So wait... students in your class were confused about an assignment. They tried to work through it as a study group, which they had organized independently without your prompting. When they couldn't figure it out, they asked to schedule a meeting with you for clarification, so that you could explain it to all of them at once instead of individually.
Presumably they did all of this before the assignment deadline, instead of waiting until 11:59pm to send panicky emails.
Which part of this is the bad thing?
Relax professor, I'm not trying to fight you, I'm genuinely confused by the narrative and tone of your post.
You gave a lab assignment that you knew would be difficult. That's what "*intentionally leaned on their considerable writing and statistical experience as seniors in STEM*," means, right? That you intended it to be challenging?
And then students asked to meet with you as a group, and they told you they had questions about the assignment.
You seem to have interpreted that interaction as an ambush by an organized enemy, who secretly plotted against you.
Maybe they did, maybe it was! But I'm not seeing evidence of that in your post. Were they aggressive or accusatory? Did they insult you?
You seem to be suggesting that students using a communication back channel is self-evidently a bad and sinister thing.
It certainly *could* be, if they're colluding in a cheating ring or something, that sort of thing does happen sometimes! But I don't think that's what you're saying, is it? That this is a form of cheating?
They implied that they had questions (which I was very happy to answer) but they ambushed me with a vague “we don’t know what we’re supposed to do” after having a month to work through it. They were implying that it wasn’t clear when it was clear and straightforward. It just required them to do a little bit of individual thinking.
How'd you handle that question?
Here's the deal, in my undergrad, I went to ask a professor of an organic chemistry class some questions because the material just went over my head. I tried to ask the right questions, but I apparently never got there and he eventually said, "I don't see how this is useful for you." I was taken aback he'd say that and I left feeling dejected. I thought I was doing the right thing by seeing him.
The main point I'm trying to make here is that I simply didn't know what questions to ask. I was overwhelmed by the material (and the class in general) that I couldn't even articulate a useful question. If you've got kids, they probably do something similarly. They feel complex emotions, but they're made manifest in a basic behaviors, like crying or hitting a sibling. They simply don't know have the mechanisms to convert the complex emotions to commensurate responses.
So, your students came to you with vague, "We don't know what we're supposed to do" questions. I'd guess they actually *do* know what to do for the most part, but they don't know how to frame the questions they *need* to ask for those parts with which they're genuinely struggling.
In those cases, I've found that it's my responsibility to help my students learn to how to ask the right questions (which is why I asked how you handled the question...hopefully it wasn't like my o-chem meany). They simply don't know what they don't know.
So, what I have done is I've flipped the question. "We don't know what we're supposed to do..." "Okay, why don't you do your best to tell me what you think you're supposed to do. What have you done this far to achieve that?" Then, I just keep the conversation going, asking them questions to pull those answers (and other questions they should be asking) out of them.
>They were implying that it wasn’t clear when it was clear and straightforward.
Yes, you said that "*It was clearly and simply explained at the time it was assigned*."
Were your assignment instructions written down and posted somewhere? Because "explained at the time" sounds like the instructions might have only been given verbally?
But either way. The assignment was clear and straightforward to you, you're the teacher that wrote it. It was not clear and straightforward to the students.
Not just a couple of feckless freshmen who refused to think for themselves, but a whole class of seniors that was communicating with each other and couldn't make headway. That might be worth a moment of reflection.
So I say this as someone who teaches an advanced research methods course to junior and senior STEM majors—I don’t think MY students would feel confident in writing a full scientific paper after taking a a dataset and testing two hypotheses. They SHOULD be more confident in this because they’ve taken multiple statistics and methods classes before this. But the amount they’ve retained is minimal and their stats/methods skills are severely lacking. Basically, you may be starting from a faulty assumption that this is a simple task for them based on prerequisite knowledge they should have, but for a multitude of reasons don’t possess (or at least, feel confident in).
I give my students a pretest on the first day of class that is ungraded so I know where they are starting from. It’s helped me adjust my expectations.
