Dealing with frustrating students--any ideas?
I have not be teaching very long and need some advice: what can you do with frustrating students, particularly students who can't seem to get their work done on time. I email all of my students who miss a deadline and then try to talk to them--I either get no response or empty promises. Any "tricks of the trade" some nice person might want to share with me?
Hi Linda,
Some students are just fine with settling for less. They will do the bare minimum to get buy. We must continue to push all students to work to their fullest level of potential.
Patricia
Josef
I have finally resorted to the same strategy giving them weekly assignments which combined will become their final project. I told them however they must put the pieces together so that it is a final paper not a sum of all parts. Some of the students have just stapled the weekly assignments and turned it in as a final project. It is a constant battle for some students.
Linda Milam
I totally agree with this, but I also think that you have to be consistent. If there is no consistency setting the rules, policies and procedures will not be affective. Hold the students accountable for their actions and call them out on late homework assignments, or whatever it maybe. Do not call them out in class, but pull them aside and let them know or remind them of your expectations. Sometime a suttle hint or reminder is all they need.
We have student who have a problem dressing in dress code. We have a very strict policy that is not easily enforced due to some instructors allowing students to get away with not being in code. This makes it difficult for those who do reinforce the codes. So everyone following through and not letting our students walk all over us, but set limitations for them is very important.
Hi Tracy,
I have also found that most frustrated students love attention as well. What you have mentioned will work for these type of students.
Patricia
The best way to deal with frustrated students is first gst them invovled in classes. Give them a group to study with or maybe be in charge of. I have found most frustrated students are bored and are looking for any reason to complain.
Tracy
Excellent. I am a real true believe in the exemplary model. David
Deadline are needed but pointing out the importance of the assignment to their developement helps encourage the student to complete it. I also have the student admit that their current job would not let them get away with not completing assigned tasks on time.
The way I try to relate to those students is I let them know that I have taken classes myself along with raising a family plus working full time at two different jobs,I also let them know if I did so can they.When students know this they open up alot more and realize that instructors are human and down to earth.
Tracy
Yes I agree I make myself available to all my students by phone, I also encourage my students to get study groups together . The students know what times on the weekends that they can contact me. I also try to have my students come into class and tell me 1 good thing about the weekend. This does not always work but if they look for something good they will usually have a better outlook on other areas.
Tracy
What I will do is give them the policies of the class and school. I have them sign it then I will have a little pop quiz to see who did read the policies , this will tel me who did read it and who just signed it.
Tracy
What I will do is tell the class the date the assignment is do then I will make sure that atleast 2 times a week I will check on their progress. This means show me the work they have done. I will let them know that I will deduct 10 points for everyday late.
Hi Josef,
I try giving these type of students pep talks, and I also like to share similar/same frustations of other students and how they eventually became successful.
Patricia
One way I go about addressing this issue is I make all the assignments in the class iterative. The idea is that the students will have a final project and each assignment they do in the class is actually a small part of the final project. They spend their last week in class tying all the pieces together.
This causes students to manage their time better. Rather than try to crunch all their work into the last minute, they realize that they can break a large task into several smaller ones and this epiphany helps them avoid procrastination.
I think it is important to see what is going on with your student outside of school. Many of my students come from low income areas and have many social issues. I give them resources in the communities which then helps them get in their work for me.
Hi David,
Establishing rules, policies, procedures, etc. on day 1 is a MUST. Students need to know off the bat what is expected of them and that you are all about business.
Patricia
Another idea that you might try is noting, up front in the syllabus, that work is not accepted if it's more than 5 days late. However, you give the option of writing an extra credit paper about a topic of your choice as a way for students to earn more points. In my experience students generally are loathe to write an extra paper with required outside resources. This can be a strong motivator for them to do the (easier) course assignments up front.
Kristie,
Its important from the start to set out what you expect from them and what the 'penalties' are if they fail to meet these. Equally, they need to know what they can expect from us in return (papers returned by ??; marks for ??; 1:1 tutorials to go over the papers....that sort of thing).
The CEE module talks to having a system of penalizing their marks for late submission and bonuses for early submission. Haven't tried this myself, but it does seem to me to be an effective motivator, though I do impress on you the need to be very clear up front and then enforce it.
Watch 'The Coach' with Samuel L Jackson! Does it for me.
Hope that is of help/value.
