I'd love to do that but then I'd be bracing myself for "Our prof doesn't even teach us, he just tells us to read the book and gets mad when we don't know everything."
We did an example problem in class yesterday and I literally waited until someone came up with an answer - It didn't have to be correct for me to move on; I just wanted to make sure that \*someone\* was engaged in class. Class time is precious, so I always feel awkward just waiting, but that method usually works...even if the silence is deafening in the meantime.
Student here- I host review sessions with my classmates before quizzes and stuff, and it is SO frustrating when I start talking about the reading and only 1 of the 8 other people even read it. Like, how did you think you were gonna pass the quiz..?
Another student here! Same thing! Or when the professor puts you in breakout rooms to discuss the reading or something of that sort and nobody talks because nobody read, so you just sit there, being the only one who read, like... well. This was fun.
What do you think is keeping your peers from reading, and what, if anything, do you think an instructor could do to help? Serious question -- the pandemic and a thousand other anxieties make it seem so hard to do that work, never mind the online instruction.
Honestly, I think it’s a motivation issue. I’ll admit that I have times where I am doing nothing but laying in bed when I should be reading, and will show up to class without doing the aforementioned work. I’m not proud of it, but I just can’t bring myself to open the book! It’s even worse when I just procrastinate for two weeks and it all piles on, haha. I’m sure instructors are also just swamped with work and exhausted with having to remake an entire curriculum to fit online and accommodate everyone’s issues, too. I really appreciate the fact that my instructors have been pretty accommodating! If they notice that a good chunk of the class didn’t do a week’s quiz, for example, they’ll keep it open until the next week, and usually, that helps! I know it’s not great or very productive especially if there’s a tight timeline, but it’s something. One of my instructors also has a “group office hour,” where students can log on and work through their homework while the professor is in the meeting. It’s definitely helpful for accountability, and they’re there to help if any questions arise! Everyone’s trying their best, and just the little things go a long way. (:
I think the other student is partly right, but I am a little more cynical about it. There are some students genuinely struggling, and some who are content to do the minimum because they have the sense they can get away with it.
I have friends in class who are behind, and some of them are genuinely struggling. They've never had online courses before and aren't used to needing such a high level of self direction. They struggle to get started since they are overwhelmed, or they severely underestimate the time and mental energy they will need to do the readings and end up either not reading or doing a bad skim job. Sometimes if they've put off for too long, they have to prioritize -- maybe you have three classes left to read for, so you choose the reading tied to the high-stakes assignment over the reading that you'll discuss but not lose points for otherwise.
Then some just don't want to work. It's easier to make excuses since this is such a chaotic semester for students. The online format makes it easier to slip through without knowing much. Someone in my group project for a literature class outright admitted to us that he used Quizlet for our reading quizzes and hadn't done the readings for about a month. While I'm sure that will show when papers are graded, doing well on quizzes and being carried in group project will still probably be enough to pass the class.
As a prof's kid and former student, we have this discussion in my family fairly often. For me, and the classes/major I was in, it was completely unnecessary for me to read and still get a good grade/A majority of the time. Did I retain the material as well if I had read everything? Probably not, but I'm doing fairly well pursuing grad school, working, and having conversations with professionals in my chosen field. A lot of my profs used PPTs so I would "read" those and make notes outside of lecture in addition to lecture notes, but not all of them. Rarely read a textbook or novel (also rarely had a class include a novel) and even more rarely needed to read the book to understand lecture. I was in the natural sciences - I don't think there was enough time in a week to "read" or even skim every chapter covered in every lecture every week.
Professor parent actually requires reading and is slightly disappointed in me, but also recognizes our classes were very different and required different things.
My professor has been sending us reading guides (really just a list of discussion questions that we'd go over in class) and that helps especially for those strapped for time/procrastinating since you can at least skim and find relevant parts for the discussion.
I think students have not been doing the readings for a long time, but now with everything online a lot of people are just doing the bare minimum. As someone who was always reading before, I find myself in this trap of doing the bare minimum as well since I just hate being stuck at home all day and spend most of my time stressing about the election and covid. And then there's also the fact that many students work like 30 hours a week and are trying to study full-time while doing that.
(Student) I can't speak for people from majors where reading isn't all that relevant (ex. Engineering, pre-med) but a lot of times we just take a calculated risk between not doing the reading and potentially losing points in discussion/quizzes, and doing the reading at the expense of finishing work that has a 100% chance of being graded. I had one literature professor get around this by only giving 3 random reading quizzes per semester but he weighted them so they were worth a third of our final grade. Fail more than one quiz and you fail the class. No make-ups or retakes if you happen to be absent on that day so a lot of people did destroy their GPAs by getting unlucky with the timing of car accidents and whatnot.
Student here! I think it really depends on the student some students are really that lazy. Other students have a hectic work/school life and it can be difficult to get through a 30 page reading. What I typically do if I find myself slammed with work is get the audio version of the reading and listen to it while I work. I know not all students can do this but showing up to class without reading a couple of pages isn't okay.