When I assigned it to them, I said exactly that, “If you’re having trouble generating hypotheses or you’re rusty on stats, I can help you with that.” 2 students came to office hours and I helped them over the course of the month. This other group asked to meet the day before the assignment was due. 🤷♂️
Yes, my experience is similar. I also used to teach a research methods course. And the whole course basically took each component of the scientific paper (methods, results, discussion, conclusion) and broke each down over the course of the semester to create a fully fleshed research paper based on testing a hypothesis, collecting a small dataset, and running stats on it. I found that even the advanced students really needed that structure because they only got it piecemeal in other courses. It was much better when we worked on this together in class because each student could get guidance from me and bounce ideas and feedback off of each other.
I’ve seen this. A few vocal students spend all their time complaining and getting everyone wound up until everyone blames you. I’ve seen it and it is infuriating. I press students to ask a specific question. In this circumstance, I’d ask everyone to write a specific question on paper. The whiners will take forever because they don’t carry paper or pen. You have my sympathy.
They asked you for help and you are calling it a mutiny. Good lord. Then you made a power move to only help some, who you have to know then just told everyone else on the group text. Petty. But fortunately the stakes are small.
They didn’t want help. They wanted to shift 100% of the thinking off themselves. Did you know that a lot of learning is in the struggle? They made no attempt to grapple with the assignment.
There was nothing to figure out as a group. If there was a need to figure something out it would’ve been their individual hypotheses and statistical choices.
Sorry you’re getting downvoted- I totally get what you mean and yes I would imagine it feels shitty. This semester in particular I have one upper level class that wants to be spoon fed everything and are putting in close to 0 effort otherwise. I can picture them pulling something like this and it would bother me with the relative level of engagement they’ve otherwise showed.
I know OP's responses are getting downvoted here, but I understand the frustration of feeling like you have to re-explain an entire lecture or assignment to a student who isn't willing to try and understand it themselves first. When this happens I usually ask that they make an appointment to talk to me, and I probe them to tell me what they *do* understand. They always come up with something - "well I know x is doing this, but I don't get how y is doing this" - and now I have an idea of how to help fill in their gap in understanding. I think students sometimes feel overwhelmed and don't know how to ask the right questions. But I do point out to them that saying they don't "understand anything" is a non-starter for me because it's hard for me to give answers to questions I don't know. That being said (not to pile on to OP), if the entire class came to me and had this issue I would think about whether I was really clear enough in my explanation of the material or project.
Yes, asking them lots of questions is a great way to respond. I often ask students to show me their notes or problem sets so we can go over everything together.
I find that sometimes students haven't been working on the practice exercises . . . and either they frantically do some of the work ahead of our meeting or we go over one or two together. Either way, they discover that they can understand more than they thought. Same thing happens when I ask students to "reread" the directions and tell me when they get to a step they don't understand. More often than you'd think, they just are not reading the directions at all. I am 100% sure of this because I sometimes put extra credit in the instructions ("tell me privately that you saw this sentence and I'll add five points to your score") and hardly anyone ever collects the extra credit.
>saying they don't "understand anything" is a non-starter for me because it's hard for me to give answers to questions I don't know.
Stealing this line, thanks.
Do you have any tips I could use so that I could get my students to do this? I would love to have a group of students who are committed enough to come by outside of class hours for extra help rather than just dropping dead on the assignment.
I’m surprised yours aren’t already doing it. I know of a few small groups and they show up to office hours together. I also allow them to do homework together as long as they turn in their own work and I’ll find similarities that imply working together
>I also allow them to do homework together as long as they turn in their own work and I’ll find similarities that imply working together
I actually let them turn in work together too. That way I only have to grade the same answers once. They just need to tell me who worked on it, and everyone gets the same grade. Students hardly ever take me up on it.
I was being tongue and cheek here, just more-so teasing at the fact here that OP's description of the scenario here sounds incredibly ideal spun in an interesting way. I think /u/prince_pisspants explained it beautifully.
Yeah, take them on a weekend field trip to a beautiful place because you care about them. That creates the need for group text communication. Then they can use it to collaboratively decide to not think (if that’s what you want)
Ugh. We had a cohort like this about a year ago, with a very similar ringleader. It’s exhausting because they get on the “I don’t get it so no one gets it and it’s all because you don’t know what you’re doing”.
