office.
I’ve tried to deal with serious offenses by keeping them at the classroom level. I gave cheaters a new test. In one instance, I had a ‘talk’ with a really disruptive student. Turns out he was mentally ill and the talk turned nuclear. I didn’t have the expertise or training to identify mental illness or to talk to the student. There’s a reason why schools set up review panels, hire therapists and have psychologists on call. Use them. You owe it to students to make sure they have all the services they need to learn, and live, in and out of the classroom.
2. You and your students inhabit the same world: Some educators treat the classroom as if it’s an artificial world. A world with rules and ideas different from the world outside. It’s not.
If there was a great tragedy in the community (or the world) on the day before class, most of your students know about it. If you are affected by this tragedy, your students probably are too. Teach as if the world outside the classroom matters. If something did happen, mention it. Have a brief discussion if students seem to need one. Let them know about the services available on campus, if they feel like they need to have a one-on-one with a professional. Acknowledge the persons in the students in your class. Why? Personal well-being is a pre-requisite for learning. Students, even college students, can’t learn if they’re anxious or have something on their minds.
You saw that video that went viral. You stay out all night and can’t function at work the next day. You have bad moods. You have a life. Your students do too.
Interact with students in a way that acknowledges that the classroom is part of a world that both you and your students inhabit. Class interactions should reflect realistic, contemporary ideas about interactions between people. More on this in the next section.
3. Adjust some rules for the greater learning good: The main goal of every course is that students learn some set of skills, content and gain meaningful experiences. Sometimes to achieve this goal, you need to break or bend one of your own rules. For example, my syllabus said that the 2nd draft of the essay was due on April 28, in hard copy. No exceptions. One student, let’s call her Pamela, didn’t hand it in, but completed it. And to prove it, she came to me after class and asked if I could look at it on her phone to see that she did it and offer some comments. I did. And I made some comments, which she wrote down. And guess what happened next? Learning continued. Pamela used the comments to make changes and handed in the 3rd draft two weeks later.
The most important things to me were that Pamela completed the assignment, learned something, and was able to move on. Learning goals were met.
How is this preparing her to be part of the real world? I have two answers. One: This single instance doesn’t support ideals like punctuality and diligence. But, as I said in #1, Pamela will have many other instances to learn these things.
Two: Are you saying that the situation with Pamela never happened to you in the real world? You emailed a report to your department chair. He read it on his iPad then gave you comments on his way to the bathroom. I have. Pamela and me inhabit the same world and she knows that this stuff is done all the time. It’s not a big deal. And to act like it’s a big deal would force her to blurt out, “What’s the big deal?”
4. Use the phone in the classroom, so it’s no longer the red herring of education: Most students (and teachers) use their smart phones for personal stuff. To call and text friends, to post a photo, to tweet or update a status. Students seldom use their phones for learning of any kind. That’s a teaching opportunity.
In a math class, I divided students into groups and had them view a video of an addition algorithm on their phones then do practice problems. It worked better than showing the video on the smart board. Students were able to stop and pause the video to follow along as they did practice problems. As students explained the problem to other students, they were able to pause and rewind accordingly. Students took screen shots to help with the homework assignment.
“Use the phone in the classroom, so it’s no longer the red herring of education.”
Other ideas: You can give a quiz on a Google doc to have a snapshot of how students are doing. You can have a WordPress account for your class to post responses to a question or share ideas.
For this to work, you need a learner-centered and inquiry-based classroom with students constructing their own learning and sharing their thoughts. This approach requires that you prepare activities ahead of time that would use phones. And be ready to discard activities and go with the flow if students are taking the class in another exciting learning direction.
5: Don’t get angry: It’s hard not to sometimes, but don’t get angry. I have three reasons.
First reason goes back to #1. They are students and sometimes they don’t intend to be hurtful. They may not know how a comment or body language might come off. They’re young. Give them the benefit of the doubt.
Second: The student will probably forget all about what they said, what you said…the whole thing … the moment they walk out the door. You should too.
Third: Anger shows as hostility. Anger clouds judgment. If your judgment is clouded and you’re hostile, you are impaired. You can’t teach while you’re impaired. It’s like driving while drunk. You can’t grade fairly. You’d hate going to that class. And insignificant things will begin to get on your nerves, rub you the wrong way. It’s not worth it.
6. Don’t respond to everything: You don’t need to respond to every overture, especially words or deeds that may be thoughtless or rude. When you do, you give life to a situation that could have died as soon as it began.
Go back to # 5: The student will probably forget what was said and done. You should forget it too.
NEVER RESPOND to questionable or outright rude emails. Except, maybe, to say that you forwarded the email to the dean or something. I learned this the hard way. Now, when I receive an email like this, I skim it to get a sense of the contents. I don’t analyze each word. I don’t pass it on to a colleague. (That may come back to bite you in the bum.) Don’t delete it either. In every instance, when I returned to class, the student who sent the email didn’t mention it. The student gave no indication that they ever sent such an email. And it was business as usual.
7. Encourage Communication: For these approaches to flourish, you and your students need to communicate with each other. Some students will make an appointment to see you in office hours but many will not. So you really have to make an effort.
A student is absent a couple times, flouting your attendance rule. Ask them to come see you in office hours to see what’s going on. Students have family obligations, work, money problems, housing problems… lives. They are often absent or late for more reasons than laziness and oversleeping. I have had a number of homeless students, for whom regular attendance was not possible. I recommended available services on campus. And I negotiated with the students and accepted work that was possible, given students’ life constraints.
In every class session, find a way to check-in. How was the last quiz? Are the chapters in the text easy to understand? Do you find the class activities useful? And listen to comments and suggestions. You will learn a lot.
Don’t just check in with them. Have them check in with you too. Tell them how you feel about teaching the class: I marked the essays and there are some really great writers in this room. I like this textbook, but sometimes the author goes on and on. I think Pamela said it much better than I did… Have a conversation. Let the discussion digress sometimes, so students could see that you too are a person with a life. Everyone will learn a lot. #heidiholder #redloheducation