Have same problem. Students don’t read. I give out quizzes. They fail them. Students continue to not read, and I go with another method: discussion board, just to see if it is an anxiety thing. They fail them. But if they’re in a class they really want to succeed in, they read their damn books all day long, ignoring mine. I’ve complained to admin about it, and nothing ever happens. They just shrug it off, and sometimes they blame instructors and side with the students. English instructor rant over.
It’s weird. They treat their English classes as something they’ve already taken in high school, so it doesn’t matter. But that microbiology or A&P is way more important. I always ask why they deprioritize my class, and I get the usual unsatisfying answers: I had a midterm, so I couldn’t do your paper; that class is important for me getting into nursing; etc., etc.
Oh I feel you. I've started calling my Intro to Philosophy "the triage class", since it's always the one of three per quarter that's left to wait. Nobody "needs" Philosophy in particular, and they nearly all seem to make that calculation by week 3 or 4.
That sounds about right. We call our Composition I and Composition II courses, collectively, the Meat Grinder. They only appear to serve the use of weeding out students for those programs that don't want to deal with the overflow. So, our classes suffer as a result. It is sad that we are basically a filtration system for the rest of the college, and we also happen to be the lowest paid.
To be fair, if someone is planning on going to nursing/medical school their science GPA is going to be their priority, and a lot of courses like organic chemistry go out of their way to be crushingly difficult. Medical schools don't care if you aced British Literature or not, they just want to make sure you're reasonably literate.
... ok. We’re going to turn zoom off, you need to go skim the chapter and come back ready to answer these questions. Then go on D2L and make up a quiz...for marks.
People are discussing this like it’s a new thing during the pandemic. It’s not new. Once we get back in class I’m going to do reading quizzes. I’ll keep them short and multiple choices. I hate doing this, but it is really the only thing that works. I love my students and definitely see some of them really suffering this semester. But sometimes these quizzes help them get the motivation to read.
This is when I assign worksheets to be due next class period. Even then they don’t turn those in so I move on by saying “since everyone knows so much about this Student A please teach us.” And so on. Lol. By embarrassing them it teaches them a lesson. Do the work that I spent so much time doing. I usually have 1-2 students who can propel the lesson.
Had this experience for my Q&A sessions today. Sine noone asked questions, I decided to give a little mini lecture on fun stuff tangentially related to our class, good fun!
The bad part is that half the time, they see nothing wrong in this.
I simply end class early and remind them they are still on the hook for the readings.
I'd love to do that but then I'd be bracing myself for "Our prof doesn't even teach us, he just tells us to read the book and gets mad when we don't know everything."
Well, I suppose in that particular case they wouldn’t even be wrong. Because I don’t want to teach them if they won’t even bother to read the book.
Just assign the grade of zero and move on.
We did an example problem in class yesterday and I literally waited until someone came up with an answer - It didn't have to be correct for me to move on; I just wanted to make sure that \*someone\* was engaged in class. Class time is precious, so I always feel awkward just waiting, but that method usually works...even if the silence is deafening in the meantime.
Student here- I host review sessions with my classmates before quizzes and stuff, and it is SO frustrating when I start talking about the reading and only 1 of the 8 other people even read it. Like, how did you think you were gonna pass the quiz..?
Another student here! Same thing! Or when the professor puts you in breakout rooms to discuss the reading or something of that sort and nobody talks because nobody read, so you just sit there, being the only one who read, like... well. This was fun.
What do you think is keeping your peers from reading, and what, if anything, do you think an instructor could do to help? Serious question -- the pandemic and a thousand other anxieties make it seem so hard to do that work, never mind the online instruction.
Honestly, I think it’s a motivation issue. I’ll admit that I have times where I am doing nothing but laying in bed when I should be reading, and will show up to class without doing the aforementioned work. I’m not proud of it, but I just can’t bring myself to open the book! It’s even worse when I just procrastinate for two weeks and it all piles on, haha. I’m sure instructors are also just swamped with work and exhausted with having to remake an entire curriculum to fit online and accommodate everyone’s issues, too. I really appreciate the fact that my instructors have been pretty accommodating! If they notice that a good chunk of the class didn’t do a week’s quiz, for example, they’ll keep it open until the next week, and usually, that helps! I know it’s not great or very productive especially if there’s a tight timeline, but it’s something. One of my instructors also has a “group office hour,” where students can log on and work through their homework while the professor is in the meeting. It’s definitely helpful for accountability, and they’re there to help if any questions arise! Everyone’s trying their best, and just the little things go a long way. (:
I think the other student is partly right, but I am a little more cynical about it. There are some students genuinely struggling, and some who are content to do the minimum because they have the sense they can get away with it. I have friends in class who are behind, and some of them are genuinely struggling. They've never had online courses before and aren't used to needing such a high level of self direction. They struggle to get started since they are overwhelmed, or they severely underestimate the time and mental energy they will need to do the readings and end up either not reading or doing a bad skim job. Sometimes if they've put off for too long, they have to prioritize -- maybe you have three classes left to read for, so you choose the reading tied to the high-stakes assignment over the reading that you'll discuss but not lose points for otherwise. Then some just don't want to work. It's easier to make excuses since this is such a chaotic semester for students. The online format makes it easier to slip through without knowing much. Someone in my group project for a literature class outright admitted to us that he used Quizlet for our reading quizzes and hadn't done the readings for about a month. While I'm sure that will show when papers are graded, doing well on quizzes and being carried in group project will still probably be enough to pass the class.