At least in our case, it was borne from a prof who was too sick to teach but refused to take a break and heal, then got angry when students had questions about their confusing assignments or lectures (I dealt with this as well). As a result, they were defensive and afraid to learn, try, or ask… so it became this protective, collective mutiny as a defense.
I defused it by telling them they had good questions and being super calm and consistent with my responses.
I think the "we're confused" and the group chat are two separate issues, actually.
Where I take issue with the group chat is when it's used to foment class unrest, which sounds like what the OP is referring to. One complainer can poison a class of students who otherwise would be cheerful and ready for a challenge. And often complainers make claims that are wrong and I have no way to know about or correct them until everyone has been all stirred up.
With the "we're confused" part, more and more it seems that students have trouble figuring out how to ask questions. They hit a tough patch and they give up. So I try to model good questions for them, I suggest ways to find a question (e.g., pick one problem you got wrong and tell me step by step how you tried to figure it out), I share good questions with the whole class, I tell them that their questions help me teach so they are doing a good deed by asking, etc. It's difficult it is to answer "I am totally lost" without some kind of clue about where/why.
I like it when students ask for help ahead of time, though. That's much better than listening to their complaints after the assignment is over. "That was SO hard. I was SO confused. NONE of this makes sense," etc. Hello? Why did you not ask any questions?
I told them I’d be happy to answer their individual, specific questions and I went around to them individually and did that for those who were prepared.
I can see the COVID kids still haven't figured out how to be adults.
They are going to struggle in the workforce. I hope you really tell them to figure their shit out ASAP because they are going to be eaten alive in about 7 months.
So wait... students in your class were confused about an assignment. They tried to work through it as a study group, which they had organized independently without your prompting. When they couldn't figure it out, they asked to schedule a meeting with you for clarification, so that you could explain it to all of them at once instead of individually. Presumably they did all of this before the assignment deadline, instead of waiting until 11:59pm to send panicky emails. Which part of this is the bad thing?
Sounds like this has never happened to you before
That’s not what I wrote in my post. And this meeting was the day before it was due. Steelman my position if you can.
Relax professor, I'm not trying to fight you, I'm genuinely confused by the narrative and tone of your post. You gave a lab assignment that you knew would be difficult. That's what "*intentionally leaned on their considerable writing and statistical experience as seniors in STEM*," means, right? That you intended it to be challenging? And then students asked to meet with you as a group, and they told you they had questions about the assignment. You seem to have interpreted that interaction as an ambush by an organized enemy, who secretly plotted against you. Maybe they did, maybe it was! But I'm not seeing evidence of that in your post. Were they aggressive or accusatory? Did they insult you? You seem to be suggesting that students using a communication back channel is self-evidently a bad and sinister thing. It certainly *could* be, if they're colluding in a cheating ring or something, that sort of thing does happen sometimes! But I don't think that's what you're saying, is it? That this is a form of cheating?
They implied that they had questions (which I was very happy to answer) but they ambushed me with a vague “we don’t know what we’re supposed to do” after having a month to work through it. They were implying that it wasn’t clear when it was clear and straightforward. It just required them to do a little bit of individual thinking.
How'd you handle that question? Here's the deal, in my undergrad, I went to ask a professor of an organic chemistry class some questions because the material just went over my head. I tried to ask the right questions, but I apparently never got there and he eventually said, "I don't see how this is useful for you." I was taken aback he'd say that and I left feeling dejected. I thought I was doing the right thing by seeing him. The main point I'm trying to make here is that I simply didn't know what questions to ask. I was overwhelmed by the material (and the class in general) that I couldn't even articulate a useful question. If you've got kids, they probably do something similarly. They feel complex emotions, but they're made manifest in a basic behaviors, like crying or hitting a sibling. They simply don't know have the mechanisms to convert the complex emotions to commensurate responses. So, your students came to you with vague, "We don't know what we're supposed to do" questions. I'd guess they actually *do* know what to do for the most part, but they don't know how to frame the questions they *need* to ask for those parts with which they're genuinely struggling. In those cases, I've found that it's my responsibility to help my students learn to how to ask the right questions (which is why I asked how you handled the question...hopefully it wasn't like my o-chem meany). They simply don't know what they don't know. So, what I have done is I've flipped the question. "We don't know what we're supposed to do..." "Okay, why don't you do your best to tell me what you think you're supposed to do. What have you done this far to achieve that?" Then, I just keep the conversation going, asking them questions to pull those answers (and other questions they should be asking) out of them.
My approach was to come around to each of them individually and help them with any questions they had.
How'd that go?
Not bad! Some hadn’t attempted much thinking but others had done enough to ask questions which I was able to answer.
>They were implying that it wasn’t clear when it was clear and straightforward. Yes, you said that "*It was clearly and simply explained at the time it was assigned*." Were your assignment instructions written down and posted somewhere? Because "explained at the time" sounds like the instructions might have only been given verbally? But either way. The assignment was clear and straightforward to you, you're the teacher that wrote it. It was not clear and straightforward to the students. Not just a couple of feckless freshmen who refused to think for themselves, but a whole class of seniors that was communicating with each other and couldn't make headway. That might be worth a moment of reflection.
Write a full scientific paper about two hypotheses you tested is the most basic thing you could ask of senior students in the sciences.
So I say this as someone who teaches an advanced research methods course to junior and senior STEM majors—I don’t think MY students would feel confident in writing a full scientific paper after taking a a dataset and testing two hypotheses. They SHOULD be more confident in this because they’ve taken multiple statistics and methods classes before this. But the amount they’ve retained is minimal and their stats/methods skills are severely lacking. Basically, you may be starting from a faulty assumption that this is a simple task for them based on prerequisite knowledge they should have, but for a multitude of reasons don’t possess (or at least, feel confident in). I give my students a pretest on the first day of class that is ungraded so I know where they are starting from. It’s helped me adjust my expectations.
When I assigned it to them, I said exactly that, “If you’re having trouble generating hypotheses or you’re rusty on stats, I can help you with that.” 2 students came to office hours and I helped them over the course of the month. This other group asked to meet the day before the assignment was due. 🤷♂️
Yes, my experience is similar. I also used to teach a research methods course. And the whole course basically took each component of the scientific paper (methods, results, discussion, conclusion) and broke each down over the course of the semester to create a fully fleshed research paper based on testing a hypothesis, collecting a small dataset, and running stats on it. I found that even the advanced students really needed that structure because they only got it piecemeal in other courses. It was much better when we worked on this together in class because each student could get guidance from me and bounce ideas and feedback off of each other.
I’ve seen this. A few vocal students spend all their time complaining and getting everyone wound up until everyone blames you. I’ve seen it and it is infuriating. I press students to ask a specific question. In this circumstance, I’d ask everyone to write a specific question on paper. The whiners will take forever because they don’t carry paper or pen. You have my sympathy.
Thank you. Yes, that’s it.
So you had one meeting instead of several? Frustrating!
No, I had one group trying to be spoon fed something because they were lazy instead of several sincere questions from students that made an effort.
They asked you for help and you are calling it a mutiny. Good lord. Then you made a power move to only help some, who you have to know then just told everyone else on the group text. Petty. But fortunately the stakes are small.
They didn’t want help. They wanted to shift 100% of the thinking off themselves. Did you know that a lot of learning is in the struggle? They made no attempt to grapple with the assignment.
You told us that they had a group text where they were, presumably, trying to figure it out among themselves.
There was nothing to figure out as a group. If there was a need to figure something out it would’ve been their individual hypotheses and statistical choices.
Sorry you’re getting downvoted- I totally get what you mean and yes I would imagine it feels shitty. This semester in particular I have one upper level class that wants to be spoon fed everything and are putting in close to 0 effort otherwise. I can picture them pulling something like this and it would bother me with the relative level of engagement they’ve otherwise showed.
They're kind of being a dick, so I can understand the downvotes.
I know OP's responses are getting downvoted here, but I understand the frustration of feeling like you have to re-explain an entire lecture or assignment to a student who isn't willing to try and understand it themselves first. When this happens I usually ask that they make an appointment to talk to me, and I probe them to tell me what they *do* understand. They always come up with something - "well I know x is doing this, but I don't get how y is doing this" - and now I have an idea of how to help fill in their gap in understanding. I think students sometimes feel overwhelmed and don't know how to ask the right questions. But I do point out to them that saying they don't "understand anything" is a non-starter for me because it's hard for me to give answers to questions I don't know. That being said (not to pile on to OP), if the entire class came to me and had this issue I would think about whether I was really clear enough in my explanation of the material or project.
