Blog Entry #6

This week the reading covered dealing with student problems and how to interact with them in a one on one setting. I found that the most useful portions for me covered writing recommendations, students with emotional problems in class, and dealing with inattentive or unprepared students.

Writing recommendations for students is a fairly common practice in college. It simply involves writing a letter explaining why you thought the person in question would be good at whatever they are applying for. Considering how often this happens in science, I am surprised that there isn't more information around that dictates just what a teacher should write. The book offers several helpful hints that can be used for writing one as well as sample letters in the appendix. I will very likely use this information when it comes time to write letters of recommendation. For the most part I feel that I am inclined to be too easily convinced to write favorable letters without actually wanting to do it. The book had good tips on weighing the options and choosing whether or not to write, as well as, how to eloquently dodge the attempt. There are a quite a few websites out there that have information on writing reference letters, but there is information for writing student recommendations in specific out there too, such as this Harvard site. While this may not have an active role in teaching it is still a part of being a teacher.

Having emotion is a good thing in class. It can further learning when you are intensely interested in what you are learning. That said, there can be problems where students get angry with the teacher or material because they don't understand it or there is an emotionally charged facet to the topic. As the book stated there are some really hot button issues that are covered in biology classes. The book's idea to have students write about these issues rather than just start up a discussion is a good tactic. I think that there are a few teachers in the Biology Department that have students write short papers on bioethics related topics. These are then graded on how well the students can support their viewpoint with class material rather than what that view is. If they can't support their view with in class material it is likely that they don't really want to learn from the class and it is a tool for assessing whether or not they are learning or just feeding back the same information on tests and quizzes. The University of California at Berkeley has a pretty good teaching department site that has information on dealing with sensitive topics and many links for further reading. If the argument is in a one on one situation there are some good hints in the book to keep from getting in trouble. The readings have good information that allows you to stay calm and present your reason for doing whatever it is that made them angry in the first place. The University of Minnesota has a good collection of short films that show what can be done in situations ranging from anger over points to excuses for missing class. I would likely take the tact of indirectly talking about difficult issues through writing a paper that aims at the periphery so as to avoid getting too much emotion built up while still talking about the general topic. I would like to avoid giving people a soapbox on which to stand at the expense of others.

There is always a problem with students not being prepared for class. The book suggests that getting people to pay attention is always difficult. The suggestions offered for dealing with this involve things like having students group up and do a problem or giving pop quizzes. I like the idea of giving quizzes that are not graded the same as most usually are. To get students to attend class and take the quiz they could be taken and corrected, but not graded. The questions could then be entered in a bank that would be used to make the exams. It would add a non-graded assessment to the class while still getting people to show up and take it. If attendance and attentiveness are still problems they could possibly be used for some type of extra credit in the future if that is allowed in the structure of the grading system. If the problem is just talking during class, I might be inclined to let it slide at first. If it gets to be really distracting, however, I might ask a question on whatever I was covering to the students who were talking to make them see that paying attention helps them look less foolish.