Entry 6

In McKeachie’s chapter about problem students and student problems, I found all of the sub-categories pretty useful seeing as I have been dealing with some of the same situations myself. It was good to know how to handle a variety of problems, rather than just the basic. Each category had good examples and presented some new ideas and problem-solving methods that were all new to me.

I am currently dealing with a few of the problems addressed this chapter. The first one has to do with inattentive students. As the semester progresses, I am finding it much harder to keep the class interested in lectures and activities. Instead they find it necessary to discuss what they did the previous weekend or what they are doing the upcoming one. The problem isn’t just with a few select students, as the book mentioned, but with the majority of the classroom.

One of the examples the book gave is to divide them into small groups to work on an assignment. I made this attempt a few weeks back, but to my surprise it didn’t really work. Although the students were placed at random, out of their ‘normal’ seating, I found the same problem occurring in some of the small groups. It almost seemed unfair to those that wanted to participate and listen because they were put off by everyone else chatting.

Another suggestion that McKeachie proposed was having each student write minute papers and then calling on the inattentive students to present what he/she has written down. I plan to incorporate this into my lecture over the next few weeks to see how it works. Teaching public speaking, this will also allow those students the chance for a short ‘improptu’ speech you could say, by having to present to the rest of the class. If this fails, then I will result to the last suggestion that McKeachie offered by having a general class feedback discussion about the issue.
Along the same lines as problem students, I am finding it interesting the absurd and numerous excuses a student will make to either miss class, turn in an assignment late, or why they didn’t have their assignment done in the first place. I was disappointed that McKeachie didn’t discuss what to do when someone gives you a bad excuse, or give examples. One thing that was proposed however was having students turn in outlines or a bibliography ahead of time to check their progress on an assignment. This is already a part of the curriculum for public speaking so it doesn’t really tell me anything new. I was hoping to learn more about handling situations.

After our class discussion last week about plagiarism and cheating, I found it interesting and useful to read about it in ‘First Day to Final Grade’. I liked the idea of having students write drafts of their own work so that the professor can see first-hand that he/she is doing the work themselves. Spotting plagiarism, I believe, could be tricky. I like that the book listed different ways one can figure out whether or not a students work has been plagiarized. It was also reassuring that the average person will miss most of the plagiarized work itself. When teaching public speaking, the students are required to write out drafts, however it wouldn’t surprise me if one would result to the internet for a speech. I will use the tips that the books suggests to help further my knowledge of catching a plagiarized speech or any assignment for that matter.

My related reading this week is: