Day 263: A funny moment and what it means as an indicator of the status of education in America in 2017

I want to start this post by saying that I adore most of my students. I have the honor of teaching on a campus where we have some of the best and brightest, and the ones who are passionate about their work make teaching fun.

That said, I want to share a funny reflection about one of my students during an activity today.

It’s the end of our midterm period, which just feels weird this semester because how in the world is it midterm? But at midterm, I usually do a re-calibrating exercise. Every semester a few students take it as a teaching weakness, but I strongly recommend this to anyone who teaches, particularly if you find at the ends of terms students offer comments like “I didn’t really get what I wanted from this class” or “I wish we had…”

I simply ask the students, in some form, these four questions:

1. What’s working well with the class?
2. What isn’t working for you?
3. What do you want to learn that we haven’t covered?
4. What one thing do you feel like you need to tell me, good or bad?

I have the students fill out anonymous note cards with the answers to these questions. The note cards are almost always telling of what is happening, and I often design classes knowing that the group of students might throw my plans for a bit of a loop at midterm IF I allow that. I like to go where they want to go if it still meshes with the learning goals. It no doubt makes my classes better, even if I don’t make changes, because I get a sense of where the students think we are. That’s important to know. They don’t see our classes the way we see them.

In addition to the anonymous cards, I often have a discussion with the class. I did this with three classes over the course of the last couple of days, and I had two comments come up that are indicative of what I feel is the major problem students are having this year (and last). It’s not a new thing, but it seems like it’s taking over at Miami. Students aren’t listening/aren’t aware of things.

One student said to me that they wished we had time to reflect on their readings. In that class, there are weekly assigned reading reflection discussion forum posts (and responses to classmates). This student, who I have emailed each week to inform of their failure to do the homework, just wasn’t doing it, and wasn’t doing the homework at such an alarming rate that the one thing the student really wanted from the class was… what the student wasn’t doing.

Another student commented that it would be nice if they had a way to ask me questions during a time when we aren’t in class, then spent a long minute formulating what sounded like a good idea using office hour time in virtual space.

I had to ask this one. “You know I do that every week, right? You just… aren’t showing up for it. Only a few people do.”

The reason I point this out is that I know that I have colleagues who take student comments on their performance seriously (and if you’re trying to get tenure or stay employed on a year-to-year, your course evals have a ridiculous amount of power over your ability to be a part of the academy), but a large portion of student complaints– not just in evals, but certainly in evals– is simply due to students being too obsessed with their phones and or their laptop social media to pay attention and notice what is happening.

I shared my philosophy on this earlier in the week.

But this year, I’ve noticed something a bit deeper. I’ve been paying attention to how my colleagues teach in ways that I hadn’t my first year in the new department (I was still getting used to the idea of not being a writing professor). I know what happens in most of their classrooms.

Students complain, around me, about my colleagues not doing certain things or not explaining certain things. Sometimes they do this so loudly that it becomes uncomfortable for me to listen.

But… they’re wrong.

My colleagues ARE offering what these students need. The students just aren’t paying attention or noticing it.

It’s really sad, because it’s only a few students out of an enormous student body, but some people are apparently paying Miami large amounts of money to watch videos on You Tube from various rooms with moderate-to-bad wifi.

It’s a shame, but I hope that my fellow teachers know not to take it to heart. I think we have a duty to do the absolute best teaching we can, but I don’t think we should be expected to chase students who don’t bother to do the work. And if someone can’t listen while I explain that I’ve left an explanation online of how to do the work, I don’t feel bad if the person can’t figure it out.

It’s a survival skill. There’s no longer a need for a weed out class. Behavior will sort those people out. In a way, that’s sort of amazing, but I really hate to see someone who is bright and capable struggle simply because there was another cat video to watch or meme to lol at.