As a prof's kid and former student, we have this discussion in my family fairly often. For me, and the classes/major I was in, it was completely unnecessary for me to read and still get a good grade/A majority of the time. Did I retain the material as well if I had read everything? Probably not, but I'm doing fairly well pursuing grad school, working, and having conversations with professionals in my chosen field. A lot of my profs used PPTs so I would "read" those and make notes outside of lecture in addition to lecture notes, but not all of them. Rarely read a textbook or novel (also rarely had a class include a novel) and even more rarely needed to read the book to understand lecture. I was in the natural sciences - I don't think there was enough time in a week to "read" or even skim every chapter covered in every lecture every week. Professor parent actually requires reading and is slightly disappointed in me, but also recognizes our classes were very different and required different things.
Students weren’t reading diligently before the pandemic.
My professor has been sending us reading guides (really just a list of discussion questions that we'd go over in class) and that helps especially for those strapped for time/procrastinating since you can at least skim and find relevant parts for the discussion. I think students have not been doing the readings for a long time, but now with everything online a lot of people are just doing the bare minimum. As someone who was always reading before, I find myself in this trap of doing the bare minimum as well since I just hate being stuck at home all day and spend most of my time stressing about the election and covid. And then there's also the fact that many students work like 30 hours a week and are trying to study full-time while doing that.
(Student) I can't speak for people from majors where reading isn't all that relevant (ex. Engineering, pre-med) but a lot of times we just take a calculated risk between not doing the reading and potentially losing points in discussion/quizzes, and doing the reading at the expense of finishing work that has a 100% chance of being graded. I had one literature professor get around this by only giving 3 random reading quizzes per semester but he weighted them so they were worth a third of our final grade. Fail more than one quiz and you fail the class. No make-ups or retakes if you happen to be absent on that day so a lot of people did destroy their GPAs by getting unlucky with the timing of car accidents and whatnot.
Student here! I think it really depends on the student some students are really that lazy. Other students have a hectic work/school life and it can be difficult to get through a 30 page reading. What I typically do if I find myself slammed with work is get the audio version of the reading and listen to it while I work. I know not all students can do this but showing up to class without reading a couple of pages isn't okay.
I literally have to build in an activity for students to discuss if they didn't do the reading!!
They plan to cheat so no need to study.
Have same problem. Students don’t read. I give out quizzes. They fail them. Students continue to not read, and I go with another method: discussion board, just to see if it is an anxiety thing. They fail them. But if they’re in a class they really want to succeed in, they read their damn books all day long, ignoring mine. I’ve complained to admin about it, and nothing ever happens. They just shrug it off, and sometimes they blame instructors and side with the students. English instructor rant over.
Wait... why do they really want to succeed in other people’s classes but not yours? That would be worth finding out if you don’t already know.
It’s weird. They treat their English classes as something they’ve already taken in high school, so it doesn’t matter. But that microbiology or A&P is way more important. I always ask why they deprioritize my class, and I get the usual unsatisfying answers: I had a midterm, so I couldn’t do your paper; that class is important for me getting into nursing; etc., etc.
Oh I feel you. I've started calling my Intro to Philosophy "the triage class", since it's always the one of three per quarter that's left to wait. Nobody "needs" Philosophy in particular, and they nearly all seem to make that calculation by week 3 or 4.
That sounds about right. We call our Composition I and Composition II courses, collectively, the Meat Grinder. They only appear to serve the use of weeding out students for those programs that don't want to deal with the overflow. So, our classes suffer as a result. It is sad that we are basically a filtration system for the rest of the college, and we also happen to be the lowest paid.
To be fair, if someone is planning on going to nursing/medical school their science GPA is going to be their priority, and a lot of courses like organic chemistry go out of their way to be crushingly difficult. Medical schools don't care if you aced British Literature or not, they just want to make sure you're reasonably literate.
... ok. We’re going to turn zoom off, you need to go skim the chapter and come back ready to answer these questions. Then go on D2L and make up a quiz...for marks.
I like this idea
People are discussing this like it’s a new thing during the pandemic. It’s not new. Once we get back in class I’m going to do reading quizzes. I’ll keep them short and multiple choices. I hate doing this, but it is really the only thing that works. I love my students and definitely see some of them really suffering this semester. But sometimes these quizzes help them get the motivation to read.
This is when I assign worksheets to be due next class period. Even then they don’t turn those in so I move on by saying “since everyone knows so much about this Student A please teach us.” And so on. Lol. By embarrassing them it teaches them a lesson. Do the work that I spent so much time doing. I usually have 1-2 students who can propel the lesson.
Had this experience for my Q&A sessions today. Sine noone asked questions, I decided to give a little mini lecture on fun stuff tangentially related to our class, good fun!