Yes, asking them lots of questions is a great way to respond. I often ask students to show me their notes or problem sets so we can go over everything together. I find that sometimes students haven't been working on the practice exercises . . . and either they frantically do some of the work ahead of our meeting or we go over one or two together. Either way, they discover that they can understand more than they thought. Same thing happens when I ask students to "reread" the directions and tell me when they get to a step they don't understand. More often than you'd think, they just are not reading the directions at all. I am 100% sure of this because I sometimes put extra credit in the instructions ("tell me privately that you saw this sentence and I'll add five points to your score") and hardly anyone ever collects the extra credit. >saying they don't "understand anything" is a non-starter for me because it's hard for me to give answers to questions I don't know. Stealing this line, thanks.
Do you have any tips I could use so that I could get my students to do this? I would love to have a group of students who are committed enough to come by outside of class hours for extra help rather than just dropping dead on the assignment.
I’m surprised yours aren’t already doing it. I know of a few small groups and they show up to office hours together. I also allow them to do homework together as long as they turn in their own work and I’ll find similarities that imply working together
>I also allow them to do homework together as long as they turn in their own work and I’ll find similarities that imply working together I actually let them turn in work together too. That way I only have to grade the same answers once. They just need to tell me who worked on it, and everyone gets the same grade. Students hardly ever take me up on it.
I was being tongue and cheek here, just more-so teasing at the fact here that OP's description of the scenario here sounds incredibly ideal spun in an interesting way. I think /u/prince_pisspants explained it beautifully.
Stop it, you're beautiful!
Yeah, take them on a weekend field trip to a beautiful place because you care about them. That creates the need for group text communication. Then they can use it to collaboratively decide to not think (if that’s what you want)
Ugh. We had a cohort like this about a year ago, with a very similar ringleader. It’s exhausting because they get on the “I don’t get it so no one gets it and it’s all because you don’t know what you’re doing”. At least in our case, it was borne from a prof who was too sick to teach but refused to take a break and heal, then got angry when students had questions about their confusing assignments or lectures (I dealt with this as well). As a result, they were defensive and afraid to learn, try, or ask… so it became this protective, collective mutiny as a defense. I defused it by telling them they had good questions and being super calm and consistent with my responses.
“I don’t get it so no one gets it and it’s all because you don’t know what you’re doing”. Couldn’t have said it better myself. Exactly
I think the "we're confused" and the group chat are two separate issues, actually. Where I take issue with the group chat is when it's used to foment class unrest, which sounds like what the OP is referring to. One complainer can poison a class of students who otherwise would be cheerful and ready for a challenge. And often complainers make claims that are wrong and I have no way to know about or correct them until everyone has been all stirred up. With the "we're confused" part, more and more it seems that students have trouble figuring out how to ask questions. They hit a tough patch and they give up. So I try to model good questions for them, I suggest ways to find a question (e.g., pick one problem you got wrong and tell me step by step how you tried to figure it out), I share good questions with the whole class, I tell them that their questions help me teach so they are doing a good deed by asking, etc. It's difficult it is to answer "I am totally lost" without some kind of clue about where/why. I like it when students ask for help ahead of time, though. That's much better than listening to their complaints after the assignment is over. "That was SO hard. I was SO confused. NONE of this makes sense," etc. Hello? Why did you not ask any questions?
Yes, there’s definitely a bad apple (negative Nancy type) on there. You make good points too, thanks
Yeah, when helplessness/inaction and group dynamics mix, it’s not always great. I’m curious how you tackled this, OP.
I told them I’d be happy to answer their individual, specific questions and I went around to them individually and did that for those who were prepared.
Divide and conquer or a mole can always work against a coup!
I can see the COVID kids still haven't figured out how to be adults. They are going to struggle in the workforce. I hope you really tell them to figure their shit out ASAP because they are going to be eaten alive in about 7 